Opening presenter:

Hello, and welcome back to another gripping episode of the AIC YouTube channel. Each week for the past six months, Jonah and I have been recording a call series with some incredible presenters and some wonderful guests. Now we’re producing this call series into this channel, also in a podcast format and as a simple recording, with the intention of entertaining and stirring curiosity, excitement, and participation from parties that might feel they want to invest in and play a critical role in the regeneration of the Amazon rainforest, but might not understand how to go about doing so.

There’s a lot of jargon around the conservation space, which we’re trying to dismantle here. We’re going to be explaining increasingly the terms we’re using, which often require a Wikipedia or Google search to understand if you’re not familiar with the landscape.

Without further ado, let me introduce our guest for this episode. Daniel Nepstad is an Amazon conservation pioneer. He started his PhD in the 1980s in a rural town of the Brazilian Amazon. He helped guide philanthropy to the region, and in 2010 he started the Earth Innovation Institute to work internationally at subnational levels to advance climate-friendly rural development through innovative approaches to sustainable farming, forestry, and fisheries. Tune in to hear Nepstad’s story and what he’s up to with the Earth Innovation Institute.

Moderator:

Our first subject: Daniel, who are you? How come you’re joining us? Why are you joining this gang of ragtag actors?

Daniel Nepstad:

Thank you, Jonah. Wonderful seeing all of you and seeing some familiar faces as well. I’ve been working since the mid-1980s in the Amazon. I moved there in 1984. I fell in love with the frontier town of Paragominas—maybe “love” is a little bit strong—but really getting to know those actors at that point in Brazil, on the threshold of a return to democratic rule, influenced me very profoundly.

I feel some of the issues back then we’re still dealing with: how do we find an approach to the Amazon that resonates with Amazonians and really makes those who want to do things the right way be recognized and come out better than those who are just trying to extract advantage from the Amazon?

Moderator:

Great. Thank you for that. Can you tell us about the Earth Innovation Institute, a little bit about its history and its programming?

Daniel Nepstad:

I was in philanthropy back in 2009, and it seemed there was a missing organization that was all about building bridges between the warring factions, that had an approach that was scalable, that worked with large subnational governments, and that was also intervening in the global enabling conditions: emerging climate market mechanisms, policy mechanisms, and trade. That was the core idea we took to creating Earth Innovation in 2010. We’re 35 people, with tiny teams in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Indonesia, and headquarters in San Francisco.

For the better part of 20 years beginning in 1984—well, I guess it’s more like 25 years—the main thing I was doing was running big experiments to see what’s going to happen to the Amazon in a warming world: setting the forest on fire, torturing it with droughts, seeing what it takes to kill trees in any number of ways. I got a lot of hate mail. When I went to the Moore Foundation in 2008, that marked the beginning of this new phase of my life that I’m in right now. I already talked about Earth Innovation.

I think there are some amazing lessons for the Amazon agenda that emerged from this history since the early 2000s, when we achieved—we, the broader “we”—this amazing decline in deforestation, 77 percent below the [ten-year or twenty-year average; unclear in the source]. It’s been rising steadily ever since and will probably rise even more this year, by a lot. What are the lessons there? What can we learn from that experience?

Here are the raw numbers. I’m sure you all know these very well. In 2019, it was about half of the historical average from 1996 to 2005. Things are not going in the right direction.

We looked really closely at what factors were leading to that decline and published that paper. There was this massive increase in the protected area system. Today, more than 50 percent of the Brazilian Amazon is under some form of protection. There was a great uptick in law enforcement: sting operations cracking down on the cartels and illegal operations around timber and land grabbing. Lots of people went to jail. Very expensive.

Restrictions on farmer access to credit under the [program name unclear] got attention and fostered amazing mobilization of counties to lower deforestation and come off that list. The zero-deforestation movement manifested in the Brazilian soy moratorium and cattle agreement. It’s really difficult, I think, to quantify the contribution of those two to the overall decline because they’re commodity-specific and there are ways around them. They did not send a very good message to those legally compliant farmers who still had forests they could legally clear.

Why is it rising? In general, I’d say a lack of carrots. The largely Norwegian-funded Amazon Fund has become known in Brazil as a fund for NGOs, even though most of the funds have gone to state governments for implementing things. Farmers, with some important exceptions—smallholders along the Trans-Amazon, say—have not seen a whole lot of upside from their efforts to conserve forests on their land.

