From 2022 to 2025, Rights and Resources Initiative, the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, and Campaign for Nature funded 76 distinct projects at local, national, and regional levels in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, thanks to the generosity of the Bezos Earth Fund.
In Sèppè, a small coastal village in Cameroon, change is quietly, but powerfully, taking root. For generations, women here have been the pillars of their families and communities, working and cultivating land that they have not historically had the benefit of owning. Thanks to the work of a powerful network of women, the tide is now turning.
Environmental defenders are on the frontlines of safeguarding biodiversity, addressing climate change, and protecting human rights. The concept of collective protection has emerged as a critical framework in the defense of defenders who often act in unison to protect their communities and draw support from them. Collective protection emphasizes the need to protect not only individual defenders but also the broader community structures that support and sustain their work.
At the recently concluded COP30, the central role of tropical forests and the Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local communities that protect them was firmly in the spotlight. Despite ongoing challenges, the climate summit delivered tangible, measurable gains for communities and local forest stewards, ranging from landmark land recognitions to new funding initiatives and international collaborations.
As global leaders prepare to gather in Belém, Brazil, this November for the 30th UN Climate Conference (COP30), the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) and its global partners are calling for the summit to serve as a turning point for Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities who safeguard the world’s forests and biodiversity.
As the global community prepares for UNFCCC COP30, hosted for the first time in the Amazon region of Brazil, the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) and its coalition of over 200 partners, collaborators, and allies have been sending a clear and powerful message for months: Earth’s #DefendersLeadTheWay on climate action.
This new report highlights RRI's twenty years of impact on communities’ collective land and resource rights and outlines the path forward to secure their future worldwide.
This was by far the largest UNCCD CoP to date (the previous CoP15 in 2022 had 7,000 participants), but even in an increasingly crowded space, Indigenous voices rang loud and clear, achieving several important breakthroughs.
The Rights and Resource Group has selected Deborah Sanchez, an Indigenous Miskitu woman from Honduras to lead its funding mechanism, CLARIFI (the Community Land Rights and Conservation Finance Initiative). Deborah will officially assume her role on September 11, 2023.