Program Support to International Treaties and Conventions Promoting Biodiversity Conservation
USAID assists Latin American countries in managing mahogany in accordance with CITES.
The Agency works directly with host country national governments to recognize international treaties and conventions.
For example, USAID assists countries in Latin America in implementing the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). In FY 2002, the Agency supported U.S. Forest Service and Latin American colleagues to prevent the extinction of mahogany in Brazil and Peru. The Agency helped develop new policies and guidelines for the management of mahogany, assuring that traded mahogany is sustainably produced, restoring mahogany in deforested areas, and verifying that mahogany enters the world market from well managed forests.
As another example, in Kenya, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CCD) is supported by USAID smallholder agriculture economic growth projects and by community-based natural resource management projects that promote sustainable management of land and natural resources in highly biodiverse semi-arid ecosystems.
