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:
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.
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.
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.
RFUS invests directly in Indigenous peoples’ organizations, and partners with them to strengthen their: integral governance; communications; and administrative, management, and financial capacities.
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.
In an op-ed featured on Mongabay, Miguel Guimaraes Vasquez, Vice President of the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Jungle (AIDESEP), and Wendy Pineda, General Project Manager of Rainforest Foundation US in Peru, discuss the importance of land rights for Indigenous peoples and the innovative land titling strategy already yielding record results in Peru.
The city of Iquitos, Peru, hosted an event dedicated to the protection of Amazonian wildlife. Organized by Rainforest Foundation US, the Regional Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the East (ORPIO), and the Regional Organization AIDESEP Ucayali (ORAU), and with financial support from the U.S. Embassy in Peru and the World Resources Institute (WRI), the event brought together a diverse group of 55 participants.
Indigenous peoples are, without question, the most effective stewards of our forests. Now, imagine the transformative power when they have access to advanced tools that amplify their efforts to safeguard their lands.
Check out this interview with Wendy Pineda Ortiz, General Project Manager of our Peru program, to learn how Indigenous peoples in the Peruvian Amazon are leveraging cutting-edge monitoring technology to fight deforestation.
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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Didier Devers
Chief of Party – USAID Guatemala
gro.y1726247185nffr@1726247185sreve1726247185dd1726247185
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.
