International Finance and the Amazon Program

About this grant

Amazon Watch, an international non-governmental organization (NGO), works to support indigenous communities in their efforts to protect the environment of the Amazon. Natural resource extraction and infrastructure projects in remote, fragile and culturally sensitive areas of the Amazon basin are causing irreversible ecological and social problems.Multiyear funding will enable Amazon Watch – in partnership with other organizations and affected indigenous and forest communities – to endeavor to prevent negative environmental and social impacts of several commercial projects in the Amazon region. Objectives include strengthening the capacity of constituencies in Amazon countries to influence international financial decisionmakers and to promote specific policy reforms that encourage public participation, accountability, indigenous rights and the conservation of Amazon ecosystems of high biological diversity.During the past two years, Amazon Watch worked with indigenous communities in Peru to ensure environmental and social protections in the Camisea Pipeline project, financed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Results include increased international media attention on previously unreported environmental and human rights issues in extractive projects; increased local participation in decisionmaking; and increased support by policymakers for stronger indigenous rights and environmental policies at the IDB.