Introducing Home Planet Fund: A radically different approach to the climate crisis

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Apr 25, 2024, 13:00 ET

VENTURA, Calif., April 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- This week, the Home Planet Fund launches. It is a new independent nonprofit that supports local and Indigenous communities who work in concert with nature to stop climate breakdown.

In 2021, outdoor apparel company Patagonia committed $20 million in seed funding to help launch the Home Planet Fund. This new, independent nonprofit will operate as a 501(c)(3) that can receive contributions from other donors, large and small.

Home Planet Fund will also let the communities it invests in make their own decisions

"We trust Indigenous Peoples," said Dilafruz Khonikboyeva, executive director of the Home Planet Fund. "Indigenous Peoples and tribal communities have been doing this work for centuries, but they're not being supported well enough. The Home Planet Fund will vet the communities we invest in and then we will get out of the way, so they can decide how to spend the investment best. No long grant applications. No need to gather data to relentlessly track progress. No strings attached. They already know what works, and they know their communities. We trust them."

Radical trust in its partners will be matched with a willingness to take risks. Home Planet Fund will work in fragile and rural places others can't or won't.

Why go this route? Because Indigenous Peoples manage more than 24% of the world's land, representing 40% of the intact landscapes left on the planet—and a staggering 80% of the world's biodiversity. These communities feel the impacts of the climate crisis firsthand, while contributing practically nothing to it—and they're pursuing brilliantly simple solutions that can help mitigate it.

Home Planet Fund is collaborating with Indigenous-led NGOs on four continents to support priorities determined by the communities themselves:

Asia: Tajikistan
Africa: Kenya + Tanzania + Uganda
Oceania: Pacific Islands
North America: Alaska, USA

Funds will be used to expand the traditional practices of Maasai pastoralists in Kenya and Tanzania, promote the wisdom of Pacific Islanders in Fiji and Vanuatu, support indigenous farming practices in Tajikistan, and so much more.

The goal is not only to support these critical efforts, but to spread the knowledge of Indigenous People all over the globe. Although many of their techniques are ancient, they are not unsophisticated: Indigenous practices reflect a deep understanding of the natural world, honed over generations.

Learn more at www.homeplanetfund.org

About Home Planet Fund

Home Planet Fund is a global initiative addressing the climate crisis in Indigenous communities that are typically overlooked—and we're doing it at a scale never seen before. We're advancing proven nature-based solutions along with trusted partners across the globe.

We encourage people to visit our website, follow our social-media channels (below), donate to the cause, and spread the stories of the people whose practices, which have been proven for millennia, have always been the only ones that can now heal the Earth.

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SOURCE Home Planet Fund