- Amazonia’s ethnic diversity is a development asset: local knowledge, livelihoods, and governance systems can protect ecosystems while creating economic opportunities.
- Indigenous territories cover nearly 2.4 million km², contain about 45% of Amazonia’s primary forests, and were a net carbon sink of 340 million tons of CO₂ annually between 2001 and 2021.
- Realizing this potential requires closing gaps in services, education, employment, and financing through culturally adapted solutions that strengthen local institutions and community participation.
Amazonia is a living mosaic of cultures, languages, and histories. Yet its ethnic diversity is more than a defining feature of the region: it is one of Amazonia’s greatest assets both for protecting the biome and for building sustainable development pathways.
Why does this diversity matter on both fronts? Because Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant communities, mestizo populations, and other groups have developed knowledge, practices, and forms of organization that help conserve forests and ecosystems while also supporting livelihoods and local economic development.
At the same time, many of these communities continue to face structural barriers to basic services and development opportunities. How, then, can conservation and sustainable development move forward while keeping cultural diversity at the heart of the process?
Answering that question requires looking not only at who lives in Amazonia, but also at the territories they manage, the knowledge they sustain, and the obstacles that still limit their opportunities.
A Region of Many Peoples
Amazonia’s ethnic composition varies widely across countries. Brazil has the region’s largest Afro-descendant population and the highest share of Afro-descendants, while most people in the Colombian and Ecuadorian Amazon identify as mestizo. Bolivia and Peru, for their part, have the largest Indigenous populations and the highest Indigenous shares. In Guyana and Suriname, meanwhile, people of Indian origin and Afro-descendants make up the majority (Figure 1).
Indigenous Peoples are themselves extraordinarily diverse. Around 379 groups live across Amazonia, including more than 136 in voluntary isolation or initial contact. The region is also home to approximately 240 Indigenous languages, 170 of them spoken in Brazil.
This diversity, therefore, has helped shape Amazonia’s environmental, economic, and social landscapes. Its importance becomes especially clear when looking at the scale of Indigenous territories and their role in forest conservation.
Indigenous territories in Amazonia cover nearly 2.4 million km² and encompass about 45% of the region’s primary forests—an area larger than France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Norway, and Spain combined. Half of this area is located in Brazil. As Figure 2 illustrates, these territories extend across the region. Amazonia also contains 610 protected areas and 2,344 recognized Indigenous territories, making Indigenous stewardship fundamental to any discussion of conservation.
Sustaining Amazonian Forests Through Indigenous Knowledge
Most Indigenous territories provide ecosystem services of both local and global importance, including carbon sequestration, water regulation, biodiversity conservation, and scenic beauty. The Indigenous bioeconomy, meanwhile, is rooted in traditional knowledge, practices, values, and principles, with an emphasis on collective well-being rather than individual profit. It therefore plays a central role in conserving forests and ecosystems while also creating opportunities for sustainable development.
For example, in Bolivia, the ethnopharmacological knowledge of Tsimane/Chimane women supports Indigenous health and the sustainable use of biodiversity. In Ecuador, meanwhile, the Kichwa Chakra agroforestry system combines crops, medicinal plants, timber species, and fruit trees in ways that mimic the natural forest, helping conserve soil, maintain agrobiodiversity, and avoid clearing new plots.
The evidence, moreover, supports this connection. Between 2001 and 2021, Indigenous forests in Amazonia emitted an average of 120 million tons of CO₂ per year while removing 460 million tons, resulting in a net carbon sink of 340 million tons annually. By contrast, forests outside Indigenous territories were a net carbon source (Figure 3).
A Persistent Development Gap
Despite their central role in sustaining Amazonian ecosystems and economies, many Indigenous communities still face structural barriers to basic services and development opportunities.
Across the region, access gaps remain wide. In Colombia’s Amazonian departments, rural aqueduct coverage is below 50%. In Ecuador, meanwhile, only 32% of Indigenous people have sewage services, compared with 73% of non-Indigenous people, while electricity coverage is especially limited in remote settlements.
Barriers also extend to health and education. Shortages of facilities and personnel, together with geographic isolation, restrict access to care. In Brazil’s Legal Amazonia, 51.3% of Indigenous people have not completed primary education, while Indigenous people in Ecuador average 8.2 years of schooling, compared with 11.7 among non-Indigenous people.
Employment gaps are equally stark. Labor informality reaches 86.6% among Indigenous people in Ecuador, and Indigenous women face additional disadvantages, including lower wages, more unpaid work, and greater exposure to violence.
Keeping Cultural Diversity at the Center
These gaps raise a central question: how can conservation and sustainable development move forward while keeping cultural diversity at the heart of the process?
Several priorities emerge. First, development solutions need to be decentralized, participatory, and adapted to Amazonia’s diverse sociocultural contexts. Basic services—from water purification and rainwater harvesting to solar energy, satellite internet, and mobile health brigades—should likewise reflect local realities.
Long-term strategies, meanwhile, require sustained financing and the direct participation of Indigenous Peoples, including Indigenous women. Their design should also take into account biogeography, accessibility, climate conditions, and traditional ways of life.
Community skills and governance are equally important. Indigenous languages, worldviews, and traditional ecological knowledge can expand employment opportunities, while intercultural bilingual education, teacher training, and better infrastructure can strengthen local capacities. At the same time, Indigenous governance systems, rooted in deep knowledge of the territory, can help monitor forests and protect them from deforestation.
Bioeconomy models based on traditional knowledge and local livelihoods can also generate income while preserving ecosystems. Investments in non-timber forest products, traditional agriculture, medicinal plants, and ecotourism can strengthen community enterprises and connect them with markets.
Yet these efforts will remain limited without greater direct access to financing. Channeling resources to Indigenous organizations can help ensure that projects reflect their priorities and worldviews, while also addressing long-standing inequalities in access to development and conservation funding.
What Does this Look Like in Practical Terms?
To close the funding gap and reduce dependence on technical intermediaries, the IDB’s Amazonia Forever regional program launched a strategy to work directly with organizations representing Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendants, and traditional communities. Designed to expand direct financing, the strategy has three main components:
1. MINGA. This team of IDB professionals—most of them Indigenous—works directly with community organizations to co-design projects, identify financing opportunities, incorporate proposals into the IDB pipeline, and support implementation and monitoring.
2. Inclusive project co-design. Regional and national organizations across Amazonia help shape development projects, with priority given to initiatives that can be implemented directly by those organizations through direct financing.
3. Amazonia for Life Fund. Launched in 2023 with $10 million, the fund finances projects that directly benefit Amazonian Indigenous Peoples. Announced at COP28, it was established in coordination with the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin.
Together, these mechanisms aim to bring financing closer to communities and ensure that projects reflect their priorities, knowledge, and ways of life.
Cultural Diversity as a Foundation for Amazonia’s Future
Effective conservation and development strategies in Amazonia need to recognize that the region’s greatest strengths lie not only in its forests, biodiversity, and natural resources, but also in the cultural diversity of its peoples.
That diversity is not separate from conservation or development. It helps sustain forests, supports local livelihoods, and shapes solutions that are better adapted to Amazonia’s different realities. Strengthening it is therefore essential to building a more sustainable and inclusive future for the region.
This post was prepared in coordination with Nadia Rocha, Arturo José Galindo, and Amanda Luz Martins. To learn more, consult our latest publication, Amazonia: A Journey Toward Prosperity & Resilience.