For the next three years, we’ll be working in partnership with Rainforest Foundation UK to make sure the 10,000-strong Ashaninka community of Peru’s Selva Central region have the skills, backing and support required to live in and protect the rainforest that has been their home for centuries.

Ensuring the Ashaninka communities are involved in developing and managing projects is crucial to long-term success. That’s why the Rainforest Foundation will be working with a local partner, CARE (Centro Ashaninka di Rio Ene), which is an organisation run by and for the Ashaninka people themselves. They’ll also support ‘Eco Ashaninka’, the organisation that manages the Communal Reserve, made up from representatives from communities living around its edge.

Over the next three years:
• The Ashaninka community will prepare and put into action a plan for the protection of their communal reserve and the adjacent national park, which reflects their traditional way of life and culture.
• Community members will be trained to monitor the activities of illegal loggers, co-ordinate with the local community guard posts and, when the problem is severe, lobby the local authorities. This will include letter writing, meetings and negotiations with company officials, and press and media campaigning.
• A system of community patrols and guard posts will be established for the Communal Reserve.
•Technical and marketing support will help families set up small scale sustainable livelihoods. This could include cultivation of cocoa and sesame seeds; weaving and jewellery making; and harvesting of medicinal plants such as ‘cat’s claw’. By accessing markets families will have the money to access education and health care.