Frédéric Berger

R1170 Current Biology 26, R1167–R1176, November 21, 2016 for the Science of Human History at Jena, Germany (Science (2016) 354, 268–269). The last surviving groups of tropical forest tribes are currently facing the threat of extinction due to the ongoing destruction of their forests (Curr. Biol. (2015) 25, R635–R638). Linking their plight to the need to conserve forests to combat climate change, the British economist Nicholas Stern (author of the eponymous climate report to the UK government in 2006) has suggested that protection of indigenous land rights would simultaneously also create the maximal environmental benefi ts. Stern highlighted this connection at a recent WRI event for the launch of a report quantifying the amount of carbon dioxide emissions that could be avoided annually just by securing indigenous land rights in Bolivia, Brazil and Colombia. The report, titled Climate Benefi ts, Tenure Costs: The Economic Case for Securing Indigenous Land Rights in the Amazon, found that forests with legally recognised indigenous land rights have suffered much smaller losses than those without such rights. In economic terms, the report concludes that “the modest investments needed to secure land rights for indigenous communities will generate billions in returns — economically, socially and environmentally — for local communities and the world’s changing climate” (http://www.wri.org/ publication/climate-benefi ts-tenurecosts). Meanwhile, native communities across the Americas are at the forefront of protests against land-use change and infrastructure projects like the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota, USA — often they are the most vocal critics of the fossil fuel industries. Maybe it is time that our allegedly advanced civilisation stops infl icting its business model on native forest-dwelling populations and asks them for advice instead. They have demonstrated, after all, that there is an alternative to our destructive ways, and that humans can live in, with, and from forests.