Challenges to managing ecosystems sustainably for poverty alleviation: Securing well-being in the Andes/Amazon

This report focuses on the Amazon basin and the eastern Andean slopes (herein referred to as the Andes/Amazon ecosystem or region). The Amazon is the largest fresh water system and tropical forest in the world. Large portions of the region are still covered by relatively intact primary forests that provide substantial locally and globally valuable ecosystem services (ES). Rural population densities in the region are among the lowest in the world. As such, the Andes/Amazon is a contrast to other ESPA target areas that are characterized by scarce and degraded resources used by often overwhelming numbers of the poor. Hence, in the Andes/Amazon, ESPA should focus on promoting resource conservation before valuable ES are irreversibly lost due to actions by resource users ranging from poor slash-and-burn farmers to large timber and commodity farming interests'