Why Indigenous Forest Guardianship is Crucial to Climate Action | Nonette Royo | TED

Indigenous communities have looked after their ancestral forests for millennia, cultivating immense amounts of knowledge on how to protect, nourish and heal these vital environments. Today, 470 million Indigenous people care for and manage 80 percent of the world’s biodiversity — yet their legal rights to these lands are inexplicit and subject to exploitation by illegal loggers, miners and companies. Human rights lawyer Nonette Royo describes how her team at the Tenure Facility, an organization that provides legal assistance to Indigenous people by taking their land rights battles to court, will help these communities secure and defend 50 million hectares of forests over the next five years. This ambitious plan is a part of the Audacious Project, TED’s initiative to inspire and fund global change. Watch all the talks from this year’s cohort at Follow TED! Twitter: Instagram: Facebook: LinkedIn: TikTok: @tedtoks The TED Talks channel features talks, performances and original series from the world’s leading thinkers and doers. Subscribe to our channel for videos on Technology, Entertainment and Design — plus science, business, global issues, the arts and more. Visit to get our entire library of TED Talks, transcripts, translations, personalized talk recommendations and more. Watch more: TED’s videos may be used for non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons License, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives (or the CC BY – NC – ND 4.0 International) and in accordance with our TED Talks Usage Policy (). For more information on using TED for commercial purposes (e.g. employee learning, in a film or online course), please submit a Media Request at