Minding the Gaps: Indigenous-Led Nature-Based Solutions

While we now have a  clearer understanding of how to solve these twin crises, we must work together to identify and close critical funding gaps,  ensuring that financial resources reach the most impactful, on-the-ground solutions.

Nature's Role in Solving the Crises

Nature conservation is essential for protecting and restoring our ecosystems. Existing land habitats store nearly two trillion tonnes of carbon and absorb one-quarter of annual CO2 emissions. To reverse biodiversity loss and stabilize our global climate system, we must protect, restore, and connect 50% of Earth's lands and oceans within a Global Safety Net.

The Global Safety Net provides a blueprint for identifying priority lands that we need to protect and restore to maintain a healthy biosphere. Although over one-third of these lands are communally held by Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous land tenure is at risk,  highlighting the critical importance of protecting and strengthening Indigenous land tenure. By prioritizing conservation and restoration, we can safeguard both biodiversity and climate stability for future generations. 

Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities-Led Nature-based Solutions

Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) have long been the frontline stewards of the world’s most biodiverse and ecologically critical regions. Despite their proven effectiveness in conserving nature and mitigating climate change, they remain drastically underfunded. Investing in IPLC-led nature-based solutions is not just an ethical imperative—it is one of the most efficient and cost-effective strategies to protect the planet’s remaining intact ecosystems, safeguard carbon sinks, and ensure long-term resilience against environmental collapse.

IPLC-Led Nature-Based Solutions Are Efficient and Effective

• Proven Track Record of Stewardship – Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) steward a disproportionately large share of our planet's healthy ecosystems with relatively few resources. Their success is rooted in centuries of ecological knowledge and sustainable land management.
• Cost-Effective Conservation – Studies show that securing IPLC land tenure is one of the most cost-efficient ways to conserve biodiversity and store carbon. IPLC land rights contribute to reducing deforestation rates by up to 50% in key regions (World Resources Institute, 2021).
• Legal and Political Advantages – Strengthening IPLC land tenure creates legal barriers against deforestation, mining, and land grabbing. In Brazil, Indigenous territories have prevented the deforestation of over 1 million hectares of the Amazon rainforest, acting as critical carbon buffers (Science, 2018).
• Scalability and Immediate Impact – Unlike large-scale industrial conservation projects that require years of planning and infrastructure, IPLCs are already doing the work. Direct funding to IPLC initiatives ensures that resources lead to immediate and impactful conservation efforts (Rainforest Foundation, 2022).
• Cultural and Social Stability – Securing IPLC tenure rights strengthens Indigenous governance systems, protects cultural heritage, and enhances community well-being—ensuring long-term conservation success.

Climate Finance: Tracking Funding Flows and Critical Gaps

A new collaboration is underway, integrating the One Earth Solutions Framework with Vibrant Data Labs’ Climate Finance Tracker to analyze current climate funding allocation and identify key gaps. This collaboration provides an initial assessment of climate finance flows, encompassing both philanthropic and investment capital. 

While substantial and essential investments have been made in the energy transition, the preservation and restoration of natural carbon sinks—such as forests and grasslands which account for more than half of the global carbon budget—receive disproportionately low funding.

Alarmingly, of the limited philanthropic funding allocated to protecting and restoring nature, less than 7% supports efforts focused on Indigenous Land Tenure, despite the crucial role Indigenous peoples play in safeguarding global biodiversity. Describing these communities as highly efficient and effective stewards of life is an understatement. These initial findings underscore the urgent need and significant opportunity for impactful contributions to these underfunded areas.

This primer describes the risks of funding Nature-based Solutions without an Equity-Centered Approach. This and other tools can be helpful for funders who are new to this space, to get up to speed quickly about the need to center both Indigenous sovereignty and the climate crisis in their funding priorities. They must not be looked at as separate, but as tightly interwoven and complementary aspects of solving the most urgent crisis of our time.

Ways to Support IPLC-led Nature-based Solutions

Investors have a  unique opportunity to  fund and empower Indigenous peoples and local communities in their efforts to protect, restore, and regenerate lands and waters worldwide. By supporting these communities, investors can help bridge an existing  funding gap while directing resources to those who have long demonstrated their ability to preserve and restore the ecosystems they steward.

Investors can:

• Directly fund IPLC-led projects in crucial bioregions safeguarding and restoring biodiversity.
• Fund non-profit intermediaries who work directly with IPLC-led projects
• Support other funders in your network on their learning journey understanding the importance of protecting and restoring nature and building relationship  with IPLC’s
• Reach out to us via this form to discuss your unique situation and how to incorporate these themes into your funding strategy

Non-Profit Intermediary Partners

• Home Planet Fund
  
  
• Indigenous Climate Action
  
  
• Regenerosity
  
  
• Synchronicity Earth

Together, we can reimagine philanthropy to elevate Indigenous leadership and nature-based solutions—building a more vibrant, just, and thriving world for all.

Looking Ahead: Launching the Climate Solutions Opportunity Report 

This fall, One Earth will be launching the full, interactive report, which will introduce the One Earth Solutions Framework and highlight key science-based insights into the gaps and opportunities within climate finance.  The goal is to help climate investors and philanthropists better understand the relative importance of potential investments across a broad spectrum of solutions while visualizing the current allocation of funds across all sectors of climate.

If you would like to be notified when the Report is released, please email info@oneearth.org to be added to the  list.

More about the Event Hosts and Partners 

Jonas Philanthropies

The mission of Jonas Philanthropies is to address this growing and urgent need by investing in solutions that can be scaled for the greatest impact.

One Small Planet

One Small Planet's mission is to align our economy with its true meaning by creating systems that incentivize regeneration as opposed to extraction. One Small Planet invests in a wide range of projects and companies ranging from non-profit to venture start-ups. 

One Earth
One Earth's mission is to empower everyone, everywhere, with the knowledge, inspiration, and opportunity to heal the Earth and reclaim our future. One Earth turns knowledge into action by identifying and elevating the most effective climate and biodiversity solutions to shape policy, guide investments, support grassroots organizations and galvanize a global movement dedicated to regenerating our one Earth.

Vibrant Data Labs
VDL's mission is to increase the impact of climate finance by supporting funders and field-builders with public and open-source data tools that empower discovery, insights, and action. We utilize data and a rigorous scientific process to analyze, contextualize, and make sense of the complexity of the climate solutions space.