If you look at land market values, and I own a chunk of land, my real estate value will be much lower if I have more forests than if I have less. These are real land market numbers on the left. That’s just for cattle. The difference is much bigger if you compare forested land to soybean and corn land, agribusiness land.

On the right is just taking the EPA’s hundred-dollars-a-ton value for carbon: a hundred-dollar negative impact on the global economy through climate change. That same hectare of forest is worth 55,000 on average. This is a massive market failure. What’s interesting, though, is that farmers are looking to close the gap between 400 and 1,400, not between 1,400 and 55,000. We can have huge benefits for the global economy and solutions to climate change if we can close that gap between 400 and 1,400, essentially.

He’s a farm leader in Alta Floresta, Mato Grosso. He has kept, largely because of his daughters—I think one of them is our board member [name unclear]—90 percent of his farm in forest. His farm is worth a lot more [wording unclear in the source], as we discussed. He wants to shift to integrated crop, livestock, and tree production, and he is struggling to get a loan because his farm is not worth enough to be used as collateral. I think that’s definitely part of the problem we’re facing today.

He also is just fed up with the forest agenda. He doesn’t like the way people talk about him and his sector. He feels he’s not getting the help he needs or the recognition. I think we’ve lost a lot of people like Vicente [surname unclear] over the last few years.

There’s a larger challenge we’re facing, though, illustrated in last year’s Amazon fire crisis. Some of the media: “The lungs of the planet are on fire”; “The Amazon belongs to the world,” which Macron came out with. There was a palliative response: send in the army, ban fire, even though there is a fire-permitting system.

In reality, Amazon forests are about net zero in terms of oxygen. Healthy forests did not catch fire last year. They could this year; it’s a lot drier this year. It takes a lot of drought for a forest to catch fire. Also, farmers are actually essential allies in a fire solution. They do not want to see fire escape into their cattle pastures—it costs them money—or into their forests. They actually invest in keeping fires under control. Much of what burned last year was cleared areas, big dead trees that were set on fire to make way for cattle and crops.

As a result, we’re coming into this burning season, where there is more drought along the southern Amazon, with farmers bewildered and angry. There’s another fire ban, another palliative approach. This is really the cycle we’re locked into.

I should note that a lot of my research has been on fire in intact forests. These are the most dangerous fires because they damage forests and open them up to future fires, and they’re really easy to put out. You can just sweep a path in front of them, do a little backburn, and you’re done. There are groups doing that that have holes in their funding going into this year’s fire season, like the [brigade name unclear].

Quickly, a way forward, just to put some ideas out there. This is all work in progress. I think we need a big focus on fish. Fish occupies about one-twentieth of the land of beef to get the same amount of protein. It is the diet of choice, the protein of choice for Amazonians, for millennia. There are some very surmountable issues that are keeping fish back as the main protein of choice in the Amazon that could become an export. I think managed floodplain lake fisheries combined with sustainable [agriculture or aquaculture; unclear in the source]. Every one of the Brazilian Amazon state governments wants a fish agenda.

Legal compliance has to become easier. It has to be recognized and rewarded so that people like Vicente in the Amazon don’t turn their back on the forest agenda. Right now, we put a lot of attention into legality and illegality, assuming that if you’re illegal, you’re a criminal, when in fact it’s incredibly difficult to comply with the law in the Amazon.

Advocacy campaigns have made it difficult, I’d say, for companies to partner. There are very few partnerships between companies and states that are committed to the forest issue. What the companies tell us is that part of the reason is they think they’ll become a headline if they engage in a jurisdiction.

These other elements: I think with fire there’s a very powerful argument to be made. Anyone who’s lived in the Amazon—I’ve lived there for 12 years—the dry season is a season of nasty respiratory ailments: children dying, people going to hospitals, if they have access to hospitals. There’s a very strong case to be made to lower fire and eventually eliminate it.

Another piece of this that has some momentum within the Bolsonaro administration, believe it or not: [name unclear]’s team is keen to increase private sector investment through a forest carbon mechanism. That team is knowledgeable. They’ve done a lot of transactions, mostly in the project space, before joining the government.

We estimate Brazil could capture a billion dollars or so from the voluntary forest carbon market over the next two or three years. Most of the pieces are in place to do that. One of the critical things is to make it possible for the progressive states like Mato Grosso to sell emissions reductions into the voluntary market.

The approval by the Air Resources Board of California of the California Tropical Forest Standard last September is an incredibly important piece of that. This is a standard that grew out of the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force, created in California in 2009, because of California’s international offset provision, which is still not regulated. We’ve got the standard, but the market in California is still not created.

