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Wikipedia

Rainforest Foundation Fund

January 01, 1970

The Rainforest Foundation Fund is a charitable foundation founded in 1987 and dedicated to drawing attention to rainforests and defending the rights of indigenous peoples living there.[1]

Rainforest Foundation Fund
Founded1987
TypeNon-governmental organization
FocusEnvironmentalism
Location
Area served
Global
MethodGrant-making, Lobbying, research
Key people
Sting, Trudie Styler, Franca Sciuto, Li Lu
Revenue
$ 1,234,981 (2006)
Employees
155
Websiterainforestfund.org

The fund provides support to indigenous rainforest peoples to assert and defend their rights, to define and promote sustainable development in their communities, and to challenge the activities and practices of governments or other entities which damage their environment and lands. The programs and projects are developed in partnership with local communities and representative indigenous NGOs.

History edit

 
The Chief Raoni and Sting in 1989, in Paris.

The Rainforest Foundation Fund was first founded in 1989 as the Rainforest Foundation International, by Sting and his wife Trudie Styler after an indigenous leader, Raoni, of the Kayapo people of Brazil made a personal request to them to help his community protect their lands and culture. Since then, the Rainforest Foundation Fund has funded projects that have protected a total of 28 million acres of forest in 20 different rainforest countries around the globe.

Philosophy edit

The mission of the Rainforest Foundation Fund is: "to protect and support indigenous people and traditional forest populations in their efforts to protect their environment and fulfill their right to a secure, healthy and ecologically sound environment." The Fund believes that environmental degradation necessarily violates human rights to life, health and culture.

The international community widely accepts that indigenous peoples are holders of a specific set of rights and are also the victims of historically unique forms of discrimination, and it enshrined this idea in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007.

The Rainforest Fund claims that its work is motivated by its recognition of a substantial disconnect between such declarations made by the governments of the world in an international forum, and the actions that those governments undertake in their own countries.

They mention as an illustration the controversy surrounding the Belo Monte Dam in Brazil: "While at the United Nations discussions are underway on the crucial issue of climate change, and governments are finally realizing that they have to change their pattern of development, in the Brazilian Amazon plans are well advanced to build environmentally destructive mega-dams along the Xingu River, the last of the great Amazon rivers in a good state of conservation." .[2][3][4][5]

Method edit

The Rainforest Foundation Fund usually covers only about 80% of a project's total budget, leaving its grantee responsible for finding the remaining 20%, to avoid over-dependency on just one funding source. The fund grants money on a three-year basis, but will extend funding up to five years in certain circumstances. Grant-recipient's projects are evaluated annually.

The Rainforest Foundation Fund works with an extremely small staff, with only a chairperson (Franca Sciuto) and a part-time financial director/treasurer (Li Lu). The chairperson serves as a volunteer, and handles all project screening, interim assessments and post-project evaluations. Final decisions on projects and fund disbursement are made by the Rainforest Foundation Fund board.[6]

Rather than administrating large projects itself, the Fund believes that the primary beneficiaries, the indigenous peoples, should also be the primary administrators of the projects and they work through intermediary organizations to ensure they are equipped with the administrative structures, technology and trained leadership needed to carry out their projects.

Current work edit

The Rainforest Fund supports projects that defend indigenous people's rights to their lands and to live in a healthy environment.

The Fund assists rainforest indigenous communities by providing funding to help them achieve official demarcation of their territories and then ensure they are able to effectively defend their communities from violations of their rights including illegal logging, mining, other land invasions, and social disenfranchisement/denial of their rights as citizens.

Many of their projects work to uphold the right of indigenous peoples to grant or to withhold. Then their free, prior and informed consent to projects that will affect their land, resources and livelihoods, and to ensure that indigenous communities are given full information and have a voice in project negotiations and the policy design process.

It also makes grants to programs that assist communities in designing sustainable development strategies, and in strengthening their representative organizations.

Their grants support public awareness programs, technological training, community development, organizational capacity building, sustainable resource management, legal defense, and local, national, and international policy and advocacy.

