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 addition to our core work in partnership with indigenous peoples, Rainforest Foundation US undertakes special projects that respond to our partners’ most pressing challenges. Check out our topical initiatives and campaigns.
Indigenous women from rainforests around the world are uniting to fight for the health of the planet in their unique and powerful ways. Whether as activists, politicians, or mothers, they are bringing back ancestral knowledge and are determined to fight for their communities and the Earth.
For the United Nations, the 2023 theme for International Women’s Day is “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality.” Discover how indigenous woman leaders in Loreto, Ucayali, and Madre de Dios in Peru are protecting the Amazon rainforest using monitoring technologies.
Rainforest Foundation US has partnered with the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests (AMPB) to support the expansion of the Mesoamerican Leadership School, a youth leadership development program in Mexico and Central America.
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.
Didier Devers
Chief of Party – USAID Guatemala
gro.y1680413173nffr@1680413173sreve1680413173dd1680413173
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.
