The governments of four countries, along with several philanthropies and donors, have renewed a $1.8 billion pledge over the next four years to help recognize, manage and protect Indigenous and other traditional community land. The Forest and Land Tenure Pledge, first made in Glasgow at the 2021 U.N. Climate Change Conference, provided $1.86 billion in funding from 2021-2024, with one year of the pledge remaining. About 7.6% of the funding in 2024 went directly to Indigenous peoples and local community organizations, rather than through intermediaries. In the renewed pledge, which will run from 2026-2030, donors committed to increase the share of direct funding toward these communities. “Despite threats to their lives and rights to their territories, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant communities lead much of the global effort to mitigate and adapt to climate change and to halt and reverse biodiversity loss,” the signatories wrote in the new pledge, announced in Belém, Brazil, ahead of the U.N. Climate Change Conference, also known as COP30, on Nov. 6. “We will continue efforts to increase the share of direct, long-term, and flexible financing, ensuring communities have genuine decision-making power and influence over how funds are used,” they added. Each donor reports its spending independently to the Forest and Land Tenure Funders Group, which oversees the pledge. The group then publishes aggregate data of the details; a breakdown of donation amounts by funders or recipients isn’t made publicly available. Dozens of donors are listed among the signatories, but the group’s latest report…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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