Our latest Land Dialogues session “Who Keeps Rainforests Standing?” took place on June 23 at London Climate Action Week. The event brought together leaders from the Amazon, the Congo Basin, and Southeast Asia to explore a key question: Who shapes decisions over forests, and how do those decisions hold over time?
Across rainforest regions, many of the world’s most intact forests lie within Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local community territories, where governance is shared across governments, laws, customary institutions, and territorial systems; sometimes aligning, sometimes in tension.
Speakers drew on territorial governance experiences to reflect on what helps forests remain standing over time and what this means for climate and conservation efforts. The discussion focused on what is actually working on the ground, beyond high-level commitments.
Some key takeaways from the discussion:
1. Forest governance is about more than forest management. It starts with recognizing who governs territories, strengthening self-determination, and ensuring Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities have a voice in decisions that affect their lands.
2. Accountability, legitimacy, and collective decision-making are essential for long-term conservation. When communities govern forests, stewardship is rooted in responsibility, identity, and lived experience.
3. Indigenous governance systems are holistic. They connect forests, rivers, livelihoods, culture, spirituality, and future generations, demonstrating that forest governance cannot be separated from territorial governance.
4. Forests thrive when communities thrive. Effective conservation depends on supporting the well-being, knowledge systems, and governance structures of the people who live in and care for these territories.
5. The priority is not to create new governance systems, but to recognize, strengthen, and directly support the Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local community governance systems that have protected forests for generations.