Small wooden buildings on stilts along a river in the Amazon rainforest

Approach

Rainforest Foundation US (RFUS) partners with indigenous peoples to protect vital rainforest ecosystems and address the climate crisis. We provide support to indigenous communities and organizations to secure their rights to their traditional lands and livelihoods. As an organization, RFUS prides itself on being nimble and flexible, engaging with our partners over the long term on initiatives based on their priorities and aspirations. 

The following are among the key ways RFUS supports its partners:

Territorial Monitoring

RFUS’s territorial monitoring program, called Rainforest Alert, provides training, tools and financial support to indigenous organizations to map, monitor, and secure their territories using cost effective technology like smartphones and drones.

Land Management

RFUS advises communities to build participatory, bottom-up land management plans to protect their forests and to set the stage for sustainable livelihoods that respect their values, beliefs, and ways of life.

Policy & Advocacy

RFUS supports partners to advocate for national and international policy change as it relates to indigenous peoples’ rights, forest protection and restoration, natural resource management, climate action, and biodiversity preservation.

Institutional Strengthening

RFUS invests directly in indigenous peoples’ organizations and partners with them to strengthen integral governance, communications, administrative, management and financial capacities.

Land Titling & Legal Intervention

RFUS works with indigenous peoples to obtain legal representation to secure land rights, settle disputes, and seek justice for human rights violations perpetrated against environmental defenders.

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Rainforest Foundation US is tackling the major challenges of our day: deforestation, the climate crisis, and human rights violations. Your donation moves us one step closer to creating a more sustainable and just future.

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Adam Janos
Writer and Editorial Content Specialist

Adam Janos is Rainforest Foundation US’s lead writer and storyteller, translating programmatic impacts and capturing the human face of RFUS’s partnerships for the organization’s priority engagement needs. He brings over 10 years of professional writing experience to the organization, having contributed to several outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Budapest Times, and A&E, amongst others. He’s also a published fiction writer and playwright. Adam holds a Master’s in Creative Writing from Rutgers University-Camden. He is bilingual in Hungarian and fluent in Spanish, which he learned while traveling the Pan-American Highway in his early twenties. That’s also when he came to know the rich indigenous cultures of the continent and the stunning forests that house them, ultimately guiding him to this work.