Introduction
A quarter century since our founding, ACT is addressing a broader range of issues, greater in complexity and harder to shoulder. ACT’s 2017-2020 Strategic Plan laid the groundwork for this current version’s strategies and scope of work. Before the previous plan’s period ended, two back-to-back crises changed the face of the Amazon forever: the 2019 Amazon wildfire season and the Covid-19 pandemic.
No one will forget the darkened skies of Sao Paulo, Porto Velho, Rio Branco, and other cities and towns across Brazil and Bolivia, an apocalyptic scene that is likely to become ever more common as the volatility of climatic conditions in the southern Amazon continues to increase. Such wildfires made the pandemic much deadlier in the Amazon due to their detrimental effects on air quality, with chronic smoke exposure causing those individuals most vulnerable to Covid-19 to have more severe forms of the infection. Among the vulnerable, indigenous peoples in South America suffered mortality rates at least 110% higher than the general population, losing community leaders and elders who are often a culture's stewards of language and traditional knowledge.
The ongoing pandemic has ravaged the region, destroying communities and livelihoods, with its effects to be felt for generations. In the remote areas where ACT works, the virus’s path through the Amazon has laid bare the inexistence of public authority and rule of law, a vacuum that ill-intentioned actors have exploited to threaten communities and pillage the rainforest. Tropical South America, especially Colombia and Brazil, continues to be the most dangerous place for environmental defenders, leading the world in assassinations of those who seek to protect their lands from destructive forces.
To work under such challenging conditions, ACT will need to continue increasing its nimbleness, flexibility, and adaptability, attributes that have enabled the organization to grow, scale, and respond to the current needs of communities. In the five years of the prior plan's implementation, ACT began working in three new countries and increased our number of partner indigenous peoples by more than thirty, reaching almost 90 indigenous peoples. Our programmatic strength and reach across tropical South America has been amplified, effecting sustainable change at scale and bolstering the resilience of local communities.
It is a truism that a strategic plan becomes outdated the moment it is finished. That said, the relevance of ACT’s core strategies—governance, livelihood, and land—endures. Even in this moment of great change and uncertainty, they underpin the success of our on-the-ground efforts in some of the toughest areas on the planet.
It is our hope that as you read ACT’s current strategic plan, you may discover optimism for the future of the rainforest and its indigenous stewards.
