Reporting for this story was supported by the Dom Phillips Grant of the Rainforest Journalism Fund in collaboration with the Pulitzer Center. IQUITOS, Peru — On the Peruvian side of the Yavarí River, overlooking the lush Brazilian shore, a weary Matsés man deletes the latest anonymous threat he received on his cellphone. He thought he and his people had seen it all: invasive logging and oil giants; the marauding cowboys of the first carbon credit rush; the quiet encroachment of illegal fishing and drug-trafficking rings into the Amazon. But then came a new disappointment. “The hopes for jobs, stipends, study grants, were high,” he said of the scheme that promised to bring connectivity, income and opportunities to his community. He requested anonymity to avoid reprisals. As pressure increases on governments and companies to boost climate action, sustainable finance initiatives are on the rise. But so are actors looking to profit from forest-dependent communities, well-meaning investors, and companies looking to meet environmental, social and governance (ESG) commitments. In Peru, Bolivia and Panama, entities purportedly specialized in sustainable and climate finance have falsely claimed United Nations endorsement to talk Indigenous communities into handing over the economic rights to their forests for decades at a time, a Mongabay investigation has found. Since 2022, the companies, which share commercial interests across various jurisdictions, have presented the forest communities with promises of the life-changing benefits that commodifying their forests and respective ecosystem services can bring. The deals targeted around 788,000 hectares (1.95 million acres) in…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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