Philosophy
The mission of the Rainforest Foundation Fund is: "to protect and support indigenous people and traditional forest populations in their efforts to protect their environment and fulfill their right to a secure, healthy and ecologically sound environment." The Fund believes that environmental degradation necessarily violates human rights to life, health and culture.
The international community widely accepts that indigenous peoples are holders of a specific set of rights and are also the victims of historically unique forms of discrimination, and it enshrined this idea in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007.
The Rainforest Fund claims that its work is motivated by its recognition of a substantial disconnect between such declarations made by the governments of the world in an international forum, and the actions that those governments undertake in their own countries.
They mention as an illustration the controversy surrounding the Belo Monte Dam in Brazil: "While at the United Nations discussions are underway on the crucial issue of climate change, and governments are finally realizing that they have to change their pattern of development, in the Brazilian Amazon plans are well advanced to build environmentally destructive mega-dams along the Xingu River, the last of the great Amazon rivers in a good state of conservation." . [2] [3] [4] [5]
Method
The Rainforest Foundation Fund usually covers only about 80% of a project's total budget, leaving its grantee responsible for finding the remaining 20%, to avoid over-dependency on just one funding source. The fund grants money on a three-year basis, but will extend funding up to five years in certain circumstances. Grant-recipient's projects are evaluated annually.
The Rainforest Foundation Fund works with an extremely small staff, with only a chairperson (Franca Sciuto) and a part-time financial director/treasurer (Li Lu). The chairperson serves as a volunteer, and handles all project screening, interim assessments and post-project evaluations. Final decisions on projects and fund disbursement are made by the Rainforest Foundation Fund board. [6]
Rather than administrating large projects itself, the Fund believes that the primary beneficiaries, the indigenous peoples, should also be the primary administrators of the projects and they work through intermediary organizations to ensure they are equipped with the administrative structures, technology and trained leadership needed to carry out their projects.
Current work
The Rainforest Fund supports projects that defend indigenous people's rights to their lands and to live in a healthy environment.
The Fund assists rainforest indigenous communities by providing funding to help them achieve official demarcation of their territories and then ensure they are able to effectively defend their communities from violations of their rights including illegal logging, mining, other land invasions, and social disenfranchisement/denial of their rights as citizens.
Many of their projects work to uphold the right of indigenous peoples to grant or to withhold. Then their free, prior and informed consent to projects that will affect their land, resources and livelihoods, and to ensure that indigenous communities are given full information and have a voice in project negotiations and the policy design process.
It also makes grants to programs that assist communities in designing sustainable development strategies, and in strengthening their representative organizations.
Their grants support public awareness programs, technological training, community development, organizational capacity building, sustainable resource management, legal defense, and local, national, and international policy and advocacy.
2011 Supported Projects: [7]
- AFRICA:
- --Working across the three countries of the Congo Basin, this project focuses on the development of REDD policies designed to mitigate climate change. It works to ensure indigenous peoples have a voice in those policies, share in benefits, and have their land rights respected. The project also involves participatory mapping, advocacy surrounding national parks and community forestry, and advocacy for the full implementation of the ILO Convention 169.
- ASIA:
- --'Land is Life Reform' – A project which supports the legal cases at the national level that are working to stop all new logging operations in the country. [8]
- --In partnership with the Orang Asli communities, this projects works to connect the indigenous people's with conservation networks in the broader civil society, to promote women's empowerment, and to provide capacity-building to organizational leaders as they advocate for indigenous rights. [9]
- AMERICAS:
- --Working with the Mayan community and their NGO the Maya Leaders Alliance to obtain official recognition of nearly 500,000 acres of traditional lands and then to carry out the demarcation qualification process.
- --Supporting a project administered by the NGO Comunidad Viva to guarantee clean water access for the Ayoreo Community of Puesto Paz.
- --Working with the Tiriyo, Kaxuyana, and Wayapi indigenous groups of northeastern Brazil to build the capacity of their representative organization, Apitikatxi, and to ensure that public policy respect the indigenous peoples' rights to maintain their cultures and traditions. [10]
- --Supporting the Surui indigenous peoples in implementing a strategy for protecting their lands, the Surui Reserve, from illegal logging, thereby protecting the highly biodiverse Amazonian rainforest found on those lands. Also working with them to ensure proper implementation of their community's participation in a REDD program.
