This report provides a summary of the Addressing Biodiversity Social Conflict in Latin America (ABC-LA) project developments covering the last quarter and the past year ending September 2015.
Project Overview
The goal of ABC-LA is to improve enabling conditions for biodiversity conservation through enhanced natural resource governance and reduced socio-environmental conflict associated with extractive activities. Achievement of this goal will contribute to a long-term impact of reducing degradation and contamination of biophysical conditions in selected Biologically Significant Areas of Peru and Colombia.
Toward this end, ABC-LA is working at the local levels to strengthen community and government capacities to improve natural resource management and address socio-environmental conflict. The project’s capacity building approach provides training and technical assistance to institutions and community leaders, helps foster multi-stakeholder groups and develops tools and skills needed to better address threats to biodiversity and community well-being. ABC-LA works with local partners to apply this enhanced local capacity to: conduct applied research to generate reliable data and monitor environmental conditions, assess socio-environmental dynamics of vulnerable groups and to implement other targeted assessments such as on impacts associated with extractive activities including small-scale gold mining.