A Battle to Protect Forests Unfolds in Central Africa

Collaboration between the Hmong community, researchers, and park authorities in northern Thailand has allowed them to work together to restore the forest in Doi Suthep-Pui National Park. Between 1997 and 2013, they used assisted regeneration to restoring 33 hectares of forest, which also increased the area’s natural flora and fauna. Because of their efforts, their approach is being implemented in tropical forests around the world, including Cambodia, Madagascar, and Tanzania.

Finding common ground between environmentalists, logging companies, and indigenous communities to protect the Great Bear Rainforest in Canada took years of discussion and even a dance at an Elton John concert. But these groups were able to negotiate an agreement to make 3.1 million hectares of rainforest off limits to logging, allow 500,000 hectares available for forestry, and strengthen First Nations rights. The process could be a model for what reconciliation can look like among competing interests.

Members of the A’i Kofán de Sinangoe Indigenous guard keep watch over the part of the Amazon rainforest their community resides in. With the help of technological tools like drones and camera traps, they are able to prevent invasions and illegal activity on their land — which often goes hand-in-hand with preventing deforestation and pollution.

Empowering Indigenous peoples in Indonesia with land rights allows them to protect and manage rainforests and biodiversity. One tribe that’s doing so, the Kajang, relies on substance agriculture and does not allow practices like cutting down trees, hunting, or using technology on most of the land.

Women “warriors” of the indigenous Guajajara people in Brazil use drones to patrol their territory of the Amazon rainforest in an effort to prevent deforestation. Because of their work, they have been able to cut deforestation down to just 63 hectares in 2018 compared with 2,000 hectares in 2016. While the work can be dangerous and difficult at times, the women are committed to protecting the forests as a way to combat climate change. “If we don’t act, there would be no forest standing,” says one of the women warriors.

A native tree species known as the kauri is being threatened by a deadly pathogen in New Zealand, so Western scientists, the government, and the Māori people are working together to stop it. Early tests suggest that chemical signals from other plants might be able to distract the pathogen and slow down the spread of it. However, collaboration between scientists and indigenous people was not easy, but they were able to build trust between each other.

After decades of failed legislation, over 17,000 acres of public land was finally restored to the Umpqua Tribe with the passage of the Western Oregon Tribal Fairness Act. The land was a constant source of tension between the tribe, the government, and environmental conservation groups, “under the pretext that Native peoples didn’t know how to manage them.” But in December 2018, with the passage of the Act and the return of 3% of the land that was originally seized, a sense of justice was felt.

After initially not involving the indigenous Q’eqchi community in designating land for the Río Sarstún Multiple Use Area – land that this community lives on – the government and the Q’eqchi since partnered together to advance conservation efforts and land management. Over a decade later, the two stakeholders work together on things like overfishing and ecotourism, part of a larger global trend of governments and local communities working collaboratively toward conservation.

A community of mananambal, or healers, in the Philippines are helping to conserve the forests around their community by practicing their sustainable, healing traditions and spiritual beliefs. They protect the nature around them because it is considered a source of healing and home to spirits, and they only prune trees and gather herbs in ways that promote growth.

After there was a fungal disease outbreak in the 1990s that affected cacao crops in Brazil, a group of 150 community members got together to collectively manage a farm to grow back cacao trees using agroforestry techniques. Because of their efforts, they sell their cacao to major chocolate brands and have seen their monthly income more than double.