A fraction of promised climate money reaches Amazon communities: Interview with Latimpacto’s leaders

The Amazon is the largest rainforest on Earth, with many funders making financial commitments to conserve this crucial ecosystem. Yet, when the declarations are traced to the ground, the capital is rarely there. This is especially true for Indigenous and local communities that steward and depend on this ecosystem but remain severely under-resourced and overlooked.

Carolina Suárez Visbal and Juan David Ferreira know this pattern well. As CEO and programs director of Latimpacto — a Colombia-based network dedicated to mobilizing philanthropic and impact capital across Latin America — they have spent years navigating the gap between what the world promises the Amazon and what actually reaches the communities living within it.

“One thing that worries us at Latimpacto about capital deployment is that people keep announcing funds and initiatives, but when you trace the record, this capital turns out to be very difficult to actually mobilize,” Ferreira told Mongabay at the Philanthropy Asia Summit 2026 in Singapore. “The investment thesis or the objectives of the fund do not align with the realities and the territories.”

Latimpacto’s response has been to create infrastructure to build capacity for regional environmental funding. The organization’s Pan-Amazon Fellowship reshapes how capital is structured and deployed in the ecosystem by training funders to understand the Amazon not as a monolithic rainforest but as a heterogeneous and dynamic place with nine distinct national contexts, and both isolated Indigenous communities and cities of over 2 million people.

Latimpacto’s initiative InNature Lab redefines what innovation means in an Amazonian context. The lab supports researchers and entrepreneurs who design solutions in direct collaboration with local communities and ancestral knowledge. One project in the Guavinía region of Colombia, for instance, is developing health and nutritional applications from fungi used by Indigenous communities for generations, with benefits and income flowing back to those communities in a formal, structured way.

“You need to centre your solutions on what the people in the territory are actually thinking about,” Ferreira said. “I think it is time now for philanthropy and concessional finance models to start rethinking how they can better adapt to what the territory actually needs.”

Besides improving how capital is being deployed, Suárez Visbal and Ferreira said, Latimpacto hopes to increase the amount of capital being deployed to begin with. Latin American philanthropy remains heavily dependent on external funders, and Suárez Visbal pointed to the need for regulatory structures promoted by the government, such as tax incentives, to encourage philanthropists to formalize or increase their giving.

“Philanthropic capital is uniquely positioned to take risks and to be patient in a way that government money and private sector capital are not,” Suárez Visbal said. Helping governments understand the catalytic role that philanthropy can play in advancing national outcomes could be key to encouraging regulatory developments.

Latimpacto advocates for an all-hands-on-deck approach to achieve regional environmental outcomes, Latimpacto’s leaders said. Their annual conference, to be held in Manaus, Brazil in September, will gather local and international. Their annual conference, to be held in Manaus, Brazil in September, will gather local and international philanthropists, impact investors, corporate foundations, Indigenous organizations, and more in the Amazon for four days of dialogue and action.

While Suárez Visbal and Ferreira are focused on Latin America, they also recognize that climate change and many environmental issues are shared challenges across many parts of the world. The tropical forests of Southeast Asia and the Amazon face similar challenges, for example, and Latimpacto’s leaders said they are interested in “creating a genuine exchange of practices” and “building