From the Andes to the Amazon, Latin America’s Climate Frontlines

For this quarter’s Matter of Impact, we turn our eyes toward Latin America, where natural assets are both abundant and vulnerable. Latin America holds 60 percent of the world’s biodiversity, including in the Amazon rainforest. The region is responsible for no more than 10 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and yet its 660 million people, more than 80 percent of whom live in urban areas, are on the frontlines of climate change impacts, particularly in Indigenous communities and people living in urban areas in precarious conditions. Uneven wealth distribution means that 3 in 10 people live in poverty.

In this edition, we bring you stories of hope from the area. Electricity is finally reaching a community in the remote Andean mountains. Smallholder farmers in Colombia’s Norte de Cauca are turning to regenerative practices to reclaim land from a sugarcane monoculture. A pioneering effort is underway to blend Indigenous and Western medicine in the Amazon rainforest to better fight climate-sensitive diseases. In Honduras’s isolated La Moskitia, a digital divide is closing for healthcare providers and patients. And more. Please read, and join us in sharing the remarkable work of grantees in this region.