2011 Supported Projects:[7]

AFRICA:
--Working across the three countries of the Congo Basin, this project focuses on the development of REDD policies designed to mitigate climate change. It works to ensure indigenous peoples have a voice in those policies, share in benefits, and have their land rights respected. The project also involves participatory mapping, advocacy surrounding national parks and community forestry, and advocacy for the full implementation of the ILO Convention 169.
ASIA:
--'Land is Life Reform' – A project which supports the legal cases at the national level that are working to stop all new logging operations in the country.[8]
--In partnership with the Orang Asli communities, this projects works to connect the indigenous people's with conservation networks in the broader civil society, to promote women's empowerment, and to provide capacity-building to organizational leaders as they advocate for indigenous rights.[9]
AMERICAS:
--Working with the Mayan community and their NGO the Maya Leaders Alliance to obtain official recognition of nearly 500,000 acres of traditional lands and then to carry out the demarcation qualification process.
--Supporting a project administered by the NGO Comunidad Viva to guarantee clean water access for the Ayoreo Community of Puesto Paz.
--Working with the Tiriyo, Kaxuyana, and Wayapi indigenous groups of northeastern Brazil to build the capacity of their representative organization, Apitikatxi, and to ensure that public policy respect the indigenous peoples' rights to maintain their cultures and traditions.[10]
--Supporting the Surui indigenous peoples in implementing a strategy for protecting their lands, the Surui Reserve, from illegal logging, thereby protecting the highly biodiverse Amazonian rainforest found on those lands. Also working with them to ensure proper implementation of their community's participation in a REDD program.
--Supporting a project to assist the Orellana and Sucumbia indigenous peoples whose communities and environments are being negatively affected by oil exploitation – the project works to expose environmental abuse and defend indigenous rights to land, health, livelihood, and clean environment.
--The Fund is working in partnership with UNICEF Ecuador to work to provide clean water to the communities affected by the oil industries' activities in and around their lands, which have caused serious water pollution.[11]
--The Change Chevron Project, monitored by the Rainforest Action Network, works to put public and political pressure on Chevron to rectify the environmental damage its activities in the Ecuadorian Rainforest have caused.[12]
--Working with the national NGO the Amerindian Peoples Association to ensure that Guyanese indigenous communities are well-educated on climate change and REDD programs and that they have a respected and significant degree of participation in the design and implementation of those programs.
--Working with the representative NGO of the Kuna people, FPCI, as well as the national indigenous NGO, COONAPIP, to build organizational capacity and ensure that Panama's indigenous peoples participate in the design of, have their rights respected by, and are appropriate beneficiaries of various national climate change and REDD programs.
--Working with the Wounaan people to achieve official land titles for over 470,000 acres of land belonging to 12 different communities and to assist them in defending their land and resources from outside threats.[13]
--Supporting the Ashaninka communities in their effort to halt the construction of the Pakitzapango Dam which would affect their ancestral land over which they have official ownership. In spite of this, the government did not consult with the communities or receive their consent for the project.
--Working with the Kandozi and Sharpa indigenous peoples of Datem del Marañón in the Peruvian Amazon to ensure that their right to health care is respected and fulfilled by the State, particularly that the government work to address a Hepatitis B epidemic in their communities.
--The Rainforest Fund also recently undertook a special emergency project to provide support for the legal defense of the indigenous leaders facing charges from by the government due to the 2009 incident in Bagua, wherein police attacked the crowd after 55 days of nonviolent demonstrations supporting of indigenous rights, leaving 34 people dead. 109 cases were filed against 362 Peruvian indigenous leaders.[14]

Criticisms edit

In January 1990 the fund's first campaign came under fire by the French edition of 'Rolling Stone' magazine in an article that mentioned the failings of previous work in the rainforest and criticized the organization for holding lavish fundraising banquets.[15]

The 'Rolling Stone' article was used as the basis for a documentary by Granada Television's 'World in Action' program. The show, called 'Sting and the Indians', was re-broadcast in the United States on the A&E cable network hosted by Bill Kurtis.[16]

The primary claim of both was that the project in Brazil was misrepresenting the facts to donors, as some of the Kayapo's traditional land was already "protected" within the Xingu National Park. In fact, the Xingu Park is actually a large indigenous-controlled area, the first in Brazil, so it is an indigenous territory, not a national "park". Moreover, the Fund's initial project supported demarcation of the Mengkragnoti Area, which is right next to/contiguous with the Xingu Park, and did not demarcate the park itself.

