Forest communities are the best stewards

Forests are the nexus of our planet's major ecosystems and home to hundreds of indigenous cultures and forest communities. Forests are also the setting for many of the most acute ecological and social conflicts over globalization and industrialization.

Deforestation, illegal logging and soil erosion affect local and global climate, water cycles and species diversity. They also affect the livelihoods of the indigenous peoples and forest communities who rely on tropical forest ecosystems.

Indigenous peoples key to forest protection

The most important actions curbing tropical forest destruction have arisen out of local peoples' struggles to secure land rights for indigenous peoples and traditional forest-dwelling populations, and struggles to maintain sustainable economic livelihoods for these forest peoples.

Forest dwellers' civil society organizations and leaders are critical allies in efforts to conserve tropical forests and increasingly they provide input to national and international policies to reduce deforestation.

Indigenous peoples have lived in and used forests throughout human history. Regions that we often think of as "wilderness" or "pristine nature" have in fact been inhabited over the long term.

The Amazon, for example, probably had a higher population before 1500 A.D., when Europeans first arrived, than any other time until the last few decades. Large parts of the indigenous population died from diseases introduced by European colonizers; areas that appear "pristine" today were once inhabited. Many scientists think that low-level human occupation of forests may actually increase species diversity by creating small-scale ecological disturbances.

Indigenous peoples often stand to lose the most from predatory development, including illegal logging, unchecked agricultural expansion and industrial-style development in tropical forests. They are critical allies in conservation efforts.