First congress of forest basin leaders results in call for direct financing

At the world’s first global congress of Indigenous peoples and local communities from forest basins, representatives began preparations to increase direct finance to community forest conservation — especially in the run-up to the upcoming U.N. climate conference, COP30.

The participants, from the Amazon, Congo and Borneo-Mekong basins, gathered May 26-30 in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, and proposed that new financing pledges at the global climate conference should direct at least 40% of funds directly to Indigenous and local community organizations. This, they said, should go through their own funding mechanisms — instruments that organizations are currently in the works of scaling up.

An estimated 80% of the world’s tropical forests and two-thirds of its biodiversity lie within the Amazon, Congo and Borneo-Mekong-Southeast Asia basins, with about 36% of the world’s intact forests on Indigenous lands. Countries within these basins are experiencing record-high rates of forest loss, and some estimate the management and restoration of forests could cost $203 billion per year by 2050.

“As we [Indigenous leaders] looked into the minimum funds that went directly to Indigenous peoples and local communities, this congress needed to initiate talks on advancing mechanisms that could channel direct funds to community organizations,” said Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, president of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad.

Pathways to direct funding

While the congress focused on the roles of Indigenous peoples and local communities in forest conservation, improved access to direct funds to strengthen Indigenous forest governance and help communities tackle climate change impacts, deforestation and sustainably conserve forests, was high on the agenda.

Current conservation efforts lag behind accomplishing the 2030 net-zero deforestation and global biodiversity targets, and Indigenous representatives say this is partly because community conservation is not adequately included in these efforts. This is particularly amid increasing threats to forest guardians from illegal logging, mining for critical minerals and harmful agribusiness expansion, sources tell Mongabay.

Little funding goes directly to Indigenous peoples and local communities, for reasons that span lack of community capacity and donor trust to stringent financial requirements. Of $1.7 billion in pledges to community forest stewardship in 2021, only 2.1% of the money disbursed so far went directly to Indigenous peoples and local communities in 2022.

There currently exist a few direct funding initiatives, such as the Nusantara Fund in Indonesia, the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests’ (AMPB) territorial fund and the Shandia platform by Global Alliance of Territorial communities. But Indigenous and local community leaders would like more.

Ibrahim said the gathering built on previous efforts to create effective mechanisms that channel direct funds to communities through local organizations without any intermediaries like international NGOs, consultancies and development banks.

“The U.N. Biodiversity Conference, COP16, in Colombia also committed pledges of support, which were yet to be fully translated into direct funding. The congress was a moment to reflect on these gaps,” said Solange Bandiaky-Badji, president of Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), who co-convened the congress. “It also built momentum to initiate conversation on the roles of Indigenous and local community women in Central Africa and lead actions to improve their access to finance.”

One challenge has been funding models operated by intermediary institutions that often impose conditions that don’t “recognize the complexity of realities, needs and ways of working within Indigenous peoples and local communities,” Abdi Akbar, director of Indigenous political participation expansion at the Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago, told Mongabay.

Akbar said these conditions consist of complex technocratic reporting systems that are often only available in foreign languages. “In such cases, access to funding becomes not only technically difficult but also structurally biased and neglects the right of Indigenous peoples to determine the priorities and direction of development in their territories.”

To advance the direct funding effort, Badiaky-Badji said RRI’s funding mechanism for Indigenous and community-led projects, CLARIFI, committed $30,000 of direct funds to nine local women-led initiatives each across eight African countries during the congress.

The congress also culminated in a Brazzaville Declaration that called for upholding Indigenous peoples’ rights, knowledge and free, prior and informed consent, along with a shared commitment to protecting forests and territories through access to direct finance, improved forest governance and equitable partnership.

Multiple organizations part of the Network of Indigenous and Local Populations for the Sustainable Management of Forest Ecosystems in Central Africa (REPALEAC) are building their own funding mechanisms that could help channel funds directly to local communities to practically direct funds whenever pledges are made.

The TFFF

Members of the congress also talked about strategies for the implementation of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) expected to be launched by the Brazilian government at COP30. It is a large-scale funding mechanism that uses satellite monitoring to reward forest conservation. It aims to bridge the biodiversity funding gap and provide long-term finance for countries to keep their forests standing.

Some Indigenous leaders raised concerns over its functioning, saying it could become a false solution and create a new carbon market that places a monetary value on the ecosystem services of tropical forests.

The TFFF has potential to become a milestone in tropical forest protection efforts, Akbar said, but it can’t be considered the “ultimate solution” if it is not developed together with Indigenous peoples and local communities, involving them in its governance and accountability structures. Currently, the TFFF aims for at least 20% of annual payments to go to Indigenous peoples and local communities. This, Akbar said, should be in the form of direct funding.

Levie Sucre Romero, general-director of the AMPB, who contributed to the declaration, said he’s concerned that investment funds planned for communities will first go through national governments, which might fail to acknowledge the rights and roles of forest communities in conservation.

“If funds like the TFFF do not realize that they should make a direct investment, leaving doors open so that communities have direct access, but only funnel them down through governments, our fight will be lost because all governments will not give us that opportunity,” Sucre told Mongabay. “When it comes to financing, it can either help or destroy us, so there should be robust safeguards, mechanisms that communities can turn to in need.”

Ibrahim, a founding member of REPALEAC, said they are advocating to make the facility more inclusive and transparent while strengthening its safeguards.

“The TFFF is developing to be launched at COP30 under the joint efforts of governments and the World Bank, and if it’s going to be built, it has to be done with us and by us because these vast stretches of tropical forest are more than money-making resources; these are our homes,” Ibrahim told Mongabay.

Banner image: Indigenous leaders at the first congress in Brazzaville. Image by Maribel Arango.

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Latoya Abulu Editor

This story first appeared on Mongabay

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