The government of California is keenly interested, as is the GCF Task Force—and it’s wonderful that Colleen is on—in seeing the standard applied. Right now, Mato Grosso and Acre are probably the two states furthest out in front to be verified. That means they could start to sell emissions reductions that could feed directly into their statewide programs.

Just as a quick reminder, Brazil has avoided about eight gigatons, eight billion tons, of emissions by lowering deforestation. There you see the UNFCCC-approved reference level. It notches down every five years. Four percent of these emissions reductions have been compensated through the Amazon Fund or the German-UK REDD Early Movers program.

Why should we focus on Mato Grosso? Mato Grosso’s Produce, Conserve, Include strategy would keep, if successful, about four billion tons of carbon out of the atmosphere and in trees. Obama’s Clean Power Plan would have done about 2.6 billion tons, now being dismantled by the Trump administration, of course.

Mato Grosso is also an agricultural giant that’s reduced deforestation more than any other state. It also has an amazing Indigenous peoples’ consultation process underway with all 45 Indigenous nations. Governor Mauro Mendes, who is himself a businessman, wants to continue with his agenda. He wants Mato Grosso to be this shining example that forest-friendly development works, that it creates jobs, attracts investments, and is socially inclusive. This is a huge example.

I already mentioned the task for legal compliance. If I’m a soy farmer, I have at least 20 different licenses I need to fulfill, and a lot of them have different deadlines. It’s an incredibly bureaucratic system. Brazil is number 126 in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking, and the Amazon is the worst place in Brazil to do business.

CAR validation: 60 people in Mato Grosso are doing three a day, and there are about 90,000 left to do in Mato Grosso. This is such a linchpin, such a key piece for getting legal compliance working at scale, but it’s stopped in its tracks. Could a client relationship management system with cloud-based technology help? Definitely. Is Salesforce a possibility there? We’re discussing it. This is another thing Governor Mauro Mendes wants to lead on.

Finally, amazing progress through the advocacy campaigns of Greenpeace and Mighty Earth in getting companies to the table. But for me, the question is: are we asking them to do the right thing? Is this focus on zero deforestation really the best use of their muscle, especially if it’s scaring them away from partnering?

We’ve had direct experiences with many companies that just said, “I’d love to put money into this jurisdiction, but I can’t. I think we’ll get attacked.” I think optimized campaigns could incorporate the concept of safe-haven states where progress is being made towards forest-friendly development, and not start with the definition of perfection as the ground rule. Companies have struggled to come up with zero-deforestation supply chains, even though the deadline is upon us for those pledges.

In response to this situation and the overall lack of support that jurisdictions get, in 2014, through the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force, the Rio Branco Declaration was announced. Eventually, 35 governments signed it, committing to an 80 percent reduction in deforestation by 2020 if partnerships with the private sector and sufficient funding were available.

It was largely ignored. The only funding mechanism that came through specifically for that declaration was the Norwegian 25-million commitment. That has been put to work for these jurisdictions to develop their low-emission development strategies.

I think we need more. We need to meet jurisdictions where they’re at. Those that want to take on a commitment need to get instant publicity, congratulations, and support. Part of that could be that it gives them overnight a safe-haven status recognized by the advocacy groups and allows these partnerships to flourish, which can give some very quick political coverage to local governments taking on a very risky thing: challenging the status quo and saying, “We want forest-friendly development.”

In a nutshell, right now we have ten founding members of Tropical Forest Champions, some half of the Amazon or so, including Mato Grosso, which is coming in now. Tocantins and Acre are the others in Brazil. Basically, every government we’ve talked with has said they want to join; it’s just a question of formalizing that.

We see Tropical Forest Champions not as yet another jurisdictional initiative. Rather, it is technology-agnostic. If it’s jurisdictional certification through the [acronym unclear], or verified sourcing areas, or the commodity jurisdictions approach, we think all of these initiatives could include the Tropical Forest Champions approach, which is basically meeting them where they’re at, defining meaningful steps of progress, and associating benefits, publicity, and recognition with each of those steps.

I think that’s it. Thanks for your time. Happy and eager to discuss.

Moderator:

Great. Thank you so much, Daniel. Now it’s open debate.

Unidentified participant:

Hi, Jonah. Hi, Daniel. That was really great. Thank you so much for that presentation. I was listening to you talk about legal compliance, and I’m sure there’s a lot behind what you meant by that.

One question I had was whether, in the areas you’re working in, there’s a relationship between the status of land tenure of the landholders and land market value, access to finance, and investment. In other words, to what extent is land tenure, or lack thereof, a driving factor of the work?

