The Amazon Sustainable Landscapes (ASL) is a partnership among eight governments, the World Bank Group (WBG), the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and implementing partners and a cornerstone of the WBG Amazonia Viva initiative. Since its launch, ASL has conserved strategic regions in the Amazon, restored landscapes, improved productive practices, directly benefiting local communities and creating sustainable livelihood opportunities. Over the past decade, the program has supported job creation in key sectors such as agroforestry, fisheries, nature-based tourism, with a focus on inclusive employment opportunities for women and local populations, while protecting vital ecosystems and fostering regional collaboration. Going forward, ASL is expected to further scale job creation and income generation across the Amazon, expanding its impact on communities most dependent on natural resources.

Development Challenge

The Amazon spans 670 million hectares, houses 47 million people, and harbors 10 percent of the world's known biodiversity while regulating South America's climate. Since 1970, 14–17 percent of its forest cover has been lost to ranching, agriculture, logging, and mining, pushing ecosystems toward irreversible tipping points and undermining the economic foundations of millions of people. Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendants, and local communities are disproportionately affected, facing shrinking and increasingly vulnerable livelihoods opportunities. At its core, this is a jobs challenge: sustainable conservation depends on creating more and better jobs that make protecting ecosystems economically viable for the people who depend on them.

WBG Approach

The ASL program adopts a regional, landscape-based approach that integrates conservation and sustainable development across the Amazon while respecting national priorities and sovereignty. At its core, the approach tackles deforestation as an economic and job challenge, linking ecosystem protection with the creation of sustainable livelihoods. It promotes coordinated management of ecosystems to preserve biodiversity, enhance climate resilience, and generate more and better jobs for local communities supporting inclusive growth.

A key innovation is its commitment to bottom-up, country-led design, supported by a shared Theory of Change co-created with governments and non-government partners, enabling flexibility alongside a unified regional vision. Projects are led by the country’s environmental authorities and executed collaboratively with national and international public entities, with support from civil society, community organizations, and technical assistance from GEF accredited agencies. Partnerships with organizations such as the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF), Conservation International (CI), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) have been critical to mobilizing financing, technical expertise, and implementation capacity at scale.

The World Bank-led regional project combines analytics, knowledge exchange, and institutional strengthening through participatory governance, peer-to-peer learning, and technical working groups, fostering collaboration across sectors and countries. Partnerships with external actors—such as regional alliances, scientific networks, and the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization—expand technical capacity, financing coordination, and evidence-based decision-making. Investments are made in curating knowledge and sharing it to enable strategic decision-making at the regional level.

By integrating traditional and scientific knowledge and emphasizing inclusion of Indigenous Peoples, women, and youth, the ASL enhances resilience, ownership, and long-term sustainability of conservation outcomes.

Results

Since its beginning ten years ago, the ASL has achieved the following:

• Created or expanded 7.4 million hectares of protected and conserved areas.
• Improved the management of 68.5 million hectares of protected areas (which corresponds to 8 percent of the Amazon).
• Placed 2.1 million hectares under sustainable management practices (outside protected areas).
• Supported 60 community initiatives linked to 15 non-timber forest species.
• Supported more than 54 community nurseries.
• About 36,200 direct beneficiaries (of which more than 40 percent are women). By the end of the third phase of the program, the ASL aims to reach approximately 404,000 people, of which 49 percent are women.
• More than 70 regional knowledge and peer-to-peer knowledge exchange events.
• 14 knowledge reports.
• 8 regional annual conferences (with over 100 participants per conference).

ResultsContribution to WBG Targets and Jobs

ASL directly contributes to the WBG's More and Better Jobs agenda, AgriConnect, and Gender targets. Forest restoration across over 17,800 hectares has generated employment in nurseries, planting, and maintenance — with women holding up to 60 percent of jobs, including leadership roles. Support to more than 60 community bioeconomy initiatives (agroforestry, non-timber products, fisheries, nature-based tourism) and over 4,000 producers adopting sustainable practices have created better and more resilient rural livelihoods. These nature-based jobs protect vital ecosystems while delivering inclusive economic opportunities for Indigenous Peoples, women, and youth.

Lessons Learned

Long-term, programmatic financing aligned around a shared regional vision is essential to tackle complex, transboundary challenges like deforestation. Multi-phase funding allows countries to build trust, strengthen institutions, create markets, and scale successful approaches over time. Equally critical is inclusive collaboration among governments, development agencies, Indigenous Peoples, and local communities. This builds the ownership and accountability needed for durable solutions, including creating better jobs that make conservation and sustainable forest management economically viable for those who depend on these ecosystems. Trust-based networks and continuous learning are what translate collaboration into coordinated, lasting regional impact.

Next Steps

Building on ASL's foundation, the WBG's Amazonia Viva initiative is deepening its commitment to a nature-smart growth model anchored in three pillars: A Prosperous, Livable, and Green Amazon. In October 2025, the Green Climate Fund (GCF) approved a $200 million Amazonia Viva package to strengthen this agenda, targeting 183 million hectares of protected areas and climate resilience for 3 million people. Strategic priorities include scaling bioeconomy value chains and nature-based tourism. Across the Amazon region, the initiative aims to generate 100,000 jobs by 2030 and mobilize over $3 billion in public and private investment. ASL has paved the way for substantive new engagements across the region, including operations co-financed by the previously mentioned GCF package in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Suriname, and a government request in Guyana for a $40 million Development Policy Credit on biodiversity.