Cash with no strings, forest with a future: Peru's Amazon pilot that trusted people

In Junín Province, in Peru's central Amazon, 211 Asháninka and Yanesha adults received something conservation rarely offers: money with no conditions at all — S/1,032 (about $280) every four months, six payments over two years, run by the charity Cool Earth with Indigenous women's organisations ONAMIAP and OMIAASEC. A University of Bath evaluation, published this month, found the share of households that could not afford nutritious food fell from 73% to 26%, skipped meals from 49% to 22%, and households with savings rose from 49% to 70%. Freed from chasing casual work away from home, people spent more time on their own farms and on shared projects — replanting around springs, seed banks, fish farms. The researchers are careful: no control group, a small pilot, forest change not directly measured. But lead author Neil Howard's point stands: the approach treats people 'with respect and dignity, which contrasts sharply with the colonial history of conservation.'

SDG 1 · No poverty — Mechanism: funding & finance