The Amazon Conservation Leadership Initiative is a joint program of UF’s Tropical Conservation and Development Program and School of Forest Resources and Conservation, created in 2005 with support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
ACLI works in partnership with NGOs and in-country academic partners to train conservation leaders from the Amazon Basin, strengthen the NGOs and agencies where they work, and contribute to more effective on-the-ground conservation.
- ACLI’s initial focus was on training individual leaders at UF, through graduate training and professional exchange visits to UF. Over 50 ACLI alumni, from Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela and Guyana, are now leaders at major NGOs, research institutes and governments throughout Latin America.
- ACLI has contributed to strengthening graduate education at Amazonian universities, with applied, multi-disciplinary approaches that bridge academia and conservation practice. Results include the formation of the Amazon University Consortium for Integrated Analysis of the Impacts of Amazon Dams.
- Since 2009, ACLI has focused on in-service training of conservation professionals through field-based continuing education courses and certificate programs. Courses combine theory and concepts of resilience and social-ecological systems with practical skills and tools for collaborative management.
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ACLI is currently working with two thematic networks that link UF faculty and students with Brazilian NGOs and universities for integrated research, education and conservation practice:
- Amazon Municipal Governance and the RECAM network
- Family Agriculture in the Brazilian Amazon