Six Indigenous leaders become the world's first ambassadors for primary forests

At the COP17 biodiversity conference in Yerevan, the IUCN has named six Indigenous leaders as the first-ever Indigenous Peoples Ambassadors for Primary Forests — the planet's oldest, most intact woodlands. They are Puyr dos Santos Tembé, who supports Indigenous territorial governance and restoration in the Brazilian Amazon; Julio Cusurichi Palacios, who strengthens forest protection and Indigenous participation in decision-making in Peru's Amazon; Joseph Itongwa Miukumo, advancing community-conserved territories in DR Congo; Herkulanus Sutomo Manna, a Dayak Iban leader strengthening customary forest governance in West Kalimantan, Indonesia; Maimuna Jawara, documenting traditional ecological knowledge across the Senegambia region; and Pirawan Wongnithisathaporn, connecting Indigenous knowledge to forest policy in Thailand. The programme, funded by the Global Environment Facility and run with the UN Forum on Forests, exists for a reason the evidence keeps confirming, as IUCN Director General Dr Grethel Aguilar put it: securing Indigenous land rights and respecting traditional knowledge are among the most effective ways to protect forests and biodiversity there are.

SDG 15 · Life on land — Mechanism: institutional program