Nii Kaniti: Community Forest Management with Indigenous Communities

Our Nii Kaniti project in Peru focuses on protecting rainforest and avoiding deforestation on community land through scaling up sustainable community forest management. It integrates conservation activities that put a value on indigenous-led development with FSC certified timber extraction and cacao agroforestry.

The project is located in Ucayali, a region in the central part of Eastern Peru, on the edge of the Amazon Rainforest. By protecting more than 127,000 hectares of critical rainforest ecosystem, the project has reduced global emissions by 2.5 million tonnes of CO2 to date. The project area is comprised of community land from seven indigenous communities located around the Ucayali River. Native communities are the second largest managers of forest land in Peru, therefore are key actors and critical to successful forest, biodiversity, culture and climate protection at the world scale. The project addresses the local, economic drivers of deforestation and forest degradation by supporting the development of socially inclusive businesses.

The Nii Kaniti project is made possible in part through a partnership called the ‘Forest Alliance Initiative: Managing Community Forests for Inclusive Sustainable Businesses in an Indigenous Economy’ between AIDER (our implementing partner on the ground), Mirova Natural Capital (our founders and initial investors in the project) and the USAID.

Nii Kaniti: Community Forest Management with Indigenous Communities

Measurable impacts

We track impact areas across all of our projects, and this project also produces sustainable commodities. Here are the impacts to date:

CLIMATE

2.5 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions avoided

ECOSYSTEMS

127,004 hectares of threatened forest protected

SPECIES

5 threatened species protected, including the jaguar, the blue-headed macaw and the tapir

LIVELIHOOD

357 jobs created or supported in areas such as FSC timber extraction and agroforestry

INCLUSIVITY

35% of jobs created or supported held by women, and 32 women in management roles within productive organisations and committees

SUSTAINABLE ENTERPRISE

18 sustainable enterprises created or supported in areas such as low impact logging, cacao agroforestry and the extraction of non-timber forest products (such as rubber, handicrafts and bananas)