Gaia Amazonas

The Mission

Thriving Amazon Ecosystems with Thriving Indigenous Communities.

How It Works

Gaia pioneered a concept called “accompaniment” — it's basically a long-term partnership with Indigenous communities to systematically meet their needs and protect forest ecosystems. It helps secure tenure, strengthen governance systems, and gets indigenous governments officially recognized by the national government. Gaia also helps indigenous communities develop ‘Life Plans’ to guide the necessary administration and finances.

The Dream

Indigenous governments are recognized and funded by the national government—like municipalities—so they can sustain vital community development and conservation that keeps the Amazon thriving.

Why We're In

Indigenous Territories accompanied by Gaia maintain deforestation rates that are 3x lower than similar areas in the Colombian Amazon. Gaia accompanies 13 Indigenous Territories that cover 10.4M hectares of the Amazon, and there is potential to grow well beyond that. Gaia has multiple replication sites in partnership with like-minded NGOs across other parts of the Amazon Basin as well. They helped create the North Amazon Alliance (ANA), a group of civil society organizations that aspire to spread the ideas of accompaniment with ~2K Indigenous Territories across 80M hectares of the Amazon basin. Gaia has a big dream to get indigenous territories officially recognized as local municipalities, which allows full self-governance and the ability to receive direct funding from government and multilaterals. We think this would be a game-changer for all indigenous communities in the Amazon.