16th Annual Meeting Summary – Growing Network, Stronger Commitments

Fundación Natura Bolivia and the Governments of Pando, Santa Cruz, and Tarija announced the recently awarded $7M USD grant from the Darwin Initiative for a project called “Sustainable financing for protected area management in Bolivia’s Andean foothills.” The project “will enhance the conservation status of 4 million hectares of Bolivian protected areas and alleviate poverty and increase resilience in neighboring communities, through technical, institutional, and financial capacity building for protected area creation, management, and monitoring.” This UK-backed award will also provide direct support for continuing to integrate GCF Task Force members in Bolivia into the broader GCF Task Force network.

Led by Brazilian states, the GCF Task Force issued an urgent call-to-action for continuing to support climate finance mechanisms, including jurisdictional REDD+. This statement, titled “Accessing Subnational Climate Finance Access through Jurisdictional REDD+: Urgency, Unity, and Diversity” reflects the imperative for increasing access to international climate finance, including through carbon markets around jurisdictional REDD+. The statement notes that “the choice before the international community is stark: invest in jurisdictional REDD+ now or face the loss of the best operational tool we currently have to keep forests standing.”

Herencia Maya (Maya Heritage) in Yucatán is the first Project Finance for Permanence initiative in Mexico and the first led by a state rather than a national government. It is part of the Enduring Earth initiative that promises to conserve the state’s interconnected and irreplaceable hydrological, ecological, and cultural heritage.

In April 2026, Jalisco’s ART/TREES registration document was approved by the ART Secretariat, bringing Jalisco one step closer to the issuance of TREES credits. Jose Daniel Graf Perez, Director General of Natural Resources for the State Secretary of Environment and Territorial Development presented on the momentum of this process on Friday, May 22.

The FFA is an innovative conservation fund that gives Indigenous peoples (Shiwiar, Andwa, Sapara, and Achuar Nations); and provincial governments (Morona Santiago, Pastaza, and Zamora Chinchipe) equal power and ensures long-term protection of Ecuador’s Amazon. It is designed to support: Indigenous Life Plans, provincial conservation management plans, and REDD+ implementation across GCF Task Force jurisdictions in Ecuador. In partnership with Nature & Culture International.

This initiative aims to help close gaps in titling, physical and legal land regularization, and legal security for native communities in Loreto, Ucayali, Huánuco, San Martín, and Amazonas, ensuring legal tenure and effective governance of Indigenous territories. Participants include the Confederation of Amazonian Nationalities of Peru (CONAP), the Amazon Regional Commonwealth (Mancomunidad or MRA), the Peruvian NGO Alternative Development Mechanisms (MDA), Amanatari, and other Indigenous Peoples’, government, and civil society institutions. Its relevance lies in strengthening territorial rights, reducing conflicts, improving Indigenous governance, and creating enabling conditions for forest conservation and sustainable Amazonian development.

This initiative seeks to consolidate a macroregional alliance to position northern Peru as a leading territory in climate action, ecosystem restoration, biodiversity conservation, water security, and the development of sustainable jurisdictions. Participants include the natural resources and environmental management offices of the regional governments of La Libertad, Lambayeque, Piura, Tumbes, and Cajamarca. Its relevance is grounded in the urgent need to address environmental degradation, pressure on water resources, unplanned expansion, and the effects of climate change, by mobilizing territorial governance and climate finance to conserve biodiversity, restore ecosystems, strengthen communities, and improve quality of life for present and future generations. In partnership with Profonanpe and Mecanismos de Desarrollo Alternos (MDA).