A global fund aims to boost climate financing to indigenous communities to help them secure land rights and preserve forests from the Congo Basin to the Andes.

The Community Land Rights and Conservation Finance Initiative (CLARIFI) will distribute funding among indigenous groups working to conserve forests and other ecosystems on the ground, enabling them to map their lands and have their ownership formally recognised, as well as helping to develop community-led management and conservation plans.

CLARIFI – which is being led by the NGO, Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) alongside the Campaign for Nature network – will act as the “missing link” between donors that want to curb climate change and conserve biodiversity, and forest groups with the skills to do that.

Governments, philanthropists and companies are expected to contribute to CLARIFI, which aims to contribute to raising US$10 billion by 2030.

The initiative will start by passing on grants of $25 million from the Bezos Earth Fund – set up by the founder of e-commerce giant Amazon, Jeff Bezos – to communities in the Congo Basin and the tropical Andes mountains.

Over the last decade, less than 1% of international climate finance has gone to indigenous and local communities to manage forests that absorb planet-heating carbon emissions and are rich in biodiversity.

Moreover, Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and community women who are notably forest and household managers, food providers, and rural enterprise leaders have had their land and resource rights particularly constrained by unjust laws and practices.

The new fund hopes to change such issues. CLARIFI believes that the climate financing will help indigenous communities to achieve global goals to conserve at least 30% of the planet by 2030.

It is also expected that CLARIFI will provide technical and organisational support to build the ability of local groups to tap into and deploy funding to protect the world’s ecosystems.

Image Credit: Annie Spratt/Unsplash

CLARIFI

Rosa Medea is Life & Soul Magazine’s Chief. She writes about lifestyle including sustainable and green living