An Indigenous leader addresses the African Regional Dialogue. Photo credit: ICI
As the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues convenes this month, a new story is taking shape in forests, deserts, rangelands, islands, and mountains across the world: Indigenous Peoples are not just participating in conservation, they are leading, and international finance is following.
The Global Environment Facility has worked alongside Indigenous Peoples since its founding more than three decades ago. But the nature of that partnership has shifted. Where funding once flowed primarily through national governments and large intermediaries, a new generation of mechanisms is putting resources and decision-making power directly into the hands of Indigenous Peoples.
A paradigm shift in conservation finance
The clearest expression of this shift is the Inclusive Conservation Initiative (ICI), a $25 million GEF program that channels grants directly to Indigenous Peoples' organizations across 12 countries. ICI's Global Steering Committee is composed entirely of Indigenous leaders.
"Through ICI, our communities are not only being seen, we are being trusted. Trusted to lead, to make decisions, to manage resources, and to care for our territories in the ways we always have."
- Vivioan Silole, Co-Chair of the Global Steering Committee
Across the portfolio, ICI is supporting conservation and biodiversity-friendly management of over 7.6 million hectares of lands, territories, and waters. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, ANAPAC has mapped and validated more than 109,000 hectares of Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas. In Peru, FENAMAD is leading territorial monitoring to address mercury contamination while forging alliances with Inuit communities thousands of miles away facing similar challenges.
ICI's success directly inspired its successor. Under GEF-8, the Heart of Conservation Initiative (HCI) was launched with $22.5 million in GEF funding and an expected $83 million in co-financing. Having received hundreds of expressions of interest, ten Indigenous-led organizations and funds have been selected, expected to work across Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
This momentum is now shaping the GEF's broader institutional direction. Under the proposed GEF-9 package, there is an aspirational target directing 20 percent of financing across the entire family of funds toward actions by Indigenous Peoples and local communities— extending an approach first piloted by the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF). Results will include disaggregated data on Indigenous Peoples and local communities alongside women and youth, and Indigenous and Traditional Territories will be formally recognized and tracked in the GEF results framework.
The GBFF: Inclusion of Indigenous Peoples in biodiversity finance
Engagement with Indigenous Peoples and local communities is a cornerstone of the GBFF, committing at least 20 percent of resources to actions led by Indigenous Peoples — a target already exceeded, with approved work programs directing more than 30 percent to this purpose.
To strengthen accountability, Guidelines on Actions by Indigenous Peoples and local communities were developed in collaboration with Indigenous Peoples. These guidelines clarify what constitutes Indigenous Peoples and local communities-led action, enabling tracking across the growing portfolio. The GBFF's 20 percent commitment is proving influential beyond the fund itself: the newly launched Tropical Forest Forever Facility, requires that at least 20 percent of payments go to Indigenous Peoples.
One of the first projects approved under the GBFF offers a vivid illustration of what this commitment looks like in practice. The Ywy Ipuranguete ("beautiful land") initiative in Brazil is a $9 million project supporting Indigenous governance across 15 territories and six million hectares spanning the Amazon, Atlantic Forest, Cerrado, Caatinga, and Pantanal, benefiting more than 57,000 people. Communities implement their own Territorial and Environmental Management Plans. Funding can even cover cultural and ceremonial activities integral to territorial stewardship — a recognition that effective conservation is inseparable from Indigenous ways of life.
Reaching the grassroots
The GEF Small Grants Program, operational in more than 135 countries since 1992, has delivered approximately $60 million directly to Indigenous Peoples through more than 7,000 community-led projects spanning renewable energy, land restoration, biodiversity conservation, and climate adaptation. In Guatemala, participatory and visual application methodologies rooted in Indigenous traditions have broadened access to funding for women, elders, and community leaders often excluded by conventional processes.
A continuing journey
Taken together, all these initiatives represent a reorientation in how international environmental finance engages with Indigenous Peoples and local communities. The question is no longer whether they should be involved, but rather how to ensure their self-determined priorities are included, and that resources and decision-making authority match the scale of the responsibilities they carry.
As Aliou Mustafa, one of the members of the GEF's Indigenous Peoples Advisory Group, said “If the GEF-8 ICI and GBFF have shown us what is possible, imagine what we can achieve at the full scale of GEF-9.”
As the Permanent Forum meets this April, the GEF's evolving partnership offers both a model and a commitment: that protecting the planet's biodiversity means recognizing and resourcing those who have stewarded it longest.
