UN Report: Indigenous people of Latin America are the Best in Forest Conservation

Conserving Latin America's forests is important to fight the climate disaster and deforestation is lower in native regions.

The embattled native peoples of Latin America are the best guardians of the areas' forests by far, according to a UN announcement, with deforestation rates up to 50 percent lower in their areas than elsewhere.

(Photo : Tom Fisk)

Climate Disaster 

Preserving the massive forests is extensive to battling the climate disaster and decreasing wildlife populations, and the report discovered that understanding the rights of tribal and native individuals to their land is one of the major cost-significant efforts.

The repot also suggests for the peoples to be reimbursed for the environmental advantages their stewardship offers, and for financing for the regeneration of their ancestral understanding of living in peace with nature.

Still, the need for timber, soy, beef, minerals, and oil mean to pose a risk to the native people and their forests are increasing. Hundreds of community leaders have been murdered due to the conflicts over land in previous years and the Coronavirus plague has also contributed to the dangers forest peoples face.

Also Read: Natural Forest Regeneration: Better than Tree Planting?

Amazon is Approaching a Breaking Point 

Requirements by native peoples for their rights have turned increasingly obvious in previous years, the news reports explained, though this has arrived with murders, rising persecution, and racism.

Benefiting these natives to maintain the forests is especially significant now with researchers cautioning that the Amazon is approaching a breaking point where it changes from rainforest to savannah, risking the discharge of billions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere.

The announcement was created by FILAC (the Fund for the Development of Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization based on a analysis of over 300 research.

The Amazon Basin 

Nearly half of the entire forests in the Amazon basin are in native territories and the proof of their crucial role in forest conservation is quite obvious, explained Myrna Cunningham, the president of Filac, a native woman from Nicaragua.

While the region's entire forest decreased by merely 5 percent between 2000 and 2016 in the region's native places, in the non-native regions it declined by 11 percent. This is why [native individuals'] vision and voice should be carried into consideration in all worldwide initiatives associating with biodiversity, forestry, and climate change.

(Photo : Veeterzy)

Theory of Forests 

"Native peoples have a distinct theory of forests, they are not taken as a place where you use the resources to make yourself rich - they are recognized as a place where we live and that is given to us to safeguard down to the next generations."

Tribal and native areas contain around a third of the entire carbon preserved in the forests of Latin America, explained the FAO's zonal Representative Julio Berdegué: "These individuals are rich when you talk about the knowledge, natural resources, and culture, but many of the poorest when it comes to access and incomes to services." 

Assisting them would also help  prevent fresh pandemics, he explained, as these are quite often the outcome of destroying nature. 

Related Article: Scientists Say Proper Reforestation in Tropical Forest, and Savannah Biomes in Africa Is Crucial

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