This report highlights the importance and urgency for climate action initiatives of protecting the forests of the Indigenous and Tribal territories and the communities that look after them. Based on recent experience, it proposes a package of investments and policies for climate funders and government decision-makers to adopt, in coordination with the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples.
The report begins by analyzing the forests in the territories that Indigenous and Tribal Peoples manage communally and their importance for climate action. Then, it tackles the reasons those forests have been better conserved than other forests in the region. Thirdly, it studies the new dynamics accelerating these forests’ destruction threatening Indigenous and Tribal Peoples. Finally, it proposes a package of policies and reforms to reverse these trends, with emphasis on five types of interventions.
The report is based primarily on a review of over 300 studies published in the last two decades, including 73 studies published in the last two years (2019 and 2020). Hopefully, it will pique the interest of decision-makers and professionals who work in government agencies, grassroots organizations, international organizations, academic centres, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) related to climate and forest policies and to land tenure and the rights of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples.
