Conservation
We focus our efforts where Indigenous stewardship, biodiversity, and policy converge — protecting what works and regenerating what has been damaged.
Amazon Research Internacional
Where science meets the rainforest.
We regenerate fragile Amazonian biodiversity, ecosystems, and cultural heritage by uniting traditional knowledge with modern science — through conservation, research, policy, and empowerment of native communities and leaders.
Why we exist
The Amazon is at a tipping point.
Rapid destruction outpaces the work being done to repair it. ARI was founded in Peru to close that gap — pairing modern science with the traditional knowledge of Indigenous communities, and turning research into conservation, policy, and livelihoods that hold across generations.
2025 Law 32235 enacted
4 Programs in the field
25 + Indigenous communities
4 Countries in the bee corridor
Programs
Four programs, one rainforest.
ARI's work is organised in four current programs. Stingless Bees is the active program for this season and accepts direct support today.
Stingless Bees
Safeguarding Amazonian stingless bees through species mapping, biochemical analysis of honey, female-led beekeeping programs, and Indigenous-led conservation across Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, and Brazil.
EDGE Species
Field studies and habitat protection for Evolutionarily Distinct, Globally Endangered species in the Peruvian Amazon — co-led with Asháninka park rangers and university partners.
Medicinal Gardens
Community medicinal gardens and agroforestry plots that combine traditional ecological knowledge with reforestation science to restore degraded land and revive local pharmacopoeia.
Rights of Nature
Policy and legal advocacy that translates field science and Indigenous testimony into recognised rights for ecosystems and species — including the recognition of stingless bees as native Peruvian species under Law 32235 (2025).
How we work
Four practices in every program.
Conservation, science, outreach, and storytelling sit at the same table. Each program uses all four — never one without the others.
Science
We design our studies with the people who live in the forest. Field biology, biochemistry, and traditional ecological knowledge sit at the same table.
Outreach
We invest in the next generation of scientists, beekeepers, and community leaders — most of them women — and build the local economies that make conservation viable.
Storytelling
We collaborate with photographers, filmmakers, and writers to tell the story of the Amazon truthfully and at scale.
In the press
Reported around the world.
- The New York Times · 2024
The cover story on stingless bees and the Peruvian Amazon.
Read the article - National Geographic
Stingless bees produce a medicinal honey known locally as the 'miracle liquid'.
Read the article - Treehugger
How stingless bees regenerate degraded ecosystems in the Amazon.
Read the article
Without modern science together with indigenous traditional knowledge, there is no biodiversity.
— Richar Demetrio · Asháninka scientist and park ranger
Field notes
Notes from the basin.
Snapshots from the most recent weeks of fieldwork in Loreto and the Asháninka territories.
Without native bees, there is no Amazon.
— Apu César Ramos · President of EcoAsháninka
Support the work
No contribution is too small.
Help safeguard the Amazon's under-appreciated organisms, the ecosystems they hold up, and the communities that live alongside them. Your gift goes directly to fieldwork, capacity programs, and Indigenous-led research.
Donations are processed in Peru. For US tax-deductible giving via our 501(c)(3) fiscal partner, write to amazonresearchint@gmail.com.
Field letters · monthly
Letters from the field.
Notes from the field, scientific findings, voices from the communities. No urgency, no hard sell — once a month.