Download our 2019 Annual Report (Note: Google Chrome users may need to download this PDF in order to view it correctly.)

Uncertain times for forest peoples

With the global spread of COVID-19, indigenous peoples and local communities face new challenges. While we don’t yet know the full impacts, we do know that they face difficulties beyond those experienced by other populations in national societies.

We are concerned about forest-dependent communities living far from urban settings, often with rudimentary healthcare provision, where the impacts of the coronavirus could be severe. At the same time, we see governments using the pandemic as a cover for the deregulation of damaging industries, intensification of resource extraction and removal of environmental regulations. This offers impunity to illegal and unscrupulous actors, and can allow for the expansion of harmful businesses, increased deforestation and the repression of forest peoples.

We will be working closely with these communities and our partners, responding to their needs and continuing to hold these actors to account in the months ahead.

Looking back

This Annual Report highlights important advances for forest peoples at the local and global levels. In Peru, for example, Shipibo organisations in Ucayali, Forest Peoples Programme (FPP) and local legal partners completed major efforts to challenge harmful government plans to open up 3.5 million hectares of indigenous territories and forests to agribusiness development. Actions included local legal actions and international pressure including from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Globally, FPP continues to make space for the voices of those with whom we work. Indigenous and community leaders, FPP and international allies launched the Zero Tolerance Initiative, pushing for an end to attacks on environmental and human rights defenders in supply chains.

With our local partners, we helped influence several other major government and certification initiatives. These included pushing for stronger regulations for UK and EU companies in deforestation-risk supply chains, and closing loopholes that allow shadow companies in the palm oil sector to escape the scrutiny of certification schemes.

Indigenous peoples and local communities, closely supported by FPP, have ensured that their perspectives, wisdom and solutions on how to address the current global humanitarian, ecological and climate crises are prominent in the ongoing discussions around post-2020 biodiversity agreements at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. And we have continued to support forest peoples from Costa Rica to Cameroon, from Kenya to Indonesia, to take legal action and file complaints when their rights have been abused and their lands threatened.

James Whitehead

Director, Forest Peoples Programme

Download our 2019 Annual Report (Note: Google Chrome users may need to download this PDF in order to view it correctly)