Triple the size of Grand Canyon National Park, the recently created Municipal Conservation Area of Bajo Madidi protects 1,535,495 hectares of pristine savannas, wetlands, and rainforest in northwestern Bolivia. This area contributes to a bi-national protected area network spanning 2.89 million ha that includes Madidi National Park in Bolivia and Tambopata National Reserve in Peru.

In 2008, Ecuador had over 9.5 million hectares of native forests, but was losing thousands of hectares every year to deforestation. To protect a major linchpin of its economy and to preserve the critical ecosystem services that its forests provide, the Government of Ecuador decided to act. The Socio Bosque Program, a voluntary incentive-based scheme with combined environmental and socioeconomic targets, was its response. It hopes to protect 4 million hectares, nearly 16% of Ecuador's total land mass, and help between 500,000 and 1 million people.

In 2014, Mexico's National Forestry Commission (CONAFOR) set an ambitious target of beginning to restore 1 million hectares by the end of 2018. This large pledge is in addition to Mexico's nearly 7.5-million-hectare commitment to the Bonn Challenge and Initiative 20x20. Four years later, CONAFOR has met its goal.

Panama has set an ambitious goal of restoring 1 million hectares from 2015 to 2035. To act on that commitment, the government has joined the Alianza por el Millón, a public-private partnership led by the Ministry of Environment (MiAmbiente) and consisting of civil society organizations, the government and the private sector.

Cocoa has long been a driver of deforestation in Peru. With a precarious production model that typically relies on smallholder farmers producing cocoa from old trees on tiny farms with no access to technical assistance or fair intermediaries, farmers can only achieve low yields. Their solution to low productivity is to further deforest nearby land in an effort to clear more land and increase production to sustain their poor households.

Subscribe to Government-led