This report highlights the importance and urgency for climate action initiatives of protecting the forests of the indigenous and tribal territories1 and the communities that look after them.2 Based on recent experience, it proposes a package of investments and policies for climate funders and government decision-makers to adopt, in coordination with the indigenous and tribal peoples. The indigenous and tribal peoples that inhabit Latin America and the Caribbean’s forest regions find themselves in a paradoxical situation. Despite being rich in natural and cultural resources, they are poor in monetary incomes and access to public services. This report addresses both aspects. It proposes measures that take advantage of indigenous and tribal peoples’ natural and cultural riches to mitigate and adapt to climate change and protect wildlife and biological diversity, while reducing extreme poverty, food insecurity and social conflict. The COV ID-19 pandemic makes such measures more urgent than ever. The indigenous and tribal peoples are among the groups most affected by the virus and its economic impacts, and the pandemic underscores how forest destruction and biodiversity loss can fuel zoonotic diseases that put human lives at risk.
