| Dear Friends,
Building on our successful participation at COP30 in Belém, Forest Trends’ Communities and Territorial Governance Initiative (CTGI) is excited to continue our work across Latin America. From restoring forests to strengthening community-led climate solutions, testing digital tools for farmers, and promoting Indigenous cultures, our work continues to focus on one core priority: ensuring communities are at the center of climate action.
Following our support of Aldeia COP, our partnership with Brazil’s Ministry of Indigenous Peoples (MPI) continues to deepen, with a focus on strengthening Indigenous territories across Brazil’s major biomes. Grounded in Indigenous leadership and co-designed with representative organizations, the initiative supports governance, access to climate finance, and sustainable forest economies, all while leveraging the capacity of leaders and institutions to manage their territories and develop biodiversity-based value chains.
With the progress of the past year, the period ahead presents a pivotal opportunity. Yet momentum only translates into durable outcomes when communities have the tools, tenure security, and financial systems they need to lead on the ground. CTGI’s work is designed for this moment—advancing the legal, technical, and ecological infrastructure needed to make rights-based climate finance operational across Latin America.
We’re pleased to share our latest updates below and a sneak peek at what lies ahead!
All the best,
Beto Borges,
Director of the Communities and Territorial Governance Initiative |
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CTGI has launched Phase 2 of its Jurisdictional REDD+ work in Brazil and Mexico, building on earlier efforts to strengthen trust, governance, and the participation of Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples (IPs, LCs, and ADPs) in climate programs.
The first phase revealed a clear gap. Our State of Climate and Conservation Finance for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities report, for instance, found that while around $1.9 trillion flows into climate and conservation finance each year, only about one percent reaches communities directly, confirming that many systems still limit community access and control. |
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Our findings highlight the need to secure land rights, improve benefit sharing, and recognize communities as decision makers. To help close this gap, CTGI launched the IPLC Resources Center, an online platform with practical climate finance tools designed for IPs & LCs in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, as well as the “Understanding Climate Finance” series. Now, Phase 2 shifts from learning to action: building the systems and tools that make climate finance work on the ground.
Read more.
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| Our team reached a major milestone in early 2026, mobilizing efforts to plant more than one million native trees in the Atlantic Forest through the Arboredo project, in addition to 1.3 million trees already planted with Indigenous communities in the Amazon with support from the Arbor Day Foundation.
Within our established restoration and agroforestry platform, CTGI is also expanding digital innovation for family farmers. In partnership with Digital Green, we’ve piloted FarmerChat, an AI-powered tool that provides practical guidance on agriculture and land management through a simple chat interface. In Brazil, the pilot reached hundreds of farmers in the Ribeira and Paraíba Valleys—connecting restoration, livelihoods, and technology to better support communities on the ground to make informed decisions.
Read more. |
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| In partnership with Landesa, CTGI published Consultation and Free, Prior, and Informed Consent: A Referential Practice for Carbon Projects, which outlines a ten-step process for integrating free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) throughout the carbon project lifecycle.
As carbon markets scale globally, this protocol provides practical guidance to developers, governments, and investors seeking to reduce social risk while strengthening tenure security and benefit sharing, by promoting best practices for climate finance.
Read more. |
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CTGI supported the launch of Balaio de Memórias, a digital platform created by Ikoré to preserve and share the history of Brazil’s Indigenous movement.
This work goes beyond archiving. Providing Indigenous Peoples access to their documented history strengthens governance, supports rights claims, and equips communities for negotiations. Without it, they face a structural disadvantage.
Read more. |
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We have ambitious goals for the coming year, including launching the Restaura Amazônia project, which aims to support more than 100 families and restore over 200 hectares of degraded land in its first phase of work. We will also continue advancing JREDD+ engagement principles across Brazil and Mexico, working to prepare stakeholders to participate in carbon funding opportunities, as well as deepening the connection between restoration and climate finance in the Atlantic Forest.
Local communities stewarding the world’s last intact forests are actively governing, restoring, and defending their territories under pressure, often without the finance and legal protection their role demands. We are working hard to close that gap: continuing to build out our historic partnership with Brazil’s Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, and building the governance infrastructure, rights-based finance systems, and cross-sector partnerships that match the scale of what Indigenous Peoples and local communities are already doing. |
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If this is work you believe in, we invite you to be part of what comes next and support Forest Trends’ Communities and Territorial Governance Initiative.
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