Nia Tero And 8 Private Foundations Announce 'Protecting Our Planet Challenge'

NEW YORK, Sept. 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Working alongside Indigenous peoples, local communities, civil society, and governments, the Protecting Our Planet Challenge commits to invest $5 billion by 2030 to ensure the protection of essential places across 30% of Earth's land and sea. This marks the largest private funding commitment ever to the guardianship of our shared planetary home.

The announcement was made today at the Transformative Action for Nature and People High Level Event, bringing together several heads of state and ministers, as well as leaders representing Indigenous peoples, finance, philanthropy, and civil society, to commit to momentous action for biodiversity, climate, and people.

This commitment to ensure that essential places for biodiversity are sustained is being made jointly by: Arcadia – a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin; Bezos Earth Fund; Bloomberg Philanthropies; Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; Rainforest Trust; Re:wild; Wyss Foundation; the Rob and Melani Walton Foundation; and Nia Tero. This partnership has formed to help address three of humanity's most life-threatening crises: the climate crisis, extinction crisis, and health crisis – with an emphasis on the role of thriving ecosystems and the leadership of Indigenous peoples in addressing them.

Vicky Tauli-Corpuz, Nia Tero Board Chair and former UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, shared: "Investing in the rights of Indigenous peoples and their guardianship of territory is one of the most important, and most overlooked, strategies for addressing the existential threats of climate change and biodiversity loss. As an organization committed to securing Indigenous guardianship of thriving ecosystems, we applaud these leading-edge funders for dramatically expanding support of this essential pathway to achieve the 30x30 targets."

One of the most exciting and promising aspects of this pathbreaking commitment is that, alongside the ethical strengthening and expansion of protected areas, the Protecting Our Planet Challenge is advancing the enduring power and the rights of Indigenous peoples as guardians of irreplaceable places upon which we all depend.

About Nia Tero: Everywhere Indigenous peoples thrive, their homelands and waters thrive, benefiting all peoples of this warming planet. This reality inspired Nia Tero's mission of working in solidarity with Indigenous peoples to strengthen guardianship of the Earth.

Learn more at niatero.org.

Contact Information

Nia Tero

Tracy Rector, Managing Director, Storytelling

trector@niatero.org

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SOURCE Nia Tero