Today, United States Agency for International Development Administrator Mark Green and the Brazilian Secretary of the Office of International Relations within the Ministry of the Environment, Roberto Castelo Branco, signed a Letter of Intent to work toward the launch of the first-ever biodiversity-focused impact-investment fund for the Brazilian Amazon. The fund, to be financed largely by the private sector, is intended to leverage $100 million in investments in hard-to-reach, high-risk sectors to spur successful businesses that align with forest and biodiversity conservation.

The Amazon basin is almost the size of the continental United States and spans nine countries; 60 percent of the basin is in Brazil. In the Amazon, the largest collection of plant and animal species on Earth live alongside 30 million people -- including the majority of Brazil's indigenous and traditional communities. Because the region produces 20 percent of the world's oxygen and fresh water, healthy Amazon forests are critical to Brazil, the United States, and the world. As the region develops, long-term conservation depends on innovative and sustainable partnerships.

The United States and Brazil have collaborated for decades to conserve biodiversity while also advancing prosperity through responsible economic development. The new fund will fill a crucial financing gap by providing access to credit and investments that will strengthen entrepreneurship, innovation, startups, and sustainable value-chains in the Amazon. The two countries remain committed to a private-sector-led, financially viable, and scalable approach that is critical to developing economic opportunities for local communities while also protecting the Amazon's precious natural resources and biodiversity.

Read the full Letter of Intent here.