A coalition of Indigenous rights and conservation groups has created a new fund so that major philanthropic donors, such as the Bezos Earth Fund, can more easily channel funds to local communities and get money directly into the hands of those working on the front line to protect the world’s forests.
Rights and Resources Initiative and Campaign for Nature this month announced the establishment of the Community Land Rights and Conservation Finance Initiative. The groups said CLARIFI would help deploy government and philanthropic funding to “scale up the legal recognition of Indigenous Peoples’, Afro-descendant Peoples’, and local communities’ rights” and support them in conserving forestland and natural resources.
Philanthropies, governments pledge $1.7B to Indigenous climate efforts
A coalition of governments and leading philanthropies has made a five-year, $1.7 billion commitment to help Indigenous people protect tropical forests.
Rights and Resources Initiative represents more than 150 Indigenous and local organizations globally. Campaign for Nature is a partnership between the Wyss Campaign for Nature, the National Geographic Society, and more than 100 conservation groups.
“Indigenous Peoples’ lands contain the vast majority of the world’s biodiversity and critical global carbon sinks,” wrote Brian O’Donnell, director of Campaign for Nature, in a statement. “Supporting their rights, conservation, and self-determined development is an essential, moral, and affordable solution for protecting nature and addressing the climate crisis. They have been exceptional stewards of the planet, and it is past time to support their rights and leadership.”
CLARIFI aims to help raise $10 billion to support the recognition of Indigenous land rights by 2030, according to Solange Bandiaky-Badji, the coordinator at Rights and Resources Initiative.
“We did analyses of historic rates of recognition and the costs associated with that recognition. Then we found that by 2030, we need at least $10 billion to go toward supporting Indigenous communities and local communities,” she told Devex in an interview.
Just 1% of climate funding currently goes toward Indigenous and local communities around the world, she added, and only a small fraction of that amount has been dedicated to securing land rights and land tenure.
Bandiaky-Badji said she doesn’t expect CLARIFI to raise the entire $10 billion on its own. Other Indigenous rights groups also are advocating for public and private funding increases, she said.
However, CLARIFI can hopefully play a significant role in connecting donors to organizations “working on the ground,” she added. The aim is to serve as a “fiduciary” that distributes money from U.S. funders to international groups seeking to protect forestlands, including national and regional funds established by locally led organizations, she said.
CLARIFI hasn’t yet formalized arrangements with any philanthropies, according to Bandiaky-Badji, but it already has a relationship with the Bezos Earth Fund, which last year joined other foundations and governments to make a separate five-year, $1.7 billion commitment to directly fund Indigenous and local communities working to protect tropical forests.
A recent Bezos Earth Fund grant for a partnership between Rights and Resources Initiative, the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, and Campaign for Nature — focusing on the Congo Basin and the Tropical Andes — will serve as the pilot of CLARIFI’s re-granting protocols to channel funds to local organizations.
CLARIFI’s mission will also include helping Indigenous advocacy groups “absorb” larger grants, she added. Smaller organizations often need to scale up their financial capacity to receive such grants, meaning they must implement accounting and auditing measures to meet the reporting requirements commonly imposed by grant-makers, she said.
“Strengthening their capacity to absorb and manage higher levels of funding to protect their forests is really key,” Bandiaky-Badji said.
Update, Jan. 27, 2022: This article has been updated to clarify how a recent grant from the Bezos Earth Fund will be used.
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About the author
Stephanie Beasley@Steph_Beasley
Stephanie Beasley is a Senior Reporter at Devex, where she covers global philanthropy with a focus on regulations and policy. She is an alumna of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and Oberlin College and has a background in Latin American studies. She previously covered transportation security at POLITICO.
