Sustainable development options and land-use based alternatives to: Enhance climate change mitigation and adaptation capacities in the Colombian and Peruvian Amazon, while enhancing ecosystem services and local livelihoods

Peru and Colombia, which are jointly home to 23% of the Amazon forest, both have initiatives oriented toward implementing the REDD Readiness Preparation Proposal, as well as designing NAMA (Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action) plans and NAPA (National Adaptation Programmes of Action) plans. Furthermore, Peru is host to one of the eight pilots of the World Bank´s ‚Forest Investment Program‘. Despite the existence of these initiatives, there remains an urgent need in both countries for proven viable land-use based options for enhancing carbon sinks, protecting endangered Amazon forests and enhancing the adaptation capacity of local communities to climate change. Moreover, the respective costs and the identification of pathways for achieving a sustainable and low-carbon development in the Amazon have not yet been analyzed in depth.Although there are on-going initiatives to reduce the deforestation and enhance carbon sinks, deforested Amazonia (which now represents 30% of the total area) is highly degraded and new models for rehabilitation of these areas are critically needed. This project seeks to assist national environmental authorities and local farmers in Colombia and Peru in managing sustainably their deforested areas by: i ) providing national authorities with validated land-use options, designed in cooperation with rural communities, that contribute to the design of low-carbon development, and climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies ii) enhancing country capacity to assess cost-efficiency of the adoption of these options in terms of improving adaptive capacity while providing other co-benefits (i.e. carbon sinks enhancement, protection of natural forests and water ecosystem services of importance for local livelihoods); iii) improving the capacity to monitor land cover changes in order to assist the monitoring of the effectiveness of land-use based mitigation and national adaptation plans in Peru; and iv) identifying the likely pathways the countries may take towards sustainability in terms of ambitious climate protection and around which the mitigation-adaptation land-use options might be framed. Peru and Colombia, which are jointly home to 23% of the Amazon forest, both have initiatives oriented toward implementing the REDD Readiness Preparation Proposal, as well as designing NAMA (Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action) plans and NAPA (National Adaptation Programmes of Action) plans. Furthermore, Peru is host to one of the eight pilots of the World Bank´s ‚Forest Investment Program‘. Despite the existence of these initiatives, there remains an urgent need in both countries for proven viable land-use based options for enhancing carbon sinks, protecting endangered Amazon forests and enhancing the adaptation capacity of local communities to climate change. Moreover, the respective costs and the identification of pathways for achieving a sustainable and low-carbon development in the Amazon have not yet been analyzed in depth.Although there are on-going initiatives to reduce the deforestation and enhance carbon sinks, deforested Amazonia (which now represents 30% of the total area) is highly degraded and new models for rehabilitation of these areas are critically needed. This project seeks to assist national environmental authorities and local farmers in Colombia and Peru in managing sustainably their deforested areas by: i ) providing national authorities with validated land-use options, designed in cooperation with rural communities, that contribute to the design of low-carbon development, and climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies ii) enhancing country capacity to assess cost-efficiency of the adoption of these options in terms of improving adaptive capacity while providing other co-benefits (i.e. carbon sinks enhancement, protection of natural forests and water ecosystem services of importance for local livelihoods); iii) improving the capacity to monitor land cover changes in order to assist the monitoring of the effectiveness of land-use based mitigation and national adaptation plans in Peru; and iv) identifying the likely pathways the countries may take towards sustainability in terms of ambitious climate protection and around which the mitigation-adaptation land-use options might be framed. Due the diverse dimensions covered by this project this is contributing to WLE, CCAFS and FTA.The reason for aligning with WLE is that although this project response to national priorities for forest conservation, the largest effort of the project is to design and evaluate on farms, sustainable land uses that can restore deforested areas in the Amazon. This under the assumption that restoring these lands will reduce pressure on remaining native forests. Also, one of the outputs of the project is to produce indicators to evaluate the effect of sustainable land uses on ES beyond carbon sequestration (e.g. on water-related ES, biodiversity maintenance). The project also will analyze the effects of farm-based interventions on the different landscapes previously identified for the study sites.