- --Supporting a project to assist the Orellana and Sucumbia indigenous peoples whose communities and environments are being negatively affected by oil exploitation – the project works to expose environmental abuse and defend indigenous rights to land, health, livelihood, and clean environment.
- --The Fund is working in partnership with UNICEF Ecuador to work to provide clean water to the communities affected by the oil industries' activities in and around their lands, which have caused serious water pollution. [11]
- --The Change Chevron Project, monitored by the Rainforest Action Network, works to put public and political pressure on Chevron to rectify the environmental damage its activities in the Ecuadorian Rainforest have caused. [12]
- --Working with the national NGO the Amerindian Peoples Association to ensure that Guyanese indigenous communities are well-educated on climate change and REDD programs and that they have a respected and significant degree of participation in the design and implementation of those programs.
- --Working with the representative NGO of the Kuna people, FPCI, as well as the national indigenous NGO, COONAPIP, to build organizational capacity and ensure that Panama's indigenous peoples participate in the design of, have their rights respected by, and are appropriate beneficiaries of various national climate change and REDD programs.
- --Working with the Wounaan people to achieve official land titles for over 470,000 acres of land belonging to 12 different communities and to assist them in defending their land and resources from outside threats. [13]
- --Supporting the Ashaninka communities in their effort to halt the construction of the Pakitzapango Dam which would affect their ancestral land over which they have official ownership. In spite of this, the government did not consult with the communities or receive their consent for the project.
- --Working with the Kandozi and Sharpa indigenous peoples of Datem del Marañón in the Peruvian Amazon to ensure that their right to health care is respected and fulfilled by the State, particularly that the government work to address a Hepatitis B epidemic in their communities.
- --The Rainforest Fund also recently undertook a special emergency project to provide support for the legal defense of the indigenous leaders facing charges from by the government due to the 2009 incident in Bagua, wherein police attacked the crowd after 55 days of nonviolent demonstrations supporting of indigenous rights, leaving 34 people dead. 109 cases were filed against 362 Peruvian indigenous leaders. [14]
Criticisms
In January 1990 the fund's first campaign came under fire by the French edition of 'Rolling Stone' magazine in an article that mentioned the failings of previous work in the rainforest and criticized the organization for holding lavish fundraising banquets. [15]
The 'Rolling Stone' article was used as the basis for a documentary by Granada Television's 'World in Action' program. The show, called 'Sting and the Indians', was re-broadcast in the United States on the A&E cable network hosted by Bill Kurtis. [16]
The primary claim of both was that the project in Brazil was misrepresenting the facts to donors, as some of the Kayapo's traditional land was already "protected" within the Xingu National Park. In fact, the Xingu Park is actually a large indigenous-controlled area, the first in Brazil, so it is an indigenous territory, not a national "park". Moreover, the Fund's initial project supported demarcation of the Mengkragnoti Area, which is right next to/contiguous with the Xingu Park, and did not demarcate the park itself.
The Xingu River is a 1,640 km (1,019 mi) river in north Brazil. It is a southeast tributary of the Amazon River and one of the largest clearwater rivers in the Amazon basin, accounting for about 5% of its water.
Indigenous peoples once comprised an estimated 2000 tribes and nations inhabiting what is now the country of Brazil, before European contact around 1500.
Francisco Alves Mendes Filho, better known as Chico Mendes, was a Brazilian rubber tapper, trade union leader and environmentalist. He fought to preserve the Amazon rainforest, and advocated for the human rights of Brazilian peasants and Indigenous peoples. He was assassinated by a rancher on 22 December 1988. The Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, a body under the jurisdiction of the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment, is named in his honor.
Altamira is one of one hundred and forty-four municipalities in the state of Pará, in northern Brazil. It has an area of 159,533.73 square kilometres or 61,596.32 square miles, making it the largest municipality by area both in Pará state and Brazil, and until 2009 it was the world's largest municipal subdivision. It occupies 12.8% of the state's territory, 1.8% of Brazil's territory and 0.8% of South America. It also covers a more extensive area than 104 countries, and is comparable to the US states of Missouri and Florida.
The Kayapo people are the indigenous people in Brazil who inhabit a vast area spreading across the states of Pará and Mato Grosso, south of the Amazon River and along the Xingu River and its tributaries. This pattern has given rise to the nickname the Xingu tribe. They are one of the various subgroups of the great Mebêngôkre nation. The term "Kayapo" is used by neighbouring groups rather than the Kayapo themselves. They refer to outsiders as "Poanjos".
