Posted on December, 07 2015

An innovative partnership with Sky, the UK media company, has helped to protect highly vulnerable Amazon forests in Brazil’s Acre State – a biodiversity hot-spot and conservation priority. Together with the Acre authorities, the six-year programme – which has just come to an end – helped 1,500 small-scale farmers adopt sustainable cultivation methods and gain better prices for their produce, re-establishing a market for wild rubber and removing the incentive to clear forests for beef production. In the face of a new road cutting through the forest, the programme also met its promise to help keep a billion trees standing, thus preventing 3.7 million tonnes of carbon emissions. There was also a huge communications outreach, regularly reaching over 7 million viewers in the UK on the challenges facing the Amazon and its biodiversity.