Our COVID-19 Response

Several of the regions where Andes Amazon Fund works are among those most affected by COVID-19 in Latin America. As governments struggle to get adequate care to those most in need across all corners of the Amazon, several of our grantees are among those organizations most in touch with local needs.

Considering this, Andes Amazon Fund, grantees and partners have coordinated emergency strategies to support the communities at the center of our conservation efforts.

To date, AAF has supported grantees with more than $140,000 to help protect the communities they work with from COVID and to provide access to urgently-needed supplies.

In Colombia, grantees Gaia Amazonas and Amazon Conservation Team have pioneered toolkits and early alert strategies to mitigate the spread of the virus  and provide emergency response supplies and information to indigenous communities.

In Bolivia, our grantees such as Conservation International provided training in biosecurity protocols along with support in the transport of humanitarian aid. Furthermore, grantee Natura Bolivia’s Donar para Sanar campaign brought biosecurity materials to health centers located in vulnerable municipalities and indigenous communities.

In Peru, we collaborated with several organizations including our grantees Instituto del Bien Común, Propurús and CEDIA to send food, hygiene and medicinal supplies to aid some of the hardest hit areas in isolated communities. These Peruvian grantees also joined forces with our partners at Nature and Culture International and DAR for the Ayudemos a los y las Guardianes del Bosque campaign. The drive brought food, biosecurity materials and medicinal supplies to the indigenous and campesino populations surrounding Loreto’s regional conservation areas, whose dedication to the protection of their forests is what keeps the Andes and Amazon healthy and alive.

To continue our conservation work even during quarantine, AAF partnered with Minga Peru in August to provide training to our Peruvian grantees in the use of radio to reach remote communities. Through a series of trainings, grantees built skills in strategic communication through radio to provide project updates, as well as culturally-appropriate information about environmental sustainability and natural resource management to the people they work with. This partnership allowed our grantees to maintain the bonds they had established with communities pre-COVID. We will continue to bring you updates as radio programs begin to air in the next coming months and are excited to be able to share some with you soon.

Andes Amazon Fund is committed to continued solidarity with our partners and the communities that are the guardians of the forests of the Andes and Amazon region.