Size of Wales is a climate change charity founded with the aim of conserving an area of tropical rainforest the size of Wales. The project currently supports seven forest protection projects and one tree planting project across Africa and South America. The charity focuses upon furthering the promotion of rainforest conservation as a national response to the global issue of climate change.
The Belo Monte Dam is a hydroelectric dam complex on the northern part of the Xingu River in the state of Pará, Brazil. After its completion, with the installation of its 18th turbine, in November 2019, the installed capacity of the dam complex is 11,233 megawatts (MW), which makes it the second largest hydroelectric dam complex in Brazil and the fifth largest in the world by installed capacity, behind the Three Gorges Dam, Baihetan Dam and the Xiluodu Dam in China and the Brazilian-Paraguayan Itaipu Dam. Considering the oscillations of flow river, guaranteed minimum capacity generation from the Belo Monte Dam would measure 4,571 MW, 39% of its maximum capacity.
Brazil once had the highest deforestation rate in the world and in 2005 still had the largest area of forest removed annually. Since 1970, over 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi) of the Amazon rainforest have been destroyed. In 2001, the Amazon was approximately 5,400,000 square kilometres (2,100,000 sq mi), which is only 87% of the Amazon's original size. According to official data, about 729,000 km² have already been deforested in the Amazon biome, which corresponds to 17% of the total. 300,000 km² have been deforested in the last 20 years.
The Guajajara are an indigenous people in the Brazilian state of Maranhão. They are one of the most numerous indigenous groups in Brazil, with an estimated 13,100 individuals living on indigenous land.
Fern is a Dutch foundation created in 1995. It is an international Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) set up to keep track of the European Union's (EU) involvement in forests and coordinate NGO activities at the European level. Fern works to protect forests and the rights of people who depend on them.
Environmental issues in Brazil include deforestation, illegal wildlife trade, illegal poaching, air, land degradation, and water pollution caused by mining activities, wetland degradation, pesticide use and severe oil spills, among others. As the home to approximately 13% of all known species, Brazil has one of the most diverse collections of flora and fauna on the planet. Impacts from agriculture and industrialization in the country threaten this biodiversity.
Amazon Watch is a nonprofit organization founded in 1996, and based in Oakland, California, it works to protect the rainforest and advance the rights of indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin. It partners with indigenous and environmental organizations in Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Brazil in campaigns for human rights, corporate accountability and the preservation of the Amazon's ecological systems.
Rainforest Foundation US is a non-profit NGO working in Central and South America. It is one of the first international organizations to support the indigenous peoples of the world's rainforests in their efforts to protect their environment and fulfill their rights to land, life and livelihood.
The Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK) is a non-profit NGO working in Africa and South America. It is one of the first international organizations to support the indigenous peoples of the world's rainforests in their efforts to protect their environment and fulfill their rights to land, life and livelihood. The Foundation aims to protect rainforests by securing the land rights of indigenous peoples and other forest-dependent communities. It also campaigns internationally on issues such as industrial logging, climate change, agricultural expansion and nature conservation.
Jean-Pierre Dutilleux is a Belgian author, activist, film director, actor and editor of films.
Raoni Metuktire, also known as Chief Raoni or Ropni, is an Indigenous Brazilian leader and environmentalist. He is a chief of the Kayapo people, a Brazilian Indigenous group from the plain lands of the Mato Grosso and Pará in Brazil, south of the Amazon River and along Xingu River and its tributaries. He is internationally famous as a living symbol of the fight for the preservation of the Amazon rainforest and indigenous culture.
Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) working to protect the world's rainforests and to secure the legal rights of their inhabitants. It is one of the largest rainforest organizations in the world, and collaborates with around 70 local and national environmental, indigenous and human rights organizations in 7 rainforest countries in the Amazon region, Central Africa and Southeast Asia. The organization works to support people in securing their rights and increase people's level of commitment to rainforest protection; to prevent policy and business interests from contributing to the destruction of the rainforest; and to consolidate policy and practice that serve to protect it. RFN engages in advocacy work in key international processes concerning rainforest issues.
The Amazon Region Protected Areas Program is a joint initiative sponsored by government and non-government agencies to expand protection of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil.
Antônia Melo da Silva is a Brazilian human rights activist and environmentalist. In 2017, she received the Alexander Soros Foundation Award for Environmental and Human Rights Activism for leading campaigns against the construction of the Belo Monte Dam and other environmentally harmful projects in the Amazon rainforest.
