Project Overview
Ongoing commodity production practices in Peru — particularly in the Amazon landscape — contribute to increasing greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, high biodiversity loss, and decline in the provision of environmental services, such as soil nutrients, freshwater, pollination, climate regulation, habitat for wildlife. Estimates indicate that 78 percent of deforestation has occurred in plots smaller than 5 hectares and relates expansion to make way for crops such as coffee and cocoa. Commodity-driven deforestation is the result of several confluent factors including the lack of adequate land use planning, limited enforcement capacity, absence of profitable, sustainable production models, inconsistent quality and quantity of production, and lack of access to credit and investment from private enterprises and sourcing standards. Despite existing frameworks designed to promote sustainable land management and agriculture, forestry, and biodiversity protection, challenges remain.
Sites:
Marañón river basin in San Martín; Alto Amazonas in Loreto; Bagua, Bongará, Rodríguez de Mendoza and Utcubamba in Amazonas; San Ignacio and Jaén in Cajamarca.
Commodities:
Coffee, cocoa
Area Covered:
1,061,375 hectares
Executing Partner:
Ministry of the Environment of Peru
GEF Implementing Agencies:
United Nations Development Programme
Project features
Development of Integrated Landscape Management Systems
The promotion of sustainable ecosystem services and improved land use management based on Integrated Landscape Management (ILM) principles includes strengthening governance and the capacities of key stakeholders, including Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and subnational governments. Implementation of Territorial Development Plans aligns with national and sectoral policies, while enhancing land use planning, monitoring, and enforcement mechanisms to support deforestation-free and sustainable coffee and cocoa production.
Amazon landscape. Photo credit: MINAM
Women cocoa farmers in the Amazon share experiences to strengthen their leadership skills. Photo credit: FOLUR Peru
Promotion of Deforestation-Free Coffee and Cocoa and Responsible Value Chains
Strengthening producer associations, cooperatives, and rural organizations supports the transition toward sustainable and deforestation-free coffee and cocoa production models. The component promotes innovative technical and financial solutions, improved access to technology, markets, and financing, and the adoption of climate-smart and sustainable agricultural practices for small and medium-sized producers, in partnership with the private sector, financial institutions and responsible value chains.
Reducing biodiversity loss and restoring ecosystems
The component advances the restoration of degraded productive lands, natural habitats, and critical ecosystem services, while strengthening biodiversity conservation through the establishment of ecological corridors across coffee and cocoa production landscapes. It also promotes community-based restoration approaches, strengthened monitoring systems for restoration activities, and financing mechanisms that support sustainable landscape restoration and long-term sustainable land management.
Reforestation initiative with producer associations in San Ignacio, Cajamarca, Peru. Photo credit: FOLUR Peru
Producers showcase their sustainable coffee products at a national trade show. Photo credit: FOLUR Peru
Coordination, Monitoring & Evaluation, and Knowledge Management
The project is supported through a monitoring and evaluation system designed to provide ongoing feedback on project implementation, as well as a communications and knowledge management strategy that connects the project’s results, lessons learned, and experiences with the FOLUR Platform. Within this framework, the project seeks to empower local stakeholders to participate in and influence global coffee and cocoa markets.
Inclusive approaches and capacity building
The project includes gender and intercultural participation analysis and action plans to address existing gaps supported by technologically-based and high-leverage training to mainstream key topics on gender equality and intercultural approaches.
The application of practical gender mainstreaming tools integrates to incorporate gender perspectives into land-use planning, access to land, access to finance, business planning, and decision-making processes at different levels: households; smallholders’ associations; commodity platforms and policy design.
Additionally, the project promotes women’s participation in commodity supply chains and in national, regional, and local commodity platforms that address challenges within these supply chains. Through these interventions, the project aims to benefit 42,000 women of 120,000 total direct beneficiaries.
[Updated June 2026]
An Awajun cocoa producer participates in a program to strengthen women´s leadership skills. Photo credit: FOLUR Peru
