Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation [to 26 March 2016]
https://www.moore.org/newsroom/press-releases

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March 24, 2016
More than $90 Million Awarded to Promote Sustainable Supply Chains
PALO ALTO, – The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, one of the world’s largest conservation funders, announced more than $90 million in grants designed to advance conservation by decoupling food production from negative environmental impacts.

The grant funds will support the formation of a series of collaborations supporting the Moore Foundation’s Forests and Agriculture Markets Initiative, Conservation and Financial Markets Initiative, and Oceans and Seafood Markets Initiative. Collaborators will include Ceres, FishWise, Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, National Wildlife Federation, New Venture Fund, Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, The Nature Conservancy, World Business Council for Sustainable Development and World Wildlife Fund. Their involvement illustrates the growing importance of partnerships between the non-profit and private sectors to address the market pressures placed on the world’s forests and oceans.

“The anticipated global population growth and related demand for richer diets, including more protein, sugars and oils, will place unprecedented pressures on our natural resources,” said Aileen Lee, program director for the conservation and markets strategies and incoming chief program officer for environmental conservation at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. “Now more than ever, the need to produce food without causing severe environmental degradation is essential to maintaining the productive capacity and integrity of the Earth’s ecosystems.”…

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Moore Foundation commits $100 million to consolidate Andes Amazon Initiative conservation gains
PALO ALTO, March 21, 2016 – The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, one of the world’s largest private conservation funders, announced a renewed commitment to its Andes Amazon Initiative with a new pledge of $100 million through 2020.

Today, the protected areas and indigenous lands in the Amazon basin cover nearly 400 million hectares – almost two thirds of the remaining forest. Since the Moore Foundation first began supporting conservation efforts in the region in 2001—with an aim to help secure the biodiversity and climate function of the Amazon basin—the area legally protected has nearly doubled. While this increase is significant, formal designation often does not ensure that effective conservation of those lands will be achieved in the long run.

“Over fifteen years, our grantees have helped conserve more than 140 million hectares in the Amazon,” explained Avecita Chicchón, Ph.D., Andes Amazon Initiative director at the foundation. “We are proud of their significant impacts in protecting forest cover and biodiversity. Threats to those lands have intensified, however, with increased and unsustainable logging, cattle ranching and soy farming, and poorly planned mining, hydrocarbon and infrastructure development. We want to help make sure that local communities and the management and finance structures for conservation units have the resilience and long-term resources they need so conservation gains can withstand current and foreseeable pressures.”

For the next five years, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Andes Amazon Initiative will continue its focus on three priority strategies to help reinforce and advance effective management of protected areas and indigenous lands across Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia that grantees have helped conserve:
:: Individual conservation units. Creating and consolidating already existing individual indigenous lands and protected areas.

:: Land-use planning. Conserving forest cover by incorporating protected areas and indigenous lands into relevant state, municipal or district jurisdictional development and land-use plans.

:: Protected area systems. Securing long-term, effective funding mechanisms for national park systems, as well as effective monitoring and management systems informed through participatory processes…