Tropical forests are a fundamental starting point for tackling climate change for a more sustainable future. Within them they preserve a rich biodiversity and host forest communities and indigenous peoples, traditional protectors for generations of these forests but themselves at risk. Deforestation crisis, mining operators, agribusiness, drug traffickers, poachers and even governments are killing these communities.
Activist Alec Baldwin, speaking at the 18th session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on 23 April 23 in New York, said: «Climate change is hitting hardest those who have done least to cause it, especially the world’s indigenous peoples from the Arctic to the tropics». Only In 2017, 207 environmental defenders were killed protecting their lands, a disproportionate number of them indigenous people.
However, new responses in defense of the forest are coming up. The international multi-religious alliance called “Interfaith Rainforest Initiative” of the United Nations hosted the event “Forest Defenders: New Threats and New Responses”. The meeting compiled lessons from existing initiatives about best practices in defending the defenders of rainforest. Among the proposals are campaigns against the criminalization of indigenous peoples, defense of land and environmental defenders, community apps to support their battle.
Iyad Abumoghili, UN Environment’s coordinator of the Faith for Earth initiative, said: «People of faith are natural environment defenders building on their religious beliefs and sacred scripts. Mobilizing faith leaders is essential to bring back the values and ethical principles of faiths to restore and protect forests and God’s creation».
UN Environment’s Interfaith Rainforest Initiative is part of a wider effort on the part of UN Environment to mobilize greater awareness of environmental rights violations around the world and the need for civil society to promote environmental rights as captured in UN Environment’s environmental defenders policy and its Environmental Rights Initiative.