Eduardo Taveira, Secretary of the Environment from Amazonas and GCF Task Force delegate, was appointed by Brazil’s Minister of Environment, Ricardo Salles, to the Committee for the Protected Areas of the Amazon Program (ARPA). In this role, Taveira will represent the state organizations and entities responsible for managing Conservation Units in the Brazilian Amazon, which, coordinated under the Ministry of the Environment, works to strengthen 117 protected areas in the Amazon region.
“It is a position that I take up with great enthusiasm, with a commitment to always seek, in a planned, organized and responsible way, the best decisions for the Conservation Units and for the traditional populations that take care of these areas, which are so important for sustainable development and for the maintenance of the standing Amazon Forest” –Eduardo Taveira, Secretary of the Environment from Amazonas
The ARPA Committee is responsible for strategic planning and guidelines for the management of Conservation Units, in addition to promoting sustainable development in the Amazon.
Created and coordinated by the Ministry of the Environment in 2002, ARPA works in partnership with federal and state protection area agencies, private institutions, and civil society to promote the conservation and permanent protection of 60 million hectares (about 15% of the Brazilian Amazon—an area larger than Germany).
Today, ARPA represents the main biodiversity conservation strategy for the Amazon biome by creating, expanding, and strengthening Conservation Units, and ensuring financial resources for the management and maintenance of these units.
The initiative is financially managed by the Brazilian Fund for Biodiversity (Funbio) and financed with resources from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the German government (KfW), the WWF Network, the Moore Foundation, and the Amazon Fund, through the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES).