URL: http://www.amazonteam.org/index.php/204/Conservation_Corridors
Conservation Corridors
In the areas where ACT works, very large regions of rainforest have been declared indigenous reserves. In these reserves, ACT has seized the opportunity to increase the conservation capacity of the resident indigenous groups and work with the environmental enforcement agencies of governments so that these reserves are much better protected. At times, however, ACT's partner tribes identify areas of great resource and cultural value outside of official reserves that are in great need of conservation but enjoy no protected status. In these cases, where possible, ACT gives the tribes the tools to negotiate with the government to give these regions official protected area status. In addition, ACT works with its partner indigenous groups and governments to link protected areas and reserves into "conservation corridors", and where necessary, making land purchases on behalf of the tribes to create continuity.
Colombia
To date, ACT has facilitated successful efforts to establish two innovative types of protected areas in the Colombian Amazon: the Alto Fragua Indi Wasi National Park, and the Orito Ingi-Ande Medicinal Plant Sanctuary.
The 167,690-acre Indi Wasi Alto Fragua National Park in the department of Caquetá was established in 2002, and is the first in Colombia to be co-managed by an indigenous association and the government. Its establishment was the result of ongoing support by ACT to the indigenous association of the Inga people of the Caquetá in collaboration with the Colombian government.
2008 marked the establishment of the 25,000-acre Orito Ingi-Ande Medicinal Plant Sanctuary, the first rainforest preserve in the world created for the purpose of protecting the plants used by indigenous communities for medicinal and spiritual purposes. This success was the culmination of a coordinated effort between ACT, the Colombian government and National Park System, and especially UMIYAC (the Union of Traditional Yagé Healers of the Colombian Amazon), to help the Kofan indigenous communities' efforts to stem loss of culture, land, and medicine. More...
Linking Protected Areas
ACT recognizes that small, isolated "islands" of biodiversity lack the ability to support the range of species accommodated by vast stretches of unbroken rainforest. Therefore, ACT seeks to create conservation corridors that link protected areas, large and small. ACT has been able to construct these conservation corridors by bringing neighboring tribal groups together toward a common protection cause, assisting local indigenous associations to purchase strategic parcels of land, and working with governments to designate protected area status to priority areas when possible. Of particular emphasis for ACT are corridors that permit an unimpeded flow of species between Andean and Amazonian ecological zones.
Read more about this strategy in Colombia