The Future of Forestry
In the Peruvian Amazon, indigenous Shipibo Conibo communities are finding new ways to earn income while protecting their forests
“Our ancestors charged us with caring for our lands,” says Diana Mori, a leader in Peru’s indigenous Shipibo Conibo communities. “We will never abandon our forests.”
Forests contribute significantly to community health and resilience. Nowhere is that more true than in Peru’s rich Amazon rainforest, where Diana’s grandmother taught her how to gather and use medicinal plants sustainably with skills that her Shipibo Conibo ancestors have passed down for thousands of years.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Diana has seen increasing value placed on forest resources, including traditional medicines.
“This situation made [communities] more aware about the importance of the forest,” she says. “Indigenous peoples have not had access to medicines or treatments from the government in the last months, and that’s why they have been using the medicinal plants. Forests play a role [in keeping our community alive].”
But these forests — as well as the medicines, foods, culture, livelihoods, and more that they provide for the Shipibo Conibo people — are threatened. Every year, an area of forest the size of Connecticut is destroyed in the Peruvian Amazon from agriculture, infrastructure development, and cattle ranching. In the Ucayali Region, where the Shipibo-Conibo communities live, illegal activities and land invasion deforested about 138 acres from Jan. 2 to March 12. This is an area about the size of 100 American football fields.
“We have faced illegal logging and hunting,” Diana says. “We have fought against invaders that plant coca, and we often face fishers doing illegal practices and killing too many fish.”
Indigenous groups have faced challenges countering these threats, lacking the business and financial literacy to create alternative jobs that also conserve their forests.
To foster self-reliance of Peru’s Indigenous Peoples, USAID and private impact investment manager Mirova Natural Capital-Althelia Funds established the Forest Alliance in 2019, a more than $7 million Global Development Alliance partnership. The Forest Alliance provides technical assistance to 300 community members to conserve and manage their forested lands under an innovative model with the private sector. By building local skills and empowering the communities to develop sustainable and inclusive businesses, the Forest Alliance helps to address the underlying economic drivers of deforestation and forest degradation.
The Mirova Natural Capital-Althelia Fund approaches building resilience into the livelihoods of these indigenous communities by establishing a deep collaboration with them, with the goal of meeting the communities’ needs. When Shipibo Conibo leaders like Diana heard about the Forest Alliance and its partner projects, they were eager to get involved.
The Forest Alliance and a community project, Nii Kaniti, provide legal, technical, and business training to seven indigenous communities in Ucayali, helping them develop forest management plans and gain access to markets. As part of the Nii Kaniti project, the Nii Biri (meaning “wonders of the forest” in the Shipibo Conibo language) social enterprise provides a hub for indigenous economic activities by coordinating the growth, business administration, and promotion of traditional products like embroideries and wood crafts. Diana serves as Nii Biri’s promoter of sales, and champions the communities’ work to potential supporters.
Nii Biri’s market-based approach could make a long-term difference for her neighbors. “It’s developing capacity in the communities for connecting to markets,” Diana explains.
With Forest Alliance support, local women’s groups have cultivated relationships with two sustainable fashion brands in Peru by contributing traditional embroidery goods for sale. These artisans have also developed their own unique embroidery creations by combining traditional Shipibo Conibo art with new trends. About 50 artisan women, from five Shipibo Conibo communities, are involved in this fashion enterprise.
The Forest Alliance and Nii Biri are also working with the communities’ artisans to bring back disappearing handicrafts. Women have typically held knowledge about natural dyes, fruits, seeds, and other forest products. “The project is making this knowledge more visible,” Diana says. “It’s being transferred to the children.” By increasing the economic value of non-timber forest resources, these traditional methods contribute to conserving the forests now and for generations to come.
“Ideally, public entities can have indigenous professionals working with them,” Diana notes. “So a better understanding is obtained and disseminated in different languages.”
The work in Peru has already yielded impressive results. In the first quarter of 2020, Nii Biri reported about $3,500 in total sales of embroidery handicrafts and items made from sustainably harvested timber, a significant increase from the same quarter in 2019.
In addition to the economic benefits, Diana shared further successes: “We have improved the monitoring of our forests, and we have learned to make communal management operational plans.”
For Diana and her Shipibo Conibo people, forests are life. If the forest dies, the culture dies. And if the culture dies, the community dies. But she feels these communities now have the tools they need to protect their way of life. “We are committed to community forest management because our future depends on it,” she says.
About the Author
The Sharing Environment and Energy Knowledge (SEEK) project supports USAID’s Bureau for Economic Growth, Education and Environment (E3) in building effective processes and strategies for training, communication, knowledge management and organizational development and facilitation. SEEK works directly with four E3 offices: Energy and Infrastructure, Forestry and Biodiversity, Global Climate Change, and Water.
