Celebrating a partnership for people, nature & climate in the Congo Basin

September 24, 2024

5:00 PM EST onwards

HELEN MILLS -137-139 West 26th Street NYC 1000

For millennia, the Congo Basin’s Indigenous Peoples (IP) and local communities (LC) have helped conserve its biodiversity-rich forest ecosystems through their traditional knowledge and practices. But while funding for the Congo Basin has risen of late, much of it fails to reach communities’ own organizations.

For example, in 2022, 36% of all funding from the Forest Tenure Funders Group went to tropical forests in Africa, with 42% dedicated to the Congo Basin. However, most of these funds went to governments and large conservation organizations. There is a need to rethink funding for the Congo Basin’s communities’ movements and initiatives.

This event will highlight a unique global partnership to strengthen these communities’ collective land and forest rights, particularly of women, over 3,000,000 hectares of land in three target countries (the DRC, Republic of the Congo, and Gabon).

The project is a prime example of how regional and global allies can come together to effectively empower community-led efforts to advance global climate and biodiversity targets.

The project partners include the Central African Network of Indigenous and Local Populations for Sustainable Management of Forest Ecosystems in Central Africa (REPALEAC), RRI, Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, and Campaign for Nature, with support from Bezos Earth Fund, Packard Foundation, Christensen Fund, and Skoll Foundation through RRI’s IP and LC-led funding mechanism, CLARIFI.

• Meet & greet with project partners
• Documentary Premiere: Community voices from the DRC (Produced by Environews, Linapyco, and If Not Us Then Who).
• Networking & live music

Host or Publisher Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI)