Event Theme: Restoration

Now, more than ever, is the time to increase ambition and seize opportunities for a ‘quantum’ shift in the scale of funding for tropical forest protection and research. This session, organized by the Green Gigaton Challenge and partners, will showcase concrete examples of the radical inclusivity and collaboration needed to achieve tropical forest protection at scale. Together, speakers from Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC) organizations, NGOs and public-private tropical forest protection initiatives (including LEAF and CONSERV) will discuss key ingredients for successful, equitable and inclusive forest partnerships, as well as how opportunities generated by the Challenge can be leveraged to advance financial flows to forests in IPLC-managed lands.

The Bioeconomy concept emerged in recent years as a silver bullet to halt deforestation, promote economic growth and reduce poverty in the Amazon. Despite this enthusiasm, there is little clarity about what exactly bioeconomy means. In this session, we invite voices from across the Amazonian region to reflect with us, including representatives from Indigenous communities, youth, entrepreneurs, academics and policymakers. Is there in fact one Amazonian bioeconomy? What are the most effective paths to promote socioenvironmental development in the Amazon?

Around the world, religious and faith-based groups are sparking action to protect and restore forests in the fight against climate change. With support from the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative (IRI), senior religious leaders are rallying their communities to act, educating a new generation of forest advocates, and calling on governments and the private sector to strengthen commitments towards the protection of forests and Indigenous rights. This 90-minute session will showcase innovations from IRI country programs in Brazil, Colombia and Peru, and explore how interfaith partnerships can advance existing efforts to protect and restore the Amazon.

Join us for an informal facilitated networking session. Guided by conversational menus, you will have the opportunity to connect with fellow conference participants in short breakout sessions.
These sessions are offered in Spanish (21 Sep), English (22 Sep), and Portuguese (23 Sep).

Today, Colombian filmmaker, commentator and producer Diana Rico will host a panel with two filmmakers – Estevão Ciabatta from Brazil, and Alessandro Angulo from Colombia. Using their films Amazônia S.A. (Ciabatta) and El Sendero de la Anaconda (Angulo) as a starting point, they’ll discuss their experiences documenting environmental and social problems in the Amazon, including their interactions with the protagonists of these stories. Next, we’ll screen two films by Brazilian non-profit cultural institute Itaú Cultural.

The Amazon is not only an important storehouse of the world’s biodiversity and CO2, but equally a home to millions of people from different countries and tribes, with various cultures and landscapes that shape their livelihoods. Investments in agriculture, mining, timber, and also livestock activities are currently causing great damage to local landscapes, considerably affecting the livelihoods of millions of people and making them vulnerable to climate change. This finance plenary seeks to examine ways in which financing solutions can lead to responsible activities on landscapes and how they can help build sustainable value chains in ways that are both inclusive and resilient for the Amazon and beyond. Discussions would also focus on innovative financial solutions inspired by local initiatives.

Since its inception in the late 1990s, the MAP initiative – a trinational effort to accelerate sustainable forest and land use in the Peruvian, Brazilian and Bolivian Amazon – has been building an evidence base for the effectiveness of transboundary cooperation in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With a special focus on SDGs 13 (Climate Action) and 4 (Quality Education), this session will present key insights and learnings from across the initiative’s 22-year history.

Imagine you are having a coffee with an expert on gender and environmental governance, what would you ask them? During this brief session, we will have the opportunity to discuss with Dr. Iliana Monterroso and explore the need for mainstreaming policies and actions reflecting gender equality and environmental protection in the Amazon rainforest.

This session will be in Spanish.

This session reports preliminary lessons learned from gender inclusive initiatives that have increased women’s participation in conservation and development in the Brazilian, Colombian and Peruvian Amazon. These cases cover a diverse collection of indigenous, Afro-descendant and peasant women from across the region. The session will facilitate a discussion of findings from multiple grassroots efforts where women increased participation in natural resource decision making, gained more secure access to natural resources, or improved benefits from natural resource management. The goal will be to gain feedback from a regional audience to synthesize widely applicable lessons for others.

Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) are key allies in the fight against forest and biodiversity loss, but challenges in land tenure are obstructing their guardianship. Full recognition and formalization of their rights is a must for conservation and climate change mitigation globally, as evidenced by multiple research papers on the link between deforestation and land tenure insecurity. This session, hosted by the Ford Foundation, will examine key linkages between conflict, ecosystem health and land rights in the Amazon region, and highlight the urgent need for full participation of IPLCs in global climate and conservation agendas moving forwards.