Campaign for Nature
January 11, 2022
As the role played by Indigenous Peoples and local communities in safeguarding the planet gains long-due recognition by global climate and conservation initiatives, their representatives and allies have launched a new mechanism to finance locally-led efforts with full respect for the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
The Community Land Rights and Conservation Finance Initiative (CLARIFI), led by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) and Campaign for Nature (C4N), will mobilize and strategically deploy public and private funds to scale up the legal recognition of Indigenous Peoples’, Afro-descendant Peoples’, and local communities’ rights, as well as their efforts to strengthen their conservation of natural resources, traditional livelihoods, and gender justice.
About 1.8 billion Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities claim, inhabit and steward the earth’s most critical ecosystems, including its forests. Securing their rights and following their guidance is a powerful bottom-up opportunity to address the catastrophic threats facing the planet. For example, RRI estimates that 33% of the Earth’s tropical forest carbon is at risk without recognizing community rights to their lands. Securing these rights will avoid 1.1 to 7.4 GtC02e of emissions.