Keeping the Amazon Wild by Protecting Wild Places

March 29, 2025

The Amazon rainforest is an incredibly abundant ecosystem, home to more than 10% of the world’s known wildlife species, including diverse flora used in both traditional and modern medicine, treatments, and vaccines. This biodiversity of plant and animal life plays key ecological roles that impact the health of ecosystems and people around the globe. In addition to being a biodiversity hotspot, the Amazon is home to a diverse range of communities and Indigenous groups with distinct cultures, languages, and territories. This vast rainforest biome also serves as a climate regulator for the planet by storing more than 150 billion metric tons of carbon (more than ⅓ of all the carbon stored in tropical forests worldwide) and absorbing 2 billion tons of CO2 each year, equivalent to 5% of global annual emissions.

At Amazon Conservation, our approach to protecting wild places is inspired by the forest’s local, regional, and global significance, especially considering the range of activities that continue to threaten its future ecological health and function. Climate change, fires, illegal mining and logging, and wide-scale agriculture expansion are just some of the threats that have caused extensive deforestation that continues to negatively impact wildlife habitats, ecosystem health, protected areas, and Indigenous livelihoods. 

To counteract these effects, we are using science and technology to detect deforestation in real time and promote effective and sustainable forest management to protect wild places, counter the drivers of deforestation, and promote sustainable resource management. By working hand-in-hand with governments, local communities, and civil society, we are creating and strengthening key conservation areas and ecological corridors to protect millions of acres of pristine forests.

Over the past 25 years, Amazon Conservation has made major strides in conservation across the Amazon. To date, we have helped establish 37 conservation areas that protect over 10.5 million acres of forest in Peru and Bolivia, thanks to the support of our sister organizations Conservación Amazónica-ACCA and Conservación Amazónica-ACEAA, as well as key partners. 

Through protecting the Amazon, you are helping us protect a thriving future for plant and wildlife species as well as security and livelihoods for the people who depend on the forest for survival. Thanks to your support, we are making a real impact for the Amazon, one acre at a time.

Read more about our approach to protecting wild places >