I am a leader of the Wayana Peoples of Suriname, a former Dutch colony known as the greenest country on Earth. My people have lived in a huge territory in the northern Amazon for more than 4,000 years. We are on the front lines of the battle to save irreplaceable forests and stave off climate change.
Allow me to be blunt: You need us. The Amazon is the world’s largest and most biodiverse rainforest ecosystem. It sequesters a quarter of the planet’s land-based carbon. But it is nearing a dangerous tipping point. We have already lost about 17% of the Amazon to deforestation and another 17% to degradation. If this destruction continues at the current pace, the Amazon will transition from rainforest to savanna within the next few decades. And if that happens, the entire planet will experience climate catastrophe — even if the world finally takes meaningful steps to transition away from fossil fuels.
As a result of this potential for disaster, an increasing number of funders are seeking to partner with Indigenous forest guardians like us. One of our key funders has concluded that one-third of the solution to climate change could come from providing Indigenous peoples like us the financial support we need to protect our ancestral territories.
But we face huge challenges. My people’s long story of survival and stewardship involves all the antagonists you’d expect, especially if you’re familiar with the man vs. nature plotline unfolding in Indigenous territories around the globe: Illegal gold miners poisoning our only sources of clean water with their mercury; corrupt government officials in bed with logging and mining operations; missionaries banning our spiritual practices.
In addition to these likely suspects, we also face serious challenges from environmental funders and NGOs. Too often, we have to push back on arrogant funders and NGOs from the North who want to impose “solutions” that do not respect our knowledge, cultures or rights. Sometimes, they want to map our lands or extract our knowledge, but then they deny us access to the data. Or they say, “Indigenous peoples need to be treated as children because they don’t know what they need” — an actual quote relayed to me after the fact by a colleague. Or they flout international law by establishing protected areas without seeking our free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). Or they work with authorities to criminalize our traditional hunting and farming practices.
In this post, I will be very clear about a different way of operating — one based on reciprocity rather than colonialism, paternalism, deception or extraction. It’s not a pie-in-the-sky vision. It’s based on the on-the-ground reality of the relationship we’ve built with an international funder called Nia Tero. It shows what is possible when funders actually listen to our needs and respect our traditional governance processes.
I first heard about Nia Tero when Margarita Mora, the managing director for partnerships, came to Wayana territory six years ago. My paramount chief and I were very suspicious of her, because of our past experiences with conservation NGOs that didn’t care at all about our rights — only about taking credit for how many hectares of forest they had “saved.”
At the end of Margarita’s visit, she told us she would discuss our work with her colleagues at Nia Tero and come back to Wayana territory. We didn’t believe her. We had heard it all before. But less than a year later, she did come back to do more listening and learning. And then she invited me, as well as nine other Wayana leaders, to come to Seattle to visit with the Nia Tero team.
We took her up on her offer and came in September 2018. We had an opportunity to meet all of Nia Tero’s senior leaders and gauge their values. We also had an opportunity to meet with Indigenous brothers and sisters from the Northwest region of the United States. I’ll never forget seeing some of those tribe members crying when they heard us speaking our Native language, because they didn’t have theirs anymore.
During our time in Seattle, we shared our vision for establishing our own NGO. We wanted to control our own future and implement our own projects without depending on the goodwill of external organizations. After we returned to Wayana territory, we established that organization, the Mulokot Foundation, named after our water spirits.
Shortly after that, we submitted a proposal to Nia Tero for building the capacity of our new board. Nia Tero embraced our vision. Within three weeks, we learned that they would immediately provide a substantial grant as well as technical assistance, introductions to other international funders, and other forms of support if additional needs came up for us.
Thanks to that and subsequent rounds of support, Mulokot has become one of the strongest organizations in all of Suriname. Using sophisticated GIS and GPS technologies, we have mapped all of our ancestral lands, and we are now using these maps to press our case with the government of Suriname for formal land rights.
We have also established an Indigenous Education Institute to transmit traditional and Western knowledge to all Wayana children — an initiative no other donor has deemed worthy of support. We built our own solar boat, which is not just in keeping with our environmental values, but also a money saver in this era of high fuel costs. None of this would have happened without Nia Tero believing in us and delivering on their promises.
Sadly, Nia Tero is an outlier. Most funders bypass Indigenous organizations altogether. And among the small number of foundations that do provide funding to Indigenous peoples, very few take the time to build reciprocal, respectful relationships.
So here is my call to action for funders who want to stop the Amazon from turning into savanna: Engage directly with Indigenous peoples. We’re the stewards of the vast majority of the Amazon’s remaining intact ecosystems. Don’t just talk at us about your “sustainable forest management” plans. Come visit us in a spirit of reciprocity. Your vast resources can make a huge difference for our future and the future of all citizens of this warming planet. But only if you are willing to listen, learn and invest the time in earning our trust.
Jupta Itoewaki is the founding president of Mulokot, an organization representing the interests of the Wayana Peoples.
Related Inside Philanthropy Resources:
for subscribers only
