Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

Deforestation in Peru and wider Amazon is an existential challenge that requires new and innovative approaches. 24% of the Peruvian Amazon (c.1.8 million hectares) is titled and controlled by Indigenous communities. Indigenous peoples are known to be effective leaders in forest governance. They are exceptional environmental defenders and instrumental in the fight against climate change, particularly in the region of Madre de Dios. The Amazon, home to some of Earth‚ most unique biodiversity, covers 90% of Madre de Dios. Illegal mining and logging, the expansion of drug cultivation and traffic, endemic corruption and violence against environmental defenders are amongst the gravest threats to forests and indigenous communities. 
Rainforest Foundation UK has worked in Madre de Dios in partnership with FENAMAD since 2015. FENAMAD is an indigenous organisation that responded to pressures on the forest through the creation of Veedur as Forestales Ind genas. Veedur as are now officially recognized monitoring initiatives, which empower local communities to report on crime that occurs within their territories. Our ForestLink technology helped take FENAMAD‚ Veeduria to the next level by providing easy to use technology, a successful capacity building approach, as well as enabling a more systematic response to alerts raised by community monitors. ForestLink‚ Collectaur app enables local communities to send alerts anonymously, while FENAMAD receives, analyses and responds to them by alerting the authorities. The system has been successful in prompting control missions, arrests and seizures; it has enabled communities to defend their territorial boundaries; and uncovered cases of widespread corruption in Madre de Dios.

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Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs) and their rights are at the heart of RFUK‚ ethos. However, IPLCs still mostly lack rights to lands they have lived on and protected for centuries. Even where these rights do exist, they face increasing illegal encroachment, political marginalisation and threats for peacefully defending their home. Development assistance seldom gets to where it is most needed with forest communities receiving only 0.1 percent of climate funding. This is particularly striking as forests under indigenous control are known to store more carbon and harbour more biodiversity than protected areas. They also cost far less to manage than strictly protected areas. ForestLink empowers Indigenous peoples (IPs) in the Amazon, using our tech to monitor and defend their territories. Our partner FENAMAD is an Indigenous representative organisation who work very hard to defend the interest of IPs. Through ForestLink, we work with seven different Indigenous groups. 
IPs in Peru are discriminated and marginalised from political processes, and from basic state services, including education, health care and policing. Although in Peru, IPs do have collective ownership of their lands, and they have protected them remarkably well, they face constant invasions and have very limited support to resist these encroachments. Additionally, administrative processes for IPs to update their land titles are protracted and often inaccessible. ForestLink empowers an indigenous strategic vision conceived by IPs within their own territories. Community based real time monitoring strengthens the ability of the Indigenous movement to enhance the rule of law. This is especially important as many IPs groups live in voluntary isolation. 
Engagement of Indigenous communities is especially strong within our ForestLink project and made more significant by the concrete efforts that FENAMAD have made to incorporate a gender perspective into their work. We celebrate women in leadership and ensure that there is a gender component throughout all of our projects. For ForestLink to be truly successful, community inclusion has to be a priority. Every community member brings a unique skill set and perspective to the monitoring process. RFUK and FENAMAD work to ensure women are involved in each stage of community-based forest monitoring, from the selection of monitors to community advocacy activities. Out of 62 community monitors in Peru, 6 are women, which is the highest ratio out of all the countries ForestLink is active in. RFUK also recently supported FENAMAD to collect baseline data and develop a gender policy, which they adopted in 2021. Now, we are working to incorporate specific recommendations around gender into day to day monitoring activities. 
FENAMAD also encourages a fair representation of ages and beliefs within their monitor selection and ongoing activities.

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