Daniel Nepstad:

Land titling is a huge problem in Brazil. I think land titling is key. People like [lawyer’s name unclear], who’s a land tenure lawyer and professor, his basic feeling is: let’s get people legalized in their land claims, for those legitimate claims. Once they do, they can access credit and develop their properties with security.

The problem is: how do you define that legitimate claim? There are tons of illegal land-grabbing claims that would love to get land titles. In my view, there’s no perfect solution. We need to draw a line and say these folks are going to get land titles and others are not, and send a very strong signal that just grabbing land and clearing forest is not the path to a title.

It’s important to remember, too, that land speculation is an incredibly strong driver of deforestation that thrives where there’s very little presence of the state. Mato Grosso does pretty well in terms of land title compared to [place name unclear], but it’s a really nasty issue to try to resolve.

Moderator:

Thank you. Any other questions?

Unidentified participant:

If I could come in: on your chart with the land values, you look at forest land, deforested land, and the potential value in climate terms, but you don’t mention the potential value with better science and research and really getting into bioeconomy.

The wild ideas we toss around in the Amazonia 4.0 program: what if we had an MIT for the Amazon and we really got down even to the microorganisms and all the treasure that’s there? It’s like a Chinese library 5,000 years ago that nobody can read today. We haven’t researched it.

I was missing an extra column with a big question mark in it: what could the value become if we had a much more sincere and sizeable investment into research?

Daniel Nepstad:

If you know of some good estimates, I’d love to see them. I think there’s huge potential that has yet to be tapped in a meaningful way. The genetic diversity on a hectare of forest has huge economic potential that’s not realized.

The one column I was thinking of adding was the value of forest to ameliorate extreme weather. That’s not part of the bioeconomy, but it’s a value farmers really appreciate. There was a 20 percent reduction in soy production in Mato Grosso during—was it 2016, I think?—because of severe drought and temperatures. Farmers with more forests on their land: it goes out a few hundred meters into the crop. [Researcher’s name unclear] has done a lot of work with this.

Those are the sorts of things where we can start to demonstrate the value of forest from the perspective of the farmer. But I completely agree with you that there’s huge potential in Amazonia 4.0.

Unidentified participant:

Thank you.

Moderator:

I also think it may be worth mentioning: Kaká, do you want to talk about the XPRIZE that you guys are funding?

Participant addressed as “Kaká”:

Hi, sorry, I was muted. The XPRIZE is not specifically focused on research, for instance. The prize is a comprehensive prize. It’s a ten-million-dollar prize divided into some categories. I’m going to put the link to the prize here for you guys.

The main idea is to bring together as many people and groups as possible to survey biodiversity in the rainforest. We’re not only talking about the Amazon, but of course, if we’re talking about the rainforest, we’re mainly talking about the Amazon.

The big target here is to understand how technology, how research advances, and how this sector can show the quote-unquote value of the standing forest. As Daniel was speaking, there is this conversation yet to be made between many sectors. What we’re seeing here is an opportunity and a challenge to build bridges between who is talking about conservation and who is talking about bioeconomy—I mean, not bioeconomy, but how to make money out of the forest.

I think bioeconomy brings a new approach to that. The idea of the XPRIZE is to serve as a financial possibility for as many teams as possible to discover how rich the biodiversity is, what kinds of things we’re overlooking. When we talk about the Amazon, when we talk about the rainforest, there are so many species of animals and plants and whatnot that we don’t even know about. We know it’s very undersurveyed.

The main focus is biodiversity, but of course all the other subjects we’ve been touching on here are connected to that. Thank you for bringing that up, Jonah. Here I want to extend the invitation for you guys to get to know more about the initiative and spread it among your networks, because it’s a broader competition. Pretty much everybody is welcome to get to know it, to be part of it, or to build a team.

Moderator:

Great. Thank you. I’m going to call on Raquel.

Raquel:

I’m Raquel. I’m from Brazil. I’ve been living in Mato Grosso with the [community name unclear] communities there since last year. Now, for the pandemic, I’m back in São Paulo.

I’m here to listen more about how you are engaging with the communities, especially because I think this is very important. I’m here to make this kind of bridge between them and the opportunities and things happening outside there. Just coming here and letting you all know that I’m here to collaborate as much as I can with all of you.

Moderator:

Thank you. I’m just going to reframe a little bit. Daniel, there’s a lot of controversy around economic development in Mato Grosso, and consultation with local communities is clearly important. Could you give us a little bit of insight on consultation with the Indigenous communities in Mato Grosso?