See also edit

Footnotes edit

  1. ^ "Sting Issues Statement On Amazon Fires: "This Is Criminal Negligence On A Global Scale"". Stereogum. 2019-08-27. Retrieved 2020-07-09.
  2. ^ Sarah Anne Hughes. "Brazil approves Belo Monte dam, despite fierce opposition, James Cameron Speaks Out" The Washington Post. 01 June 2011.
  3. ^ "Amazon Watch's 'Stop the Belo Monte Dam' Campaign 2011-11-12 at the Wayback Machine"
  4. ^ Karen Hoffmann. "Belo Monte dam marks a troubling new era in Brazil's attitude to its rainforest" The Ecologist. 16 August 2001.
  5. ^ Reuters. "Brazil approves Belo Monte hydroelectric dam" guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 1 June 2011
  6. ^ Rainforest Foundation Fund 2006/2008 Report " (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-04-12. Retrieved 2011-11-14.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)"
  7. ^ Rainforest Foundation Fund Website "[1] 2011-12-05 at the Wayback Machine"
  8. ^ The Conversation "Dodgy logging: are Papua New Guinea’s forests going the way of Indonesia’s?" 2 November 2011.
  9. ^ Center for Orang Asli Concerns "[2]"
  10. ^ NEWSLETTER OF THE INTERNATIONAL RANGER FEDERATION "The Thin Green Line 2012-04-03 at the Wayback Machine" October–December 2005.
  11. ^ UNCIEF News "UNICEF National Ambassador Trudie Styler brings clean water project to Ecuador 2012-03-16 at the Wayback Machine" 15 June 2009.
  12. ^ "Change Chevron Project Page Archived 2012-04-05 at the Library of Congress Web Archives"
  13. ^ nativefuture.org "Wounaan Take Land Rights Claims to Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine" October 28, 2008.
  14. ^ Gregor MacLennan. "Bagua Anniversary: One Year After Violent Clashes in Peru, Situation for Indigenous Rights Little Improved 2011-08-22 at the Wayback Machine" Commondreams.org. June 10, 2010.
  15. ^ Chris Campion. "Walking on the moon: the untold story of the Police and the rise of new wave rock." John Wiley and Sons, 2009. pp 237- 240 "[3]
  16. ^ Elaine Dewar. "Cloak of green." James Lorimer & Company, 1995. pp. 421 "[4]"

