- New research documents the positive impacts that Afro-descendant populations have had on tropical ecosystems in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Suriname.
- The study found that deforestation rates are between 29% and 55% lower in Afro-descendant lands than in protected areas.
- This is the first scientific study to employ statistical, geographical and historical data to assess the contribution of Afro-descendant communities in conservation.
- According to the researchers, Afro-descendant populations and their good practices are at risk due to a lack of legal recognition, invisibility of their contributions, and extractive activities in their territories.
Afro-descendant peoples in Latin America have historically been guardians of nature, but their role could be more important than previously estimated. New research carried out in four Amazonian countries — Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Suriname — has revealed that their territories have achieved lower levels of deforestation and greater conservation of biodiversity than other protected areas.
The study, funded by Conservation International and published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, is the first to use statistics, georeferenced information and historical context to measure the contributions of Afro-descendant populations to conservation. Afro-descendant people were taken as slaves from Africa to Latin America, where many fled into the wilderness in search of freedom.
One of the study’s most significant findings is the sustained reduction of deforestation in Afro-descendant lands. Here the study found that forest loss was lower, depending on location, than in protected areas.
For example, deforestation rates in Afro-descendant lands were 29% lower when the lands were inside protected areas, 36% lower when they were outside protected areas, and 55% lower when they were on the edge of these areas.
“It confirms that we are the guardians of these Amazonian lands; we have been doing this sustainably for over 400 years,” says Hugo Jabini, Saramaka Maroon leader and winner of the 2009 Goldman Prize for defending Afro-descendant rights in Suriname.
What’s more, Afro-descendant territories are vital for tropical biodiversity: the researchers found that they host habitat for more than 4,000 species of amphibians, birds, mammals and reptiles. At least 9% of these species are on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
This connection is no coincidence since, according to this research, more than half of the Afro-descendant lands in the study coincide with the highest 5% of biodiverse areas globally. In the case of Ecuador, 99% of the analyzed territories are in the top 5%.
Not surprisingly, then, these areas are also rich in sequestered carbon. According to Conservation International, if this carbon were released, it would not be resequestered for at least 30 years.
The study found that Afro-descendant lands in the study store more than 486 million metric tons of carbon, with a concentration of 6.8 metric tons per hectare.
The importance of legal recognition of lands
The Afro-descendant peoples in the four countries in the study only have management rights over 9.9 million hectares (24 million acres) — just 1% of the total area of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Suriname combined. Despite this, they’ve achieved positive environmental outcomes in many of their territories.
This explains, for example, why countries like Colombia and Brazil, which hold 97% of recognized Afro-descendant lands in the study, showed more positive impacts in the conservation of Amazonian forests than Suriname. The latter, a much small country than the other two, doesn’t recognize land titling, instead awarding concessions that limit the rights of Afro-descendant communities over their territories.
Jabini says there’s resistance to recognizing land titling in the country, a struggle that led to his exile.
“Suriname is the only country in the Western Hemisphere in which Indigenous, Tribal and Afro-descendant peoples’ rights are not recognized; we cannot own land,” he says, adding that this is why the Saramaka sued the government of Suriname at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2007.
Jabini says this lack of legal recognition exposes Afro-descendant populations to risks and threats when they come into conflict with extractive industries or illegal mining outfits.
He says he hopes the new study raises awareness among leaders and decision-makers so that they “no longer see us as mere claimants of territory.”
Ancestral knowledge, a tool for conservation
In addition to the data, the study also analyzed the sustainable practices of Afro-descendant populations.
Study co-author Martha Rosero, a socioenvironmental scientist at Conservation International, says the researchers detected four key factors connecting Afro-descendant people with conservation and sustainability.
The first was adaptation to the new ecosystems in the Americas and to the plants and animals they found in these territories.
“We see this adaptive capacity where they settled, for example, on plantations, in semi-urban areas, in villages, and particularly in deep forests,” Rosero says, citing the example of Maroon peoples, who escaped slavery to establish free communities.
