By Andes Amazon Fund

On September 23rd, during New York Climate Week, the ambitious multi-partner initiative Amazon.ia – Inteligencia Ambiental was launched to produce timely, actionable intelligence on biodiversity, driving effective conservation and restoration across the Amazon biome. Andes Amazon Fund is supporting this critical initiative as a regranting partner.

“We are excited to be part of this ambitious initiative that brings together Amazonian scientists to measure how biodiversity is changing at sites across the basin,” states Megan MacDowell, Andes Amazon Fund’s Executive Director. “This will allow us to better target conservation work and inform management plans for protected areas, strengthening local efforts to safeguard the Amazon’s irreplaceable biodiversity.”

Actionable Biodiversity Intelligence for the Amazon

Fusing satellite and ground sensors in a biome-wide network, the initiative leverages robust, AI-powered techniques to answer Amazonian decision-makers’ most critical conservation questions—accurately, cost-effectively, and in near-real time. With more than a dozen partners, the initiative is developing core data infrastructure and analytical capabilities, testing new dynamic, integrated models, and generating meaningful insights to support local-to-regional decision-making needs. Insights are co-developed with local communities and decision-makers, including change alerts, biodiversity status and ecosystem condition, evidence of protected area effectiveness, and proof of ecosystem recovery.

“We are living in an era of unprecedented advances in conservation technology and artificial intelligence, with new tools that allow us to capture information not only about individual species, but also about the ecosystems and environmental conditions that surround them,” said Carla Mere Roncal, Conservation Technology Program Manager at the Andes Amazon Fund. “By harnessing these advances, we can better understand change, act earlier, and strengthen our ability to protect biodiversity and prevent further species declines.”

© Providence Project / Mamirauá Institute for Sustainable Development 

Why Now?

Recent advances in technology have created opportunities to understand nature at unprecedented speed and scale. Earth observation systems, camera traps, bioacoustic recorders, environmental DNA (eDNA), and autonomous edge-computing hardware can generate more information about ecosystems than ever before. Improved connectivity and cloud computing make it possible to collect and analyze data from even the most remote locations in near real time.

Amazonian organizations have been leading the deployment of these technologies across the region. With new AI techniques and solutions, we have the capacity and opportunity to scale. By combining satellite observations with data collected on the ground, AI can reveal patterns, trends and changes in ecosystems and wildlife that would be impossible to detect from any single data source alone.

 Located in lowland forest at the base of the Andes in southern Peru, Los Amigos encompasses both a biological station and a 146,000-hectare conservation concession and is a core site of the new initiative. © Dan Nicholson, Conservación Amazónica (ACCA)

What Next?

With founding support from the Bezos Earth Fund, Amazon.ia brings together a diverse network of partners spanning Amazonian research institutions, conservation organizations, leading universities, tech companies, national environmental institutes, and global data and technology platforms. Together, these partners are building the locally led infrastructure, scientific capacity, decision support and technological innovation needed to generate actionable biodiversity intelligence across the Amazon. They include:

  • Andes Amazon Fund
  • Arizona State University (Asner Lab)
  • Associação de Levantamento Florestal do Amazonas (ALFA)
  • Bezos Earth Fund
  • Conservación Amazónica (ACCA)
  • Cornell Lab of Ornithology
  • Cornell University (Davis Lab)
  • George Mason University (Luther Lab)
  • Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA)
  • Instituto de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Mamirauá
  • Instituto Humboldt
  • International Barcode of Life (iBOL)
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Beery Lab)
  • Microsoft AI for Good Lab
  • Museo Nacional de Historia Natural, Bolivia
  • Planet
  • Smithsonian ForestGEO
  • Tiputini Biodiversity Station
  • Universidad San Francisco de Quito (Rivas Torres Lab)
  • Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
  • University of Guelph, Centre for Biodiversity Genomics
  • Wildlife Conservation Society – Bolivia
  • Wildlife Insights
  • WildMon
  • World Resources Institute
  • WWF
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