Toward more inclusive governance and conservation in the urbanizing Amazon

Abstract

Rapid global change and continued demand for natural resource commodities call for inclusive and equitable responses that account for the interdependencies between social and ecological systems across diverse contexts and scales. As the Amazon basin faces increasing urbanization, a lack of inclusive approaches to environmental governance across the rural–urban interface will continue to hinder effective and just conservation. In this perspective we propose two paths forward toward a more inclusive approach to governance and conservation action in the Peruvian Amazon: (1) grounding natural resource management programs in local‐level realities and (2) accounting for flows and transformations of place‐based relationships (e.g., values, practices) across the rural–urban interface. Our proposed paths forward center both place‐ and flow‐based approaches to governance and conservation, with the intended goal of establishing trust among governing bodies, inclusive decision‐making spaces, sustainable resource use, and biodiversity conservation across the expanding rural–urban spectrum of the Peruvian Amazon.