Context

The Amazon Security Agenda project was led by the Global Canopy Programme (GCP) and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), with funding from CDKN.

The security of water, food, energy and health for the people of the Amazon, South America and the whole world is linked in different ways to the enormous natural and material wealth of the Amazon. The transformation of the forest over the last 30 years has contributed to the economic development of the nine Amazonian countries and has improved the quality of life of many forest populations. But it has also had costs and has provoked criticism - even from rich countries that once traded their own forests for growth and today depend on goods produced in the jungle. It is this external demand that has dramatically accelerated deforestation in recent years, putting at risk the security of the region.

Recently, there has been a new paradigm of green economic growth, driven by climate financing through mechanisms such as REDD+, with the Amazon as its spearhead. But whatever concessions exist between natural capital and development, one cannot ignore the growing, and sometimes hidden threats to the safety of water, food, energy and health.

Within an increasingly prosperous continent and an interconnected world of seven billion people, competition for land and resources in the Amazon is intensifying - leading to deforestation and the risk of further social conflict. Just as the size and health of the forest are compromised, so are vital services such as rain generation, water flow, and climate regulation. Climate change and the greater frequency of critical climatic events - such as droughts and floods without precedent over the past decade - are already multiplying threats to water, food, energy and health.

Objectives of the Amazon Security Agenda project

• To evaluate, based on scientific evidence, the risks, impacts and threats of climate change on food security, water, energy and health in the Amazon region.
• Establish dialogues with decision-makers at the regional level regarding the potential threats of climate change for sustainable development and peace in the region.
• Formulate policy recommendations for decision-makers at both the regional and local levels.
• The project issued a report and a set of policy recommendations for Latin American leaders during the first half of 2013, based on a scientific review of the state of water, food, energy and health security, and a deep involvement with the policy-makers throughout Amazonian countries.
• It considered, in a novel way, how the interplay between the securities of these elements can lead to both virtuous and vicious circles for local and national populations, and detail how climate change can act as a multiplier of threats.

Project funding: £ 324,495

Products: Summary of findings and initial recommendations