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Together We Thrive: AIV announces new partnership with investment for ASCART

  • 7 hours ago
  • 2 min read

Brazil‑nut harvesters from ASCART speaks in the Amazon rainforest, describing his family’s long history of managing forest concessions, collecting Brazil nuts sustainably and the importance of the biodiversity in Madre de Dios, Peru.


Friday, 22nd May 2026

By Paula Perrelli dos Anjos


Today, we remember the Biodiversity International Day, a date created by the United Nations (UN) to honour the Convention on Biological Diversity. What began as a formal observance in 1993 has evolved into a grassroots movement, inspiring communities to protect the species and ecosystems that sustain life. 


This year's theme reminds us that progress is built locally, through a mosaic of community‑led efforts, and the delivery of any national biodiversity strategy requires broad, inclusive mobilisation across society.


In our series, Together We Thrive, Amazonia Impact Ventures (AIV) brings an example of a partner who respects the biodiversity in the forest: ASCART (Asociación de Castañeros de la Reserva Nacional Tambopata y del Parque Nacional Bahuaja-Sonene), a Brazil‑nut association operating inside the Tambopata National Reserve and the Bahuaja Sonene National Park, areas in Peru that are considered one of the most biodiverse landscapes on Earth.


There, biodiversity is not an abstract concept, but a work carried forward by forest families who have safeguarded the Amazon. ASCART is led by Rosa Chávez, a long‑standing forest steward and the organisation’s president. 


Under her leadership, ASCART’s 38 active members expect to collect 1,900 barrels of Brazil nuts this year (roughly 133 metric tonnes). Their work is governed by a co‑management model that demands strict environmental compliance, full traceability and long‑term forest protection. 


Harvesting nuts in Tambopata National Reserve is not extraction, it is participation in a living system. The area alone safeguards more than 274,000 hectares of lowland rainforest and it is home to jaguars, giant river otters, macaw clay licks and hundreds of bird species.


Within this ecosystem, ASCART members act as frontline guardians: reporting illegal activity, protecting wildlife corridors and maintaining the ecological integrity of their concession areas. Under AIV’s support, the cooperative will maintain full traceability of all Brazil nuts collected with project funds, including concession‑level deforestation analysis. 

AIV’s first investment on them is a working‑capital loan combined with year‑round technical assistance. Our support helps ASCART strengthen its organisational systems, improve management practices and secure better market opportunities. The investment forms part of AIV’s wider collaboration with the Wyss Academy for Nature, which aims to reduce risk and build resilience across the Brazil‑nut value chain.


On this Biodiversity Day, the message we want to share is that protecting nature means supporting the people who live with it, and ASCART well represents the local action 2026’s theme.



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