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The Chiquitano forest, a 23-million-hectare tropical dry forest spanning eastern Bolivia and western Brazil, is one of South America’s most unique ecosystems. Home to over 3,000 plant species and 1,200 vertebrate species, including jaguars and giant anteaters, it provides critical ecosystem services for approximately 3 million people, including Indigenous peoples, local communities, small-scale farmers, and agribusiness operations.

Environmental Human Rights Defenders are globally under severe threat. To help address this, IUCN NL initiated a three-year programme in five countries to strengthen the security and resilience of its partners and the Indigenous and local communities they work with in forest landscapes. We teamed up with Protection International who trained and supported them to better understand the risks they face and to develop strategies that enhance their safety and wellbeing.

In Bolivia’s Northern Amazon, the basins of the Beni and Madre de Dios rivers encompass the Madidi National Park. This is one of the most biodiverse areas in the continent, which is home to 26 Indigenous Originary Campesino Territories, approx. 500 mammal species, approximately 1000 bird species, including Red List species such as the jaguar and spectacled bear. Alluvial gold mining has caused severe environmental destruction and human rights. Interconnected strategies that combine evidence generation, engagement with international human rights reporting mechanisms, and alliance building have been crucial to demand accountability and advance water justice.

Locally-led, gender-just approaches are the most effective path to halt deforestation and advance real climate action, yet Indigenous peoples and local communities, especially women, are often overlooked in decision-making that concerns their land and natural environment. At the Climate Change COP30 in Belem last month, framed as the Forest COP, the Green Livelihoods Alliance (GLA) and the Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action (GAGGA) organised a side event on the topic. 

Shifting the decision-making power in conservation efforts from distant actors to those with ancestral, cultural, relational, material and/or spiritual ties to the land is a promising and necessary way forward. Indigenous People and Local Communities (IP&LCs) know best how to care for and defend the land, often based on generations of knowledge accumulation. For the Green Livelihoods Alliance (GLA), this approach of locally-led sustainable development is more than a principle, it is seen as the basis for real and lasting change. A new report on locally-led sustainable development, co-produced by IUCN NL and Tropenbos International, gives insight into the perspectives and experiences of partners in the GLA.

Adopted in June 2023, the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) represents a landmark step toward reducing deforestation and forest degradation linked to the production of agricultural commodities. It established a robust framework requiring traders and operators to ensure full traceability, compliance with national laws in producing countries, and the elimination of deforestation from supply chains.