The world’s Indigenous Peoples and communities are more important players in the battle against climate change than anyone ever knew. A new report from the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) and WRI found that Indigenous Peoples and local communities manage at least 54,546 million metric tons of carbon (Mt C) in the tropical forests they live in globally, or just under one-quarter of the total carbon found aboveground in the global tropics. That’s about 250 times the carbon dioxide emissions from global air travel in 2015! And this is likely an underestimate. While the study relied on the most complete data available on indigenous and community lands, these landscapes are chronically underrepresented in maps. Some estimates suggest that as much as 50 to 65 percent of the world’s land is managed by Indigenous Peoples and communities. (Learn more on LandMark: The Global Platform of Indigenous and Community Lands.)