Gaia Amazonas

Gaia Amazonas, in Colombia, shows how investment in the indigenous guardians of the Amazon rainforest is so much more than a human and environmental rights strategy - it's about the future of this planet as we know it.

Martín von Hildebrand, the visionary and founder of Gaia Amazonas, became a Skoll Social Entrepreneur in 2009. His remarkable journey as defender of the Amazon, the standing forest and indigenous rights, started way before that, in 1971. As a young anthropology student, he travelled to communities in the heart of the Colombian Amazon, but it was a darkly comic encounter with an indigenous elder and a sewing machine that changed his life-course. Martín uncovered debt-bondage, abuse and exploitation of indigenous communities by the rubber traders and missionaries. The more he learned on Amazonian indigenous peoples’ world vision and their relationship with nature, the more he realized that the future of the world’s rainforests lies with them.

Changing the status quo, putting a halt to the erosion of culture and traditional knowledge, and allowing indigenous communities to be recognized as the rightful guardians of the Amazon, became his mission. Martín began working with the Colombian Ministry of Education and in 1986 was appointed as Head of Indigenous Affairs. Working from within the Colombian government he has guided innovative policy on ethno-education and the unprecedented ‘return’ of Amazon rainforest territories to its millenary indigenous inhabitants. In 1990, he founded the Gaia Amazonas Foundation to work more effectively on the ground, hand-in-hand with indigenous communities of the Colombian Amazon, building skills and processes for local governance.

Right now, more than 27 million hectares of Colombia’s Amazon rainforest (an area the size of the UK) have been titled to indigenous peoples, and 15 million hectares are being governed by 19 indigenous municipalities. Gaia Amazonas' approach has been mirrored or adapted across the Northwest Amazon Basin and inspires those working for indigenous and environmental rights in many other countries, including the African continent.

Martín may well be “one of the most extraordinary conservation leaders you may have never heard of” and his efforts to highlight how indigenous people can improve their livelihoods, sustain their culture and conserve the rainforests have received both national and international accolades, including the Right Livelihood Award (1999) and Tällberg Foundation Global Leadership Prize (2015).

“The most compelling example in the world today of the contribution to a sustainable future that can be made by indigenous peoples” - Statement from the Right Livelihood Award to Gaia Amazonas’ COAMA Program.

“Gaia Amazonas works at the intersection of forest conservation, climate change and indigenous rights, building capacity for local indigenous governance and alliances for inter-institutional collaboration” - Tällberg Foundation Global Leadership Prize.

After three decades, Martín has stepped aside from Gaia Amazonas’ executive direction so that others with his same drive and passion for social and ecological justice take lead. Francisco von Hildebrand (affectionately known as Pacho), is one of the new talents and the current Executive Director. Pacho’s background in International Relations and Local Development and his years of field experience in the Colombian Amazon give him a particular eye for scalable conservation solutions. He is also a Mulago Fellow and is welcoming new partnerships as Gaia Amazonas takes part in several networks and alliances focused on the changing socio-political context in Colombia and the wave of pressures that target the Amazon and its indigenous peoples.