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CLUA Priorities for Support & Geographic Focus
From grassroots to global, we support those working for an equitable, climate-safe world. Learn about what we support and where we focus.
COLOMBIA & PERU
We support efforts to conserve and restore Colombia and Peru’s tropical forest systems; to ensure Indigenous Peoples, Afro-Descendant Peoples, and local communities secure and freely exercise their territorial and environmental rights; and to strengthen civil society and governance for greater equity and climate resilience.
Priorities For Support
In Colombia and Peru, the Climate and Land Use Alliance seeks to advance sustainable, transparent, and equitable solutions to the threats jeopardizing regional and global climate resilience, ecological balance, and people’s rights and well-being.
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Why Colombia & Peru?
Globally, the Amazon biome plays a critical role maintaining the Earth’s climate by removing carbon from the atmosphere and regulating rainfall patterns. Together, Peru and Colombia contain roughly a quarter of the Amazon basin. Located in the transition between the Andes and the Amazon, these countries are key in socio-cultural and ecosytem connections between the Andean and Amazonian forests and highland ecosystems. This connection is fundamental to securing water resources and other environmental services. Additionally, the Colombian Chocó works as a biological corridor between the Amazon and the Pacific, and Central and South America. Its biodiversity, climate regulation, and traditional Afro-Descendant knowledge are essential to the health of tropical rainforests. Protecting these ecosystems also tackles common threats like deforestation and unsustainable resource use.
Both countries’ governments recognize the value of these forests and the direct relationship between expanding community land rights and decreasing deforestation rates. Yet, the process for Indigenous and Afro-Descendant communities to secure and effectively exercise rights to their lands, remains inaccessible for many. As a result, progress on conserving tropical forest systems while increasing equity and resilience has been slow.
In their efforts to protect their tropical forests, the people of the Andean-Amazon and Choco regions often face a volatile and challenging context. Cattle ranching, mining, illegal logging, land grabbing, industrial agriculture, and illicit crop cultivation are driving deforestation in the Colombian and Peruvian Amazon. Deforestation and land degradation also represent the greatest source of conflict across the Amazon biome, exacerbated by criminality.
Despite the threats, significant opportunities exist in Peru and Colombia to strengthen the ecological and cultural integrity of the region. By focusing on collaboration between Indigenous Peoples, and Afro-Descendant Peoples, as well as local communities, civil society, governments, and the private sector; significant progress can be made toward conserving and restoring tropical forest systems and increasing climate resilience, while promoting equity and safeguarding territorial rights, increasing security and well-being, supporting livelihoods, and protecting life.
What We Support
We focus on protecting the environmental health and diverse cultures of the Andean-Amazon region of Colombia and Peru and the Colombian Chocó ecoregion. We support efforts led by civil society organizations, including Indigenous Peoples and Afro-Descendant Peoples, and local communities, to advance the protection and restoration of critically endangered ecosystems, secure collective, and territorial rights, and build more diverse, inclusive and climate-resilient societies.
WE SUPPORT EFFORTS TO:
The Climate and Land Use Alliance supports those working to strengthen and assert Indigenous and Afro-Descendant Peoples’, and local communities’ rights, developing regenerative forest economies, increasing participation in decision-making processes, and building resilience for their lands and people.
We Support
- Full Rights Recognition
Supporting Indigenous and Afro-Descendants Peoples’, and local communities’ efforts to assert and exercise their land and collective rights, while ensuring policies enhance their autonomy, security, and well-being. - Regenerative Forest Economies
Contributing to Indigenous Peoples’, Afro-Descendants Peoples’, and local communities’ livelihoods and well-being through locally-led forest-based economies, including through public and private sector support. - Autonomous Community Organizations
Ensuring Indigenous Peoples’, Afro-Descendant Peoples’, and local communities’ organizations have strong governments and direct access to the resources they need to effectively engage in governance spaces, advocate for their rights and well-being, protect biodiversity, and combat illegal and unsustainable activities in their territories. - Technological Tools
Ensuring Indigenous Peoples, Afro-Descendant Peoples, and local communities have access to the technologies they need to protect their territories and forests, advance regenerative forest economies, and improve food security and risk management.
The Climate and Land Use Alliance supports organizations working to enhance policies, expand formal protection of tropical forests, improve understanding of the patterns of crime and violence to mitigate their effects, and protect human rights and environmental defenders.
