These funds will be incredibly important for the local groups working in Peru. It provides a long-term source of dependable funding. We're talking $500,000 per year ... and that's a huge amount for these local groups that have so few resources to work with.

These areas are really the heart of the western Amazon. They're the most pristine, the richest in terms of the species they contain.

They instead will pay $10 million in local currency into a trust fund in Peru that will benefit conservation.

Because the U.S. conservation groups are participating, we are able to provide technical expertise regarding how these funds should be used and ... the most important places where they should be spent.