January 01, 1970
rainforest, foundation, fund, this, article, rely, excessively, sources, closely, associated, with, subject, potentially, preventing, article, from, being, verifiable, neutral, please, help, improve, replacing, them, with, more, appropriate, citations, reliabl. This article may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject potentially preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral Please help improve it by replacing them with more appropriate citations to reliable independent third party sources July 2020 Learn how and when to remove this message The Rainforest Foundation Fund is a charitable foundation founded in 1987 and dedicated to drawing attention to rainforests and defending the rights of indigenous peoples living there 1 Rainforest Foundation FundFounded1987TypeNon governmental organizationFocusEnvironmentalismLocationNew York City United StatesArea servedGlobalMethodGrant making Lobbying researchKey peopleSting Trudie Styler Franca Sciuto Li LuRevenue 1 234 981 2006 Employees155Websiterainforestfund org The fund provides support to indigenous rainforest peoples to assert and defend their rights to define and promote sustainable development in their communities and to challenge the activities and practices of governments or other entities which damage their environment and lands The programs and projects are developed in partnership with local communities and representative indigenous NGOs Contents 1 History 2 Philosophy 3 Method 4 Current work 5 Criticisms 6 See also 7 FootnotesHistory edit nbsp The Chief Raoni and Sting in 1989 in Paris The Rainforest Foundation Fund was first founded in 1989 as the Rainforest Foundation International by Sting and his wife Trudie Styler after an indigenous leader Raoni of the Kayapo people of Brazil made a personal request to them to help his community protect their lands and culture Since then the Rainforest Foundation Fund has funded projects that have protected a total of 28 million acres of forest in 20 different rainforest countries around the globe Philosophy editThe mission of the Rainforest Foundation Fund is to protect and support indigenous people and traditional forest populations in their efforts to protect their environment and fulfill their right to a secure healthy and ecologically sound environment The Fund believes that environmental degradation necessarily violates human rights to life health and culture The international community widely accepts that indigenous peoples are holders of a specific set of rights and are also the victims of historically unique forms of discrimination and it enshrined this idea in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007 The Rainforest Fund claims that its work is motivated by its recognition of a substantial disconnect between such declarations made by the governments of the world in an international forum and the actions that those governments undertake in their own countries They mention as an illustration the controversy surrounding the Belo Monte Dam in Brazil While at the United Nations discussions are underway on the crucial issue of climate change and governments are finally realizing that they have to change their pattern of development in the Brazilian Amazon plans are well advanced to build environmentally destructive mega dams along the Xingu River the last of the great Amazon rivers in a good state of conservation 2 3 4 5 Method editThe Rainforest Foundation Fund usually covers only about 80 of a project s total budget leaving its grantee responsible for finding the remaining 20 to avoid over dependency on just one funding source The fund grants money on a three year basis but will extend funding up to five years in certain circumstances Grant recipient s projects are evaluated annually The Rainforest Foundation Fund works with an extremely small staff with only a chairperson Franca Sciuto and a part time financial director treasurer Li Lu The chairperson serves as a volunteer and handles all project screening interim assessments and post project evaluations Final decisions on projects and fund disbursement are made by the Rainforest Foundation Fund board 6 Rather than administrating large projects itself the Fund believes that the primary beneficiaries the indigenous peoples should also be the primary administrators of the projects and they work through intermediary organizations to ensure they are equipped with the administrative structures technology and trained leadership needed to carry out their projects Current work editThe Rainforest Fund supports projects that defend indigenous people s rights to their lands and to live in a healthy environment The Fund assists rainforest indigenous communities by providing funding to help them achieve official demarcation of their territories and then ensure they are able to effectively defend their communities from violations of their rights including illegal logging mining other land invasions and social disenfranchisement denial of their rights as citizens Many of their projects work to uphold the right of indigenous peoples to grant or to withhold Then their free prior and informed consent to projects that will affect their land resources and livelihoods and to ensure that indigenous communities are given full information and have a voice in project negotiations and the policy design process It also makes grants to programs that assist communities in designing sustainable development strategies and in strengthening their representative organizations Their grants support public awareness programs technological training community development organizational capacity building sustainable resource management legal defense and local national and international policy and advocacy 2011 Supported Projects 7 AFRICA Central African Republic Cameroon Democratic Republic of the Congo Working across the three countries of the Congo Basin this project focuses on the development of REDD policies designed to mitigate climate change It works to ensure indigenous peoples have a voice in those policies share in benefits and have their land rights respected The project also involves participatory mapping advocacy surrounding national parks and community forestry and advocacy for the full implementation of the ILO Convention 169 dd dd ASIA Papua New Guinea Land is Life Reform A project which supports the legal cases at the national level that are working to stop all new logging operations in the country 8 dd dd Malaysia In partnership with the Orang Asli communities this projects works to connect the indigenous people s with conservation networks in the broader civil society to promote women s empowerment and to provide capacity building to organizational leaders as they advocate for indigenous rights 9 dd dd AMERICAS Belize Working with the Mayan community and their NGO the Maya Leaders Alliance to obtain official recognition of nearly 500 000 acres of traditional lands and then to carry out the demarcation qualification process dd dd Bolivia Supporting a project administered by the NGO