Instituto Juruá
Making conservation profitable for communities in the Amazon
The Trafigura Foundation supports a programme enabling communities to build resilient livelihoods based on the stewardship of the Amazon’s natural resources, including the world’s largest freshwater fish.
The challenge
Degradation of the Amazon, a vital stabilizer of the global climate, is advancing relentlessly due to pressures including deforestation, illegal mining, and the overexploitation of the forest’s resources, especially in regions with weak governance.
Indigenous peoples and local communities play a key role as stewards of the Amazon ecosystems on which their livelihoods often depend. But their ability to fulfil this role is undermined by poverty, marginalisation, and limited access to markets.
The solution
Instituto Juruá works with communities in remote areas of the Brazilian Amazon to strengthen territorial governance, establish conservation arrangements that protect nature and improve local livelihoods.
Its flagship model centres on the Pirarucu (Arapaima gigas), the largest freshwater fish on Earth. Instituto Juruá has helped communities set and enforce sustainable fishing limits and connected them to markets for their catch.
Instituto Juruá is expanding its impact by including other river- and forest-based products including açai and oilseeds, and by training grassroots organizations to deploy the model in other locations.
With support from the Trafigura Foundation, Instituto Juruá will extend its activities to four more Amazon River basins, including testing its model in neighbouring Peru.
Partnership impact
Instituto Juruá’s 2029 goals for the partnership include:
- Improved job opportunities, income and food security for about 13,000 people
- 8 million hectares of forests, rivers and wetlands under effective governance
- Additional funding and conservation dividends unlocked for local communities
Visit Instituto Juruá’s website
Other partnerships in the same area of work
Accelerating the growth and impact of community-led conservation in Africa
Responding rapidly and effectively to humanitarian crises
