By Georgina Gustin, Inside Climate News, March 25, 2021
Vast forests across Latin America and the Caribbean that are critical for storing carbon and conserving biodiversity are under increasing assault from logging, mining and ranching. But the best defense to this deforestation lies with the people who have lived in the forests for hundreds or even thousands of years, a newly-released report from the United Nations says.
The report, published Thursday, reviewed roughly 300 studies that have looked at the role indigenous and tribal peoples have played as guardians of forest ecosystems in Latin America. These forested, richly biodiverse areas cover more than 400 million hectares—an area larger than Germany and France combined—and have a huge capacity to store carbon. About two-thirds of the area is in the Brazilian Amazon.
“There’s less deforestation and less harm to biodiversity in areas protected by indigenous people,” said Myrna Cunningham Kain, president of the Fund for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean (FILAC), who contributed to the report. “We’re providing evidence of what indigenous people have been saying for centuries.”
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