Read about our work as it’s appeared in the press, as well as news from our partners on the ground through our stories, newsletters, multimedia, and reports. Members of the press can visit media resources to join our press list.
In this newsletter you can read about the expansion of our Rainforest Alert forest patrolling program, including payments for communities involved that are used for collective benefits. Also meet our Senior Geographer, and learn about the Justice for Saweto campaign.
Rainforest Foundation US has begun an unprecedented program of direct finance forest defense, wherein indigenous communities are financially rewarded for successfully protecting their territories against deforestation. In Puerto Alegre, on the Amazon River in Northern Peru, community members speak about the tremendous vulnerabilities confronting them.
Challenges have prevented funding from going directly to indigenous peoples who are key to combating the climate crisis. Rainforest Foundations outline key steps to ensuring climate and biodiversity funding gets to the frontlines.
As our rainforest protection program scales up throughout the region, a chance for exponential gains.
Guyana’s indigenous peoples are pushing for revisions to the Amerindian Act, the federal law that outlines their rights. Proposed changes include the right to collective territory, and upholding indigenous groups’ land titling to fight extractive industries.
Marie Claire highlights RFUS and other environmental groups to support, on Earth Day and every day.
A Panamanian governmental agency annulled the land claim of Aruza, an indigenous Wounaan village sitting on 31 square miles of primary rainforest in the Darien Gap. With the support of Rainforest Foundation US, Aruza is legally challenging the decision.
The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts increasingly unstable water availability. Trace the stories of our indigenous partners who are already seeing these impacts and what it means for the urgency of rainforest protection.
The inauguration of the hub holds promise for indigenous communities to strengthen land security amidst rising risks and invasions.
Indigenous peoples and local communities launch the Mesoamerican Territorial Fund, a regional financial mechanism, to address inequity in climate finance.
Mongabay features Ticuna forest patrollers, part of RFUS’s Rainforest Alert program, who use their mobile phones to document festivals and traditions of community artisans.
As the year comes to a close, RFUS takes stock of the progress, victories, and lessons we learned in 2021.
Didier Devers
Chief of Party – USAID Guatemala
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Didier has been coordinating the USAID-funded B’atz project since joining Rainforest Foundation US in April 2022. He holds a Master’s in Applied Anthropology and a Bachelor’s in Geography. Before joining the organization, Didier worked for 12 years in Central and South America on issues of transparency, legality, governance, and managing stakeholders’ processes in the environmental sector. Prior to that he worked on similar issues in Central Africa. He speaks French, Spanish, and English, and is based in Guatemala.
