At the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26)

At the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26), a group of bilateral donors and philanthropic funders launched a Pledge to committing 1.7 billion USD between 2021-2025 to advance tenure rights and forest guardianship of indigenous peoples and local communities in tropical and subtropical forests. The Pledge is in recognition of the crucial contribution of indigenous peoples and local communities to protecting and managing these forests, while only a small fraction of climate-related funding reaches these peoples and communities.

With the Pledge aiming to increase the scale and quality of funds, some indigenous peoples and funders saw the need to discuss principles, standards and modalities that can best support indigenous peoples’ tenure rights and forest guardianship in line with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

In May 2022, Charapa Consult was contracted by the Ford Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation (support channelled through the Climate and Land Use Alliance - CLUA) as well as the Christensen Fund, to undertake an independent and inclusive process to assess principles, standards and mechanisms for best supporting indigenous peoples’ tenure rights and forest guardianship.