THE Amazon Boats project, deep in the Amazon rain forest, involves the protection of more than 8,000 sq km of jungle coupled with a purchase strategy that allows house boats to be handed down from one generation to another.
The company behind this scheme is Investment Vision & Environments (IN-VI), whose president and founder Guy Perry will be interviewed at the Arabian Hotel Investment Conference (AHIC) on Monday May 4 from 1 pm to 3.30 pm by Simon Calder, senior travel editor, Independent and TV and radio presenter.
Perry is a French American architect and urban planner with development and design experience on five continents. Over the past few years he has led research efforts for design and development strategies at Harvard University, MIT and the University of Toronto. He has presented at many conferences worldwide regarding strategies for sustainable urban development.
This will be his first visit to AHIC, he told TTN. “The project has been presented at a United Nations event in New York as well as earned honors for Innovation at MIPIM. But this presentation will really be the first time it comes ‘out of the box’,” he said.
“As you can imagine, it is a very complicated legal process to deal with the private ownership and protection of an area over three times the size of Luxemburg, even with the best intentions. The main 8,000 sq km parcel of land has been surveyed (including every significant tree) and ownership must remain at least 50 per cent Brazilian,” he said.
The Amazon Boats are designed to be of minimum impact on the environment. This includes re-using logging and military barges and using solar power and bio fuels. Each of the 50 boats will be associated with the protection of a 160 square kilometre area of forest - an area larger than Manahattan and Paris combined. The idea is that once purchased the boats and land cannot be sold, but only passed on to family or friends.
The initial purchase price of about €7 million includes about €2.5 million for the purchase of that portion of the land, €2 million for the creation of the basic version of the 350 sq m barge and about €2.5 million for the protection fund. “This fund will ensure the protection of the land and eliminate future carrying costs that might compromise the longevity of the project,” said Perry.
IN-VI believes in development solutions that hold their value over many years both as regards the environment and the local community. The company began operations in Europe in Poland (Warsaw) in 2000, and later in Brazil in 2005, and has received numerous awards for its master planning and architectural design.
by Cheryl Mandy