Open Letter by Swift Foundation Concerning Indigenous Peoples, Tropical Forests and Climate Change
SAN FRANCISCO, March 12, 2019 (Newswire.com) - Swift Foundation publicly rejects the privatization and commodification of Nature and REDD+ as false solutions to climate change.
On March 11, 2019, Swift Foundation formally released an open letter titled “What we mean when we say 'Supporting Forests, Rights, and Lands for Climate.'” The letter is written in response to the “Foundations Stand Together in Support of Forests, Rights and Lands for Climate” statement and the almost half-a-billion-dollar commitment signed by 17 philanthropies (including Swift Foundation) during the Climate Summit in San Francisco, California, on Sept. 11, 2018, with the goal of clarifying the foundation’s own interpretation of and commitment to this statement in practice.
Given that carbon market schemes have for years been promoted in concert with "protecting forests” and "recognizing indigenous people’s rights,” Swift Foundation explicitly and resolutely rejects carbon trading schemes of any kind while also articulating guiding reflections on how they work, which includes supporting grassroots leadership on the frontlines and showing more active leadership among philanthropic institutions in disrupting false solutions to climate change.
The foundation acknowledges that funding - depending on how it is used - can be as destructive as it can be helpful and thereby invites other foundations to clarify their own approaches to addressing the critical role of Indigenous Peoples in protecting and sustaining living forests.
To read the letter, see https://swiftfoundation.org/open-letter-by-swift-foundation/.
SWIFT FOUNDATION is a private foundation whose mission is to “support land and water stewards who protect and defend biocultural diversity and community-based resilience systems essential to a healthy planet.” See https://swiftfoundation.org/.
For more information, please contact sonja@swiftfoundation.org.
Source: Swift Foundation