A study conducted in the Brazilian Amazon has found that community-based volunteer patrolling efforts in two protected areas were associated with an 80% reduction in recorded environmental crimes from 2003-13. During the same period, there was no clear decline in environmental violations detected by government-led operations outside those protected areas, suggesting that community-based patrols were […]

“We need to place communities at the center of this conservation process and understand that it is through their empowerment … that they become protagonists in the conservation and development of the Amazon, because in fact they already are,”