The Role of Communities in Forest Protection
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Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities and Afrodescendants (IP, LC & ADs) play a vital role in safeguarding tropical forests.
These communities manage vast swathes of the world’s remaining tropical forests and bring essential knowledge, values, and stewardship practices to their protection.
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Effective forest protection depends on their meaningful involvement - respecting rights, recognizing knowledge, and enabling fair and equitable sharing of benefits.
Voices of the Forest
Afro-Ecuadorian, Indigenous, and Local Perspectives on forest protection
About Emergent
​Emergent works with forest governments and buyers to channel funding into high-integrity jurisdictional REDD+ (JREDD+) programs.
These government-led programs reduce deforestation across entire countries and regions and are designed to support forest protection while delivering benefits for Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities and Afrodescendants (IP, LC & ADs).
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All programs must meet strict social and environmental safeguards, including requirements for participation, transparency, and equitable benefit sharing.
Above: Emergent team members celebrate signing a landmark agreement with Ecuador to access $30m in climate finance via the LEAF Coalition, Puyo, 2025
How Jurisdictional REDD+ Supports IP, LC & ADs
Scaling Finance to Support Livelihoods and Sustainable Development​​
Emergent mobilizes large-scale climate finnace to support government-led jurisdictional REDD+ (JREDD+) programs.
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These programs reduce deforestation across entire countries and regions by creating sustainable alternatives to forest loss and strenghtening forest protection policies.
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They are designed to provide long-term, predictable finance that deliver benefits for communities and local livelihoods.
Participation and Benefit Sharing in Practice
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Meaningful participation and fair benefit sharing are central to how these programs operate.
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Communities are engaged through consultation processes that shape program design and how funds are used, including the development of transparent Benefit Sharing Plans.
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These plans ensure finance delivers tangible local benefits. Without clear evidence of consultation and robust benefit-sharing arrangements, jurisdictional credits cannot be issued.
Social and Environmental Safeguards
All programs must meet strict social and environmental safeguards and respect the rights of IP, LC & ADs.
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Credits are issued under high-integrity standards such as ART TREES and the World Bank’s FCPF, which require participation, transparency, and equitable benefit sharing.
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These standards are consistent with the principles of the Cancun Safeguards, and, in the case of TREES, explicitly operationalize them within the standard.
Under these safeguards, governments are required to:
1) Respect IP, LC & AD rights and traditional knowledge.
2) Ensure full and effective participation of IP, LC & ADs.​