Rapidly expanding global markets for meat, soy and biofuels and the imminent realization of large-scale transportation and energy infrastructure projects coupled with poor planning, weak governance and lack of an integrated vision of sustainable development for the Amazon are contributing to accelerated rates of deforestation and increased pressure on the natural resources and environmental services upon which millions of people depend, including yourself.

All these threats to the Amazon are ultimately linked to the prevailing model of development throughout this unique region.

This is why, in order to address the most important threats, a new paradigm of development must be embraced throughout the region and beyond, one which promotes an informed understanding of this natural region as one functional unit and which fosters a desire to actively safeguard the biome’s functionality for the common good of all.

Considered to be the foundation for the Living Amazon Initiative and all WWF´s efforts in the region, this strategy is aimed at building the high-level enabling conditions to allow the stakeholders of the Amazon to address development in the region in an integrated and sustainable manner, at the scale suited to maintain the main ecological attributes and functions of the Amazon.