From Greece to Bangladesh, individual acts, big impact for land and water

1. Ecuador

An Indigenous Shuar community won protection of the Tiwi Nunka Forest in southern Ecuador. Protected areas are often created without the involvement or consent of the inhabitants. Tiwi Nunka is the country’s first Indigenous-led conservation area, with the region’s 35 families of the El Kiim community, totaling 200 people, at the helm. The ancestral forest of 13,583 acres is part of the National System of Protected Areas, which safeguards the ecosystem from mining, ranching, and agricultural expansion.

The region is a refuge to the puma and Andean bear and connects protected areasSources: ,