The critical value of indigenous climate stewardship

In August, I traveled by bus, small plane, and canoe to the sacred headwaters of the Amazon, in Ecuador. It's a place with very few roads, yet like many areas in the rainforest, foreign business interests have made contact with its peoples and in just the last decade have rapidly changed the landscape, scarring it with mines or clearcutting for cattle ranching.

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The Amazon Rainforest is rightly called the “lungs of the planet.” It stores approximately 56.8 billion metric tons of carbon, equivalent to nearly twice the world’s yearly carbon emissions. With more than 2,500 tree species that account for roughly one-third of all tropical trees on earth, the Amazon stores the equivalent to 10—15 years of all global fossil fuel emissions. The “flying rivers" generated by the forest affect precipitation patterns in the United States, as well our food supply chains, and scientists are warning that in the face of accelerating climate change, deforestation, drought, and fire, the Amazon stands at a perilous tipping point, according to the Tribune News Service.

As world leaders prepare to meet this November at the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference, known as COP 30, in Belém, Brazil, the future of the Amazon — and the climate system that depends on it— hangs in the balance.

On the plus side, there is growing interest among US investors and foundations in projects that will lead to regrowth of the rainforest. But too often, when companies enter the carbon sequestration market, profits flow back to them almost exclusively.