A $2.30-a-day basic income trial is trying to save the Amazon rainforest

• A pioneering project in Peru is giving $2.30 a day to people in Indigenous communities.
• Reducing poverty removes a lot of the incentives for deforestation, the organizers told BI.
• Those without money worries are less likely to sell their land or work for logging companies, they said.

Groups backing a universal basic income trial in Peru are hoping that unconditional payments to Indigenous communities will help preserve the Amazon rainforest.

Since November, 188 people living in three Amazonian reserves in central Peru have received cash transfers equivalent to 8.6 Peruvian Soles, or about $2.30, a day.