Health in Harmony

Scaling: by 2030, hih plans to assist communities to have an outsized impact on protecting 900 million hectares of tropical rainforests through advocacy, strategic partnerships, and rainforest exchange, a technology platform that upends the status quo by directly investing in ip & lc solutions and removing burdensome reporting requirements. Rainforest exchange is the first platform to center community-designed solutions, user action, and impact measurement (carbon, biodiversity, and community thriving) in one place so donors and communities are able to see the impact clearly. At scale, 90% of the funding will go directly into community-designed solutions to protect and restore tropical rainforests.

Brazil: in 2020, hih began working directly with communities to protect 1.6 million hectares, with an indirect impact on 9.1 million hectares in the xingu basin. Amazonian ips & lcs have been shown to be effective buffers against forest loss, and their presence in forests is a major deterrent to land encroachment through strong social and cultural institutions, traditional land, governance, monitoring, and activism. Simultaneously, ips & lcs face limited access to quality healthcare, food security, and livelihoods needed to maintain their well-being and roles as forest guardians. As deforestation and rainforest degradation in brazil occurs primarily at the hands of external actors like gold miners and land grabbers, xingu communities also face constant threats to their sovereignty and collective rights to land ownership. The intersection of threats to human Health, land sovereignty, and the environment occurring in the amazon demands an equally-interconnected approach, rooted in ip & lc expertise. To stay on this land and defend the amazon rainforest against degradation, xingu communities designed solutions focused on accessible healthcare, livelihood, and territorial governance support.

Indonesia: since 2007, Health in Harmony has collaborated with asri, an indonesian affiliate organization, and communities around gunung palung national park, to create and implement community-designed programs that support human Health, alternative livelihoods, and environmental conservation. in 2018, Health in Harmony and asri launched a second site in bukit baka bukit raya national park, which is nearly twice the size of gunung palung national park and faces similar threats such as slash-and-burn agriculture, hunting, and logging.