The world's best rainforest guardians already live there

In areas of Brazil where land tenure is formalized, indigenous peoples' reforestation projects are increasing forest cover.

A team of rangers primarily made up of women is protecting 620 acres of forest around their village in Damaran Baru, Indonesia. The rangers' main priority is having conversations with squatters to prevent them from clearing the trees to use the soil, but they also provide important ecological information to researchers and act as environmental stewards.

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.

In Central African Republic, the first community forest was created with the hope of reversing the area’s deforestation and empowering the Indigenous communities living in the forests. By placing the community forest inside a logging zone, local inhabitants can explore alternatives to timber production that are more eco-friendly. While the future of the country’s community forest depends on government negotiations, the model can provide a road map for other Indigenous communities throughout the region.

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.

The Decolonizing Wealth Project is a network of people working together to create more equitable, capital opportunities for communities of color, with an emphasis on Indigenous land keepers. Through its work with other groups, the project offers a series of grant opportunities like the Indigenous Earth Fund to provide Indigenous-led organizations with the resources needed to target climate and conservation issues.

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.

In Benin, indigenous beliefs, knowledge, and traditional governance systems are helping communities protect biodiversity and adapt to climate change. Vodun, a spiritual practice that protects fragile and vital ecosystems, has enabled the preservation of more than 1,200 acres of mangroves over the last decade.

A forest management tradition practiced by the Indigenous Higaonon in the Philippines called panlaoy helps to protect the local ecosystems from threats. In this practice tribal elders teach young volunteers to immerse in, observe, assess, and document the condition of the ecosystem.

Indigenous communities in Canada are setting aside millions of acres of land for conservation and research by making agreements with the Canadian government.