Thriving Forests
Our partners are protecting or restoring one million hectares of threatened forest. Will you join them?
With flexible, long-term support for local organisations, funders can safeguard tropical forests – and nurture community development and livelihoods.
Our Thriving Forests programme is using this approach to protect more than one million hectares of threatened territory. Now we’re ready to partner with other funders seeking similar impact.
You can discover inspiring work by Global South pioneers, and see the impact of flexible support, below. Or contact Dua Zehra, Senior Programmes Officer, to arrange a conversation about funding forest protection.
Flexible funding for forest protection: big impact, even with smaller grants
Organisations that support forest protection led by Indigenous Peoples and local Communities create big impact with small amounts of funding. Crucially, these organisations use their local knowledge and connections to deliver work that benefits forests and the people who live in them. Because the more resilient forest communities are, the more they can protect and restore their land.
Flexible, long-term funding helps these organisations deliver holistic solutions tailored to local needs. Like planting trees that boost incomes and nutrition, as well as biodiversity. Or restoration that also protects people from landslides and wildfires. This funding approach also makes organisations can cover essential core costs such as staff wages, administration and financial management.
Evidence shows that stewardship by Indigenous People and Local Communities is highly effective – but despite this, the amount that reaches these organisations directly is less than 1% of global climate finance.
If you’re interested in funding local forest protecting pioneers, we’d love to work with you.
Our flexible Thriving Forests grants have created multiple benefits
Ashden’s Thriving Forests programme has given 15 organisations technical assistance and grants of £26,000. This funding has activated the global benefits of forest protection – as well as local development and resilience. These examples show how.
Nurturing sustainable livelihoods
Lowering landslide risks
Protecting territorial rights and security
Land management… with beehive barriers
Take action on forest protection with Ashden
We’re working to help funders channel support to proven local organisations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. We have 25 years’ experience nurturing climate solutions in the Global South, and our Thriving Forests programme offers an approved pipeline of outstanding local organisations eager to explore collaboration. We can offer insights and context into this issue, as well as introductions to our partner organisations.
Our Thriving Forests partners
Carrying out biodiversity conservation activities with four communities on the northern periphery of the Kahuzi-Biega National Park – strengthening local land rights, and supporting sustainable livelihoods.
Supporting women’s empowerment, community livelihoods, and sustainable ecosystems. The organisation has planted 80,000 bee-loving native trees in degraded areas of the Kilum-Ijim Forest, trained more than 1,300 people in bee keeping and honey production, and nearly 1,000 farmers in agroforestry to improve soil health.
Supporting 19 communities in Ogooué-Ivindo province to legally secure more than 145,000 hectares of ancestral forest adjacent to Ivindo National Park. Its livelihoods work includes support for sustainable fishing and beekeeping.
Working with 45 villages – creating impact through a tree nursery and agroforestry training for local communities. This helps local people make a sustainable living through products including cacao, fruit, soap, rubber and oils.
Helping rainforest communities in DRC make a sustainable living through agriculture and tourism. Its eco-tourism work centres on helping visitors access the area’s bonobo apes, in a way that brings benefits to – and respects the cultural wishes of – local people.
Helping communities monitor and restore the forests around Benue National Park, and develop agroforestry practices such as shea and cashew growing, and honey production. They use gender-sensitive techniques and quotas in their work to strengthen opportunities for women.
The partnership between communities and local authorities in a threatened area of the Amazon. Its work helps local people earn a sustainable living and also gives them tools to monitor and report illegal logging and mining. People have seen their incomes grow by up to 60%, while the scheme has been certified as meeting the world’s highest conservation standards.
Designing solutions to illegal logging and deforestation with local people, bringing benefits such as alternative sources of income and a clinic providing high-quality affordable healthcare.
3C, Burundi
3C will plant and protect trees in Burundi’s last remaining forest area, Mont Mboza, and nurture sustainable businesses for local people. As well as growing incomes, this work will lower the danger of landslides.
ADINA, Costa Rica
Expanding its work on land reforestation, sustainable tourism, and territory mapping. It is also strengthening women’s groups among the area’s nine Indigenous communities.
Helping women in forest-edge communities raise their incomes, particularly through more effective food production and preservation. The organisation’s approach centres on empowering women, particularly as community leaders.
An Indigenous women-led organisation protecting more than 360,000 hectares of ancestral Amazonian rainforest in Ecuador. After halting oil exploration in 2019, the association now trains women from the Sapara community in nature-based enterprise and community-led tourism.
In South Sumatra, the Hutan Kita Institute is expanding agroforestry training, improving forest monitoring, and working with government for better regional and national policies.
Supporting communities in southwest Gabon to reduce hunting pressure and human-elephant conflict through new income-generating activities. From beekeeping to orchards, these initiatives improve local livelihoods while protecting biodiversity in and around a critical national park.
PROGRAM, Gabon
A grassroots conservation initiative protecting 20,000 hectares of forest in the buffer zone of Gabon’s Moukalaba-Doudou National Park — home to gorillas, chimpanzees, and elephants. Through community-led tourism and conservation, they engage local people, including former poachers, in tracking and protecting wildlife, while also supporting sustainable food production and alternative incomes.
“The idea is amazingly supportive and unique. It will help us strengthen and grow, in ways that aren’t possible when a funder backs work towards a single target only, like planting a certain number of trees.”
Nur Febriani, Director of Resource Mobilization for Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI), an organisation taking part in Thriving Forests
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Find out how you can support forest protection
To discuss funding opportunities, contact Dua Zehra, Senior International Programmes Officer.