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The global discourse is increasingly focusing on the crucial role of indigenous peoples and local communities in protecting biodiversity and addressing the challenges of climate change. However, the elephants in the room remain rights, well-being and inequality. 39% of global lands in good ecological status are managed by indigenous peoples, but are increasingly under threat due to setbacks in legal protections and political violence. Similarly, indigenous peoples protect approximately 45% of the intact Amazon forest, but face a poverty rate twice as high as the non-indigenous population. Added to this, despite contributing to the conservation of 25% of the world’s carbon sinks, they receive less than 1% of climate finance.
So on the one hand, we are asking indigenous peoples and local communities to save our planet. But on the other, we are enforcing systems that often obstruct their basic needs, ways of life and sovereignty. More than $7 trillion in subsidies for fossil fuels, agriculture and fisheries are allowed worldwide – 8% of global GDP – when agricultural subsidies alone are responsible for 14% of global deforestation.
The global community has made some notable commitments to change this scenario, but we still need to transform the entrenched mindsets, economic and legal systems that, as long as they persist, will continue to result in environmental and social collapse. For this reason, we present some strategies that, although often undervalued, can help us achieve more equitable financial paradigms for the stewardship of nature.
For example, Investments based on tenure rights have proven to be superlatively profitable climate investments. Projects valued at minimal amounts, ranging from US$3 to US$11 per hectare, lead to communities receiving land titles and registration documents that protect the rights and ability to manage their lands. The costs of securing indigenous lands for 20 years represent at most 1% of the benefits derived. This is an incredible return on investment in the climate arena, and it is an issue that indigenous peoples have consistently called for for decades. It is also crucial to invest in the leadership and governance of indigenous peoples themselves to defend and carry out their priorities, as has been achieved under Brazil’s Territorial and Environmental Management Policy for Indigenous Lands (PNGATI).
Another issue we need to consider is global regulatory and trade policies, public budget allocations, tax regimes and finance, and international aid. The European Union’s deforestation-free import law is a welcome sign, as is the proposal to include a minimum annual tax of 2% on the wealth of the world’s billionaires that has been reached at the G20.
In the climate scenario, it is also worth highlighting social protection programs that now reach 2.5 billion households, including 20 million households in Brazil alone, or Mexico’s “Oportunidades” program, with cash transfers reaching 5 million families living in poverty. The program was entirely funded by the elimination of food subsidies to the non-poor and generated an economic multiplier of 1.1 for every dollar spent.
Finally, ongoing efforts to reduce institutional stratification and channel resources directly to indigenous-led funds, such as the Podáali Fund, can help direct some of the largest aggregations of resources to communities. This is crucial because most of this funding is currently channeled through multilaterals and international NGOs, and little of it, only 17%, actually reaches these peoples and communities.
The global conservation and climate movements will only achieve their goals if they drive a paradigm shift, one that eradicates the historical drivers of environmental destruction, poverty and inequality. More than ever, our actions must be intersectional. As we enter this season of global debate and cooperation for climate, biodiversity and the planet, we must remember to stand in reciprocity and care holistically for each other, the most vulnerable and indigenous and local peoples, the guardians of nature.
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