United Kingdom will finance conservation of an Amazonian ecosystem in Peru

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Peru will receive up to 15 million pounds (about US$20.5 million) from the United Kingdom to conserve an extensive Amazon ecosystem located on the northern border with Ecuador, official sources informed Tuesday.

The financing, which will be made official during the COP26 climate summit in November in Glasgow, was backed by the signing, in Lima, of a Letter of Intent of Cooperation with the Biodiverse Landscapes Fund.

Read also: Check out our coverage on Peru

The letter was signed on Monday (05) by the Peruvian Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Oscar Maúrtua, and Environment, Rubén Ramírez, and by Zac Goldsmith, Minister for the Pacific and the Environment of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of the United Kingdom.

The Peruvian Foreign Ministry said that the initiative allows strengthening bilateral cooperation ties. At the same time, Goldsmith highlighted the shared values with Peru in terms of biodiversity conservation and the fight against climate change.

The initiative, driven by Goldsmith, manages around 100 million pounds in projects to conserve ecosystems, reduce poverty and fight climate change in areas of high biodiversity importance.

In this sense, it has identified the El Condor-Kutuku Conservation Corridor, in the border area of Peru with Ecuador and with an extension of 11,000 square kilometers, as one of the six priority landscapes for the fund, for which it contemplates an allocation of up to 15 million pounds over seven years.

The fund will be implemented after signing a Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries, which is expected to take place within the framework of the COP26 in Glasgow, according to the Foreign Ministry.

At that meeting, Peru will participate as president pro tempore of the Independent Association of Latin America and the Caribbean (AILAC), a formal negotiating group made up of Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, and Paraguay.

During his visit to Lima, Goldsmith attended, along with the UK Ambassador to Peru, Kate Harrisson, the launching of the National Botanical Garden project, which will operate in a 10-hectare space provided by Lima’s Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina.

The minister and the British ambassador assured that they are proud to support this initiative, which will contribute to scientists from their country, mainly from the Kew Gardens botanical garden. “If we don’t do something together, we are going to end up losing different species, both in Peru and in different parts of the world. This is like a call to action,” Harrison remarked.

In turn, the General Director of Biological Diversity of the Ministry of Environment, José Álvarez, highlighted the support of the United Kingdom for this project, which will have sites in different areas of Lima and other regions of the country.

He indicated that the National Botanical Garden would house a “select sample” of more than 25,000 plant species of Peru, emphasizing endemic, endangered, and socially, culturally, and economically relevant for his country.