We Support
- Sustainable Land Use and Climate Policies
Increasing effective policies and regulations for sustainable land use and climate resilience, social and environmental justice, and equitable economies. - Effective Forest Protection
Encouraging the establishment of new protected areas and other conservation models and the legal recognition of collective territories to enable effective forest and natural resource management. - Increased Accountability
Promoting greater transparency, accountability, and oversight to address the key drivers of deforestation and forest degradation and their social and environmental impacts. - Protecting Land and Rights Defenders
Ensuring human rights and environmental defenders are protected from violence, crimes, and criminalization. - Ending Environmental Crime and Rights Violations
Preventing and reducing environmental crime, violence, and criminalization through a better understanding of forest and environmental crimes and violence, and supporting Indigenous Peoples, Afro-Descendant Peoples, and local communities and other organizations in their responses.
The Climate and Land Use Alliance supports the work of movements, communities, civil society organizations, and leaders to advocate for their priorities – amplifying their voices to shift and shape powerful narratives that enable the protection of forests, their stewards, and all life.
We Support
- Research and Insights
Supporting partners and allies in Peru and Colombia to increase communications, strengthen narratives, reach key audiences, and deliver impactful strategies. - Building Capacity and Amplifying Voices
Supporting and amplifying priority spokespeople, topics, and messages, and strengthening the quantity and quality of media and digital coverage of forest protection and collective rights. - Reducing the Impact of Misinformation and Polarization
Supporting effective communications by providing data, analysis, and capacity building, and supporting the health of media ecosystems. - Media Pluralism and Access to Information
Supporting efforts to reduce ‘information deserts’ and strengthen local voices, agendas, and narratives. - Inclusive Civic Space
Supporting locally-led initiatives to protect and expand public and civic spaces, to support people and nature.
The Climate and Land Use Alliance supports organizations working in Colombia and Peru to end the impunity and finance fuelling deforestation, rights violations, and illegality by improving transparency and accountability around investments. We also support efforts aimed at increasing direct funding to Indigenous Peoples, Afro-Descendant Peoples, and local communities as the main stewards of tropical forest systems.
We Support
- Direct Funding to Forest Communities
Increasing Indigenous Peoples’, Afro-Descendant Peoples’, and local communities’ control over and access to forest and climate finance. - Increased Financial Transparency and Oversight
Promoting greater transparency and oversight of national and international investment to mitigate potential negative environmental and social impacts of infrastructure, extractive industries, agribusiness, and other drivers of deforestation. - Increased Accountability
Fostering greater accountability in national and international investments and new financial flows linked to forest conversion and conservation.
The Climate and Land Alliance supports those seeking to grow healthy and regenerative forest economies, pushing private sector actors towards transparency and accountability, and working to mitigate the social and environmental impacts of unsustainable extraction and infrastructure.
We Support
- Strong Standards for Infrastructure and Extractive Industries
Increasing coordination between civil society, government, and local communities to prevent the negative impacts of unsustainable infrastructure and extractive projects. - High Integrity in Forest Carbon Markets
Ensuring forest carbon markets operate with high social and environmental integrity, including by promoting rights recognition, benefit sharing, and real reductions in both fossil fuel use and land use emissions. - Regenerative Forest Economies
Promoting climate-resilient, regenerative forest economies that support local livelihoods and mitigate the impacts of illegal economies - Deforestation- and Conflict-Free Supply Chains
Advancing efforts to remove deforestation, land conversion, and rights violations from supply chains and ensuring science, innovation, and technology enable the development of regenerative forest economies and sustainable value chains.
Grants
We unfortunately do not accept unsolicited grant proposals.
The Climate and Land Use Alliance member foundations work closely together to identify funding opportunities and make grants aligned with our shared priorities.
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Where Else We Focus
The Climate and Land Use Alliance also supports work in these tropical forest regions:
Updates
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Priorities for Support in Colombia & Peru
We support sustainable, transparent, equitable solutions for climate resilience, ecological balance, and people’s rights and well-being.
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Short Film: Perspectives on Forests, Lands, and Rights
To learn from diverse perspectives, we interviewed leaders about their priorities for action on forests, lands, and rights. Here’s what they shared.