The second key factor, she says, is the diversity of the production systems of Afro-descendant peoples, who implemented various agricultural techniques, from vegetable plots to food forests.
“They adapted a large number of domestic animals that we know today and are the basis of our economy and diet, as well as many foraging species from tropical Africa,” Rosero says.
Jabini points to the practices of Afro-descendant communities in Suriname, who use traditional African knowledge in the Amazon. “This has become the key to diversity and carbon sequestration,” he says.
The third factor is the Afro-descendant communities’ landscape management system for survival. Rosero says their territorial management had various objectives: “They produced food, medicine, tools, means of transport, refuge, shelter.”
For the researchers, spiritual beliefs and ethnobotanical knowledge make up the fourth factor. These beliefs have helped Afro-descendant peoples to interact with nature sustainably.
“This sacred relationship is also reflected in territorial management practices, which support landscape sustainability in the contexts they inhabit. These four factors are still relevant today,” Rosero says, adding that these techniques were also crucial for adaptation after the end of slavery in South America.
The ecological mindset of Afro-descendant peoples distinguished their territories from areas now dominated by monocultures and mineral extraction, according to the study.
“Afro-descendant peoples have managed their territories for centuries with different logics that allow for adaptation, autonomy and permanence. We have evidence that they have been guardians of the forest for generations,” Rosero says.
She adds that the contributions of Afro-descendant populations to the Americas have been rendered invisible, which is why the study is also a call to recognize and replicate them.
“We want these results to reach communities directly to boost their morale, because what they’ve been doing for centuries is incredibly valuable knowledge and prevents people from leaving their land and feeling hopeless about the future,” she says.
Afro-descendant populations made invisible and at risk
Despite their environmental and cultural importance, Afro-descendant lands face threats from practices such as monoculture systems that have decimated tropical landscapes.
One example in the study was the replacement of the agroecological system of cacao production in Monte Oscura, Colombia, with sugarcane monoculture. This change led to deforestation and socioenvironmental degradation.
For this reason, the study’s authors call for the inclusion of Afro-descendant communities in environmental decision-making, strengthening legal recognition of their territories, and supporting policies that preserve their knowledge and ways of life.
Angélica Mayolo Obregón, a researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI), who collaborated on this study, says that despite evidence about the contributions of Afro-descendant populations, they remain underrepresented in forums on the climate crisis and biodiversity.
“They can’t share their priorities, policies and leadership. It’s important that we can establish sustainable funding mechanisms and defend land titling for Afro-descendant peoples,” Obregón says, adding that climate strategy and biodiversity policies should include the voices of Afro-descendant peoples.
Study lead author Sushma Shrestha, director of Indigenous science, research and knowledge at Conservation International, underlines the historical environmental management carried out by Afro-descendant peoples, calling for it to be recognized, supported and held up as an example.
“For centuries, Afro-descendant communities have managed landscapes in ways that sustain both people and nature, yet their contributions remain largely invisible,” she says.
Pastor Elías Murillo Martínez, a lawyer and independent consultant on the rights of Afro-descendant peoples, says the COP30 climate summit in Brazil should explicitly recognize these populations as key actors in environmental management. Martínez says such meetings still lack a dedicated category for Afro-descendant peoples.
“One objective is to achieve this recognition of the Afro-descendant category in institutional arrangements and that, in turn, this results in a scenario of participation, that it gives them access to participation in decisions,” Martínez tells Mongabay Latam.
Shrestha says she hopes the study will help bring together important actors to “debate and better understand the contributions of Afro-descendant peoples, and that the data and evidence support their inclusion in these conversations.”
Banner image: Researchers and Afro-descendant leaders say that legal recognition of populations’ territories is key to conservation. Image courtesy of Conservation International.
This story was first published here in Spanish on July 22, 2025.
Citation:
Sangat, S. S., Rosero, M., Olsson, E., Nowakowski, A. J., Drescher-Lehman, J., Roehrdanz, P. R., … Alie, K. (2025). Afro-descendant lands in South America contribute to biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation. Communications Earth & Environment, 6(1). doi:10.1038/s43247-025-02339-5
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