Daniel Nepstad:

Yes, sure, and a great question. The reason it took a decade to finalize the Tropical Forest Standard was the issue of consultation and free, prior, and informed consent, etc.

Here’s another place where the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force has been tremendously innovative. There’s a set of guiding principles for collaboration between Indigenous people and local communities and subnational governments that’s endorsed by AMPB in Mesoamerica, by AMAN in Indonesia, and another 15 or so Indigenous peoples’ organizations.

It’s about securing rights, implementing those rights, recognizing those rights. It’s about livelihoods, and it’s about participation, having a seat at the table. One of the most vivid examples of that, I’d say, is Mato Grosso, where, partly because of the prospect of attracting REDD money at the jurisdictional level, there was a consultation process designed.

We hired [name unclear], who you may know, who used to be with ISA, to come up with that design. It was mostly implemented to get to the Indigenous peoples subprogram of the REDD Early Movers program. Instead of having a single Indigenous leader represent 45 nations in the climate forum, the REDD forum of Mato Grosso, the consultation is reaching all 45 now, and they have a seat at the table.

[Federation name unclear] is the federation that brokers that and implements that consultation. There’s a whole plan to invest, I believe, 11 or 12 million euros in the Indigenous lands of Mato Grosso through this program. We have a peer-reviewed paper on the guidelines I can share with you, too, if you’re interested.

[Place name unclear] has a similar program. I guess, for me, the bottom line is: are these jurisdictional strategies a way to give Indigenous people and other traditional communities a seat at the table that they’ve never had, and to get the rights secured in advance? It’s the flip side of it being a threat: it’s an opportunity.

Moderator:

First Danielle, then Maria Amalia.

Danielle:

Okay, terrific. Thank you, everyone. My research was in Mato Grosso, focusing on measuring the impacts of fire and logging in the long term. One of the things I’d love to hear your thoughts on is the issue of bridging that accountability deficit that comes from not having the research to support an operational carbon monitoring system.

Because fire is so variable, and the residual carbon stocks that remain after one, two, three, four, five fires can vary so dramatically, are we actually measuring the natural asset in an objective, transparent way?

The second part of my question: more and more recently, I’m echoing this sentiment that seems to be held by many others here, that biodiversity really is the cash in the bank. It doesn’t lie, so to speak, the old finance expression.

What are your thoughts on how we can bridge these accountability deficits that come from inadequate research, now we have the technology? When thinking about forest-friendly investments and capitalizing around natural assets, has biodiversity been part of the conversation in any relevant way?

Moderator:

Maria Amalia?

Maria Amalia:

Very quick: I hear “farmers.” I’m wondering if you’re considering collectively owned land, communities that could be involved in these solutions as well. A lot of the problems there are exactly in [settlement-related wording unclear], extractive reserves, Indigenous territories that could be engaged in better solutions, economic as well. Are you considering those? I didn’t hear that in the presentation.

Daniel Nepstad:

Great. Thank you for those two excellent questions. On accountability deficits, I think the first step is: there’s no equivalent for deforestation applied to forest fire. We do not have annual estimates of forest fire. I completely agree with your point that if you have a hammer—in our case, a good system for measuring deforestation—everything looks like a nail. All the debate has very much been focused on deforestation because that’s what’s measured reliably and easily every year.

With forest fire last year, I say we’re unaware of large forest fires that occurred last year, but we have no way of proving that. We do need—and the tools are all there—for [institution name unclear] to implement a really good forest fire scar mapping system that includes biomass.

Currently, there’s no forest carbon money flowing to avoided degradation. I think we don’t have an issue yet, unless there are regional fires that are really starting to lower the carbon content of these forests that have been monetized in some way. But we’re so far from that, I’m not really worried, since 96 percent of emissions reductions have not been compensated yet.

The issue of biodiversity—and it gets to [participant name unclear]’s question, too—I look at the example of açaí. I used to work on açaí, and how it took off is so unpredictable. It’s clearly an example of Amazon biodiversity gaining a global market and value that is now being planted across the Amazon. The traditional island systems on the islands around Belém are still there.

But I also remember the National Cancer Institute doing its survey back in the 1980s and early 1990s, looking for new medicines. It was a hard time. We know this potential is there, but we still haven’t figured out how to translate it into money value. My response to that is: yes, we need an MIT for Amazonia 4.0 [version number unclear in the source], but we cannot ignore that we’ve got to work with the economies we have today as well, make them more sustainable, take their edge off, and tame the wild frontier, if you would.

