How a grassroots financing model is helping Indigenous communities save the Amazon
“When a language dies, we don’t just lose words,” says Valerio Benavides. “We lose knowledge, stories and our connection to the forest.”
In Peru, home to the second-biggest share of the Amazon after Brazil, a combination of factors including wood extraction, mining, road construction and agricultural expansion is driving, deforestation, reports the international research partnership for sustainable food systems CGIAR. Much of that has happened on Indigenous lands, where poverty often forces community members into land use activities that compound deforestation, the report says.
Financing transformations
But the Amazon’s fate is not yet sealed. Efforts are underway to channel more finance to Indigenous communities like the Iskonawa that conserve, restore and sustainably manage forests. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP), through the UN-REDD Programme, is working with the Peruvian Ministry of Environment to scale up this financing, including through a mechanism known as REDD+, which incentivizes communities and countries to reduce deforestation.
“Increasing finance for forests isn’t about paying communities to do nothing,” says Gabriel Labbate, Head of the Climate Mitigation Unit at UNEP. “This is about supporting them in the challenging but vital task of protecting the forest. Mechanisms like REDD+ bring real results—real emissions reductions and real resilience, biodiversity and community benefits.”
In Peru, an active UN-REDD member country, many Indigenous communities have begun to directly access funding and support through the indigenous-led effort REDD+ Indígena Amazónica (RIA), making them active partners in forest protection.
"[This] is an opportunity to implement mitigation, adaptation and resilience actions in the face of climate change and from the viewpoint of Indigenous peoples, respecting their ancestral knowledge and territorial management," says Fermín Chimatani Tayori, President of the National Association of the Native Communities of the Peruvian Amazon.
Distribution channels: Environment
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