Team meets with Peruvian partners to advance quality of life plans

In August 2017, the Keller Science Action Center’s Andes-Amazon social team of Tita Alvira, Ashwin Ravikumar, Theresa Miller, and Ana Lemos, Mitchel Castro, Alonso Perez, and Milagros Oblitas met with Peruvian government agencies to discuss and develop strategies to create, document, and implement quality of life plans for communities throughout the country. Building on recent collaborations, the team met with the National Protected Areas Service to discuss recent developments in co-management of communal reserves. They also reconvened the national multi-sector platform on quality of life plans to share updates and lessons with officials from diverse government agencies, including the Ministry of Culture, the National Center for Strategic Planning, the Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion, and the National Program of Forest Conservation. These meetings strengthened collaborations and laid the groundwork for an planned September workshop on “Capacity-Building for Implementing Quality of Life Plans,” co-hosted by The Field Museum and the National Protected Areas Service in Puerto Bermudez, Peru. The workshop will bring together members of local communities and local, regional, and national governmental agencies, with an aim of providing capacity-building skills and strategies for developing community priorities and implementing quality of life plans in communal reserves and other protected areas throughout Peru. It will also provide a space for stakeholders from different regions of the country to share their experiences creating quality of life plans with one another. These plans will, in turn, pave the way for environmental sustainability and the wellbeing of Peruvian community participants.