Comunidad Viva to guarantee clean water access for the Ayoreo Community of Puesto Paz dd dd Brazil Working with the Tiriyo Kaxuyana and Wayapi indigenous groups of northeastern Brazil to build the capacity of their representative organization Apitikatxi and to ensure that public policy respect the indigenous peoples rights to maintain their cultures and traditions 10 dd dd Supporting the Surui indigenous peoples in implementing a strategy for protecting their lands the Surui Reserve from illegal logging thereby protecting the highly biodiverse Amazonian rainforest found on those lands Also working with them to ensure proper implementation of their community s participation in a REDD program dd dd Ecuador Supporting a project to assist the Orellana and Sucumbia indigenous peoples whose communities and environments are being negatively affected by oil exploitation the project works to expose environmental abuse and defend indigenous rights to land health livelihood and clean environment dd dd The Fund is working in partnership with UNICEF Ecuador to work to provide clean water to the communities affected by the oil industries activities in and around their lands which have caused serious water pollution 11 dd dd The Change Chevron Project monitored by the Rainforest Action Network works to put public and political pressure on Chevron to rectify the environmental damage its activities in the Ecuadorian Rainforest have caused 12 dd dd Guyana Working with the national NGO the Amerindian Peoples Association to ensure that Guyanese indigenous communities are well educated on climate change and REDD programs and that they have a respected and significant degree of participation in the design and implementation of those programs dd dd Panama Working with the representative NGO of the Kuna people FPCI as well as the national indigenous NGO COONAPIP to build organizational capacity and ensure that Panama s indigenous peoples participate in the design of have their rights respected by and are appropriate beneficiaries of various national climate change and REDD programs dd dd Working with the Wounaan people to achieve official land titles for over 470 000 acres of land belonging to 12 different communities and to assist them in defending their land and resources from outside threats 13 dd dd Peru Supporting the Ashaninka communities in their effort to halt the construction of the Pakitzapango Dam which would affect their ancestral land over which they have official ownership In spite of this the government did not consult with the communities or receive their consent for the project dd dd Working with the Kandozi and Sharpa indigenous peoples of Datem del Maranon in the Peruvian Amazon to ensure that their right to health care is respected and fulfilled by the State particularly that the government work to address a Hepatitis B epidemic in their communities dd dd The Rainforest Fund also recently undertook a special emergency project to provide support for the legal defense of the indigenous leaders facing charges from by the government due to the 2009 incident in Bagua wherein police attacked the crowd after 55 days of nonviolent demonstrations supporting of indigenous rights leaving 34 people dead 109 cases were filed against 362 Peruvian indigenous leaders 14 dd dd Criticisms editIn January 1990 the fund s first campaign came under fire by the French edition of Rolling Stone magazine in an article that mentioned the failings of previous work in the rainforest and criticized the organization for holding lavish fundraising banquets 15 The Rolling Stone article was used as the basis for a documentary by Granada Television s World in Action program The show called Sting and the Indians was re broadcast in the United States on the A amp E cable network hosted by Bill Kurtis 16 The primary claim of both was that the project in Brazil was misrepresenting the facts to donors as some of the Kayapo s traditional land was already protected within the Xingu National Park In fact the Xingu Park is actually a large indigenous controlled area the first in Brazil so it is an indigenous territory not a national park Moreover the Fund s initial project supported demarcation of the Mengkragnoti Area which is right next to contiguous with the Xingu Park and did not demarcate the park itself See also editDeforestation Indigenous peoples Related charities such as the Prince s Rainforests Project Save the Amazon Rainforest Organisation and the Rainforest Action Network United Nations Environment Programme Yayasan Merah Putih Environmental problems caused by deforestation Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Self determination Traditional Ecological Knowledge Sustainable development Indigenous land rights Global warming Indigenous peoples of the Americas Amazon Rainforest Deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest Deforestation in Brazil Conservation movement Environmental movementFootnotes edit Sting Issues Statement On Amazon Fires This Is Criminal Negligence On A Global Scale Stereogum 2019 08 27 Retrieved 2020 07 09 Sarah Anne Hughes Brazil approves Belo Monte dam despite fierce opposition James Cameron Speaks Out The Washington Post 01 June 2011 Amazon Watch s Stop the Belo Monte Dam Campaign Archived 2011 11 12 at the Wayback Machine Karen Hoffmann Belo Monte dam marks a troubling new era in Brazil s attitude to its rainforest The Ecologist 16 August 2001 Reuters Brazil approves Belo Monte hydroelectric dam guardian co uk Wednesday 1 June 2011 Rainforest Foundation Fund 2006 2008 Report Archived copy PDF Archived from the original PDF on 2012 04 12 Retrieved 2011 11 14 a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint archived copy as title link Rainforest Foundation Fund Website 1 Archived 2011 12 05 at the Wayback Machine The Conversation Dodgy logging are Papua New Guinea s forests going the way of Indonesia s 2 November 2011 Center for Orang Asli Concerns 2 NEWSLETTER OF THE INTERNATIONAL RANGER FEDERATION The Thin Green Line Archived 2012 04 03 at the Wayback Machine October December 2005 UNCIEF News UNICEF National Ambassador Trudie Styler brings clean water project to Ecuador Archived 2012 03 16 at the Wayback Machine 15 June 2009 Change Chevron Project Page Archived 2012 04 05 at the Library of Congress Web Archives nativefuture org Wounaan Take Land Rights Claims to Inter American Commission on Human Rights Archived 2016 03 04 at the Wayback Machine October 28 2008 Gregor MacLennan Bagua Anniversary One Year After Violent Clashes in Peru Situation for Indigenous Rights Little Improved Archived 2011 08 22 at the Wayback Machine Commondreams org June 10 2010 Chris Campion Walking on the moon the untold story of the Police and the rise of new wave rock John Wiley and Sons 2009 pp 237 240 3 Elaine Dewar Cloak of green James Lorimer amp Company 1995 pp 421 4 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Rainforest Foundation Fund amp oldid 1189606407, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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