Indigenous Peoples Lead Conservation of Latam Forests - Report

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported on Thursday that deforestation rates in the territories of the Indigenous people in Latin America and the Caribbean are up to 50 percent lower than elsewhere, which turns them into the best guardians of these regions.

RELATED:

Honduras: Indigenous Activist Carlos Cerro Shot Dead

According to the report, Indigenous peoples "physically occupy 404 million hectares in Latin America." This represents about one-fifth of the total area of the region. However, the communities have been the hardest-hit by deforestation and forest fragmentation.

Between 2000 and 2016, the area of Indigenous forests has decreased by 20 percent in Bolivia, 30 percent in Honduras, 42 percent in Nicaragua, and 59 percent in Paraguay. Moreover, in Brazil, deforestation increased by 150 percent in Indigenous territories between and 2016 and 2018.

However, the territories protected by these communities produce "almost 30 percent of the carbon stored in Latin America's forests and 14 percent of the carbon in the tropical forests worldwide." In comparison, these forests "store more carbon than all the forests in Indonesia or the Democratic Republic of Congo, the two countries with the most tropical forest after Brazil," the report highlights.