Funding Frontline Communities Fighting Deforestation

World Centric + Rainforest Action Network

$40,000.00 from profits from fiscal year 2021

This project supports these U.N. Sustainable Development goals

Rainforest Action Network preserves forests, protects the climate and upholds human rights by challenging corporate power and systemic injustice through frontline partnerships and strategic campaigns.

World Centric has been supporting RAN since 2010, the second year of our giving program. They are a rare exception to our program in that our grant goes into their Community Action Grants fund, supporting a wide range of projects that they select. RAN then reports back to us on the projects they were able to fund with our donation.

Indigenous and frontline communities are the best stewards of the world’s rainforests and the best organizers against climate change. History has proven that time and again — and that is why RAN created the Community Action Grants program. This program provides crucial and rapid funding for people fighting in their own communities across the globe to protect millions of acres of forest, to keep millions of tons of carbon in the ground, and to protect the rights and self determination of local communities. We fund 2 types of Community Action Grants:

Protect An Acre

Protect An Acre grants support grassroots leadership and local organizations in forest regions to protect threatened forest lands (logging, mining, etc) and to protect the human rights of communities that have co-existed with and depended on these regions for generations. These grants are critical to help local activists regain control of sustainably managed traditional territories.

Climate Action Fund

The Climate Action Fund (CAF) supports frontline communities directly challenging the fossil fuel industry. CAF provides small grants (generally $2,500 or less) to local groups tackling the root causes of climate change — the extraction and combustion of dirty fossil fuels such as coal and oil

Here is an example of a grant we funded through RAN:

Land Rights for the Tano Bata in Indonesia

23 Indigenous communities in the Lake Toba region of Northern Sumatra, Indonesia, have had their land stolen by Toba Pulp Lestari, a notorious company producing wood pulp and rayon fabric to make paper and cheap clothes. They produce these products by clearcutting rainforest and growing industrial monoculture plantations of pulp trees in their place. Many of these plantations are developed on Indigenous Batak Toba land without their consent, creating decades of land conflicts. Despite the fact that traditional land rights have been recognized within the Batak Toba community for generations, these rights have not been historically recognized by the Indonesian government. Many communities are taking action to protect or reclaim their lands. With grants from World Centric and RAN the communities are being supported with documentation, including mapping and aerial photos of forest cover in their customary areas, and advocacy work as part of a multi-year effort to secure land rights to more than 50,000 acres of Batak Toba land. The grant also supported a delegation of 40 Indigenous Tano Bata community members to travel to Jakarta to directly pressure government officials.

About Rainforest Action Network

A World Centric partner since 2010.

Rainforest Action Network preserves forests, protects the climate and upholds human rights by challenging corporate power and systemic injustice through frontline partnerships and strategic campaigns. RAN has provided funding to over 300 frontline communities, in nearly 40 countries across 6 continents.