The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) submits this report on our programming to preserve forests and endangered species in accordance with Sections 118(f) and 119(h) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (FAA), as amended.

USAID’s investments in biodiversity advance the Journey to Self-Reliance in our partner countries in support of our mission to end the need for foreign assistance. Conservation is an American tradition that creates and sustains economic opportunity and protects the plants, animals, and natural places that communities need to thrive. By investing in priority biodiversity areas, USAID helps the world’s most-vulnerable people grow nutritious food, build peace, and commit to citizen-responsive governance of the environment. As noted in the recent global assessment by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, nature is declining at unprecedented rates. We depend on nature to provide clean water, fresh air, healthy soils, and plant pollination; declines in biodiversity and ecosystems threaten to undermine progress toward many global development goals for poverty, hunger, health, oceans, and land. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2018, USAID worked in 57 countries around the world to conserve biodiversity, leverage private-sector funds, fight conservation crime, and support sustainable fisheries, all of which help local communities build resilience and shape their futures.