With regard to collectively owned land, I would refer back to these guiding principles. I think Peter put up the article I mentioned. The principles themselves you can get on the GCF Task Force website. They refer to Indigenous people and local communities, including agricultural communities in extractive reserves, including [community category unclear].

The idea is to really listen. What I hear from a lot of community leaders is: “Okay, we’ve got our rights. Our land boundaries are secure. But we do not have enough money to have dignified living.” All of those things need to work together: security of rights, economic opportunities, and participation in the public policy dialogues moving forward.

I see great potential. The quick answer to your question is yes. We need a lot more focus on processes like the consultation in Mato Grosso to make sure they’re good and really addressing the core needs. Very important question.

Moderator:

Great. I thank everybody for those questions. Thank you, Daniel, for your presentation. Now an open-ended question for all of you: what do people imagine can be a wider outcome for this group, a global group focused on Amazon conservation, focused on forest-friendly economics? What hopes do you have for collaboration with a wider community of actors?

Unidentified participant:

I think, starting from Dan’s presentation and other suggestions that come up, to put together—there are so many different talents, knowledge, and economic activity areas just on our screen tonight—an alternative model for the Amazon future, with the forest and with economic development, and [wording about bottlenecks unclear], improving market mechanisms. It’s a mosaic of things that have to come together.

I find the debate of the past year is always so randomly reactive. There’s a fire, there’s deforestation, and in a sense we have to leapfrog to really imagine and put together an alternative image of governance, of science, of actual case material. A group like this could have the potential. That would be very much my wish, reinforced by the work we do right now.

We’re trying to create a website that puts together all the good courses, all the knowledge, and the projects, failed or good, on bioeconomy from the past. There’s so much knowledge that can be taken advantage of. Congratulations that you’re trying to move ahead with something great.

Moderator:

Love the vision. Other brainstorms?

Unidentified participant:

Just to add on that fabulous suggestion, which I can totally get behind, I’d love it to be a purpose-driven hub. I don’t have any specific propositions except to make perhaps the final thing a proposal of some sort, so that it’s a hub of information, purpose-driven in some kind of action in a proposal form. Something forward-thinking, tangible, and concrete.

Unidentified participant:

We’ve heard an MIT for the Amazon. What about a Silicon Valley for the Amazon?

Moderator:

I love that idea. Other contributions? Other brainstorms?

Unidentified participant:

I was looking at your outputs here, and number two is basically where we’ve focused all our grantmaking. There’s a lot of dispute. Now, with COVID, a lot of things have changed, and the dangers have increased. There are a number of things there that, if they’re not solved, I don’t think there’s any way to do anything else, in terms of rights and access to legal defense.

A lot of our funding is being focused on that. We’re already thinking [wording unclear] COVID, because one is the emergency. We’re actually able to fund a very great number of communities, and now we’re looking at what else is coming.

Somewhere in there, the whole social justice issue: there are a number of institutions we’ve been working and partnering with that have very strong access to local communities, that have been supporting them legally. There are a number of issues here that I don’t see we could just ignore if we really want to make something of this dimension work.

With all the items and outputs you’re looking at, number two is where, for example, we could contribute best with our experience.

Moderator:

Tell us what output number two is.

Unidentified participant:

It’s in your email.

Unidentified participant reading the proposed output:

“A rule of law philanthropy report: a survey of grantmakers’ investments in rule of law activities in order to identify gaps and needs. We’ll look at law enforcement, Indigenous rights, the health of public institutions, media training, security, floating courthouses, decentralized dispute resolution systems, organized crime investigation, and more. Rule of law is an important [sentence incomplete in the source].”

Unidentified participant:

In a nutshell, that’s one of our major funding areas. Investments are exactly in solution-based approaches to communities that have the land. Some are disputing, and that’s a huge issue. Others actually have it, but it’s very difficult for them to make a living, to have access to [wording unclear], to benefit, etcetera.

There’s a lot of investment that has been [passage unclear]. Still, I think this connection, mapping more of this, is necessary. We do that a lot with the philanthropic field, but we haven’t talked to groups like you that are thinking of the larger investment.

We need to bring these two worlds together, because we’re all in these little silos. I thank you for finding me and inviting me. I’m not even sure how I got the invitation, but I think this is a great conversation. I see a lot of people I already knew anyway, so maybe that’s where I came.

Moderator:

New thinking, new money, new technology, new political access, and new framing create opportunity for the Amazon. We hope to meet each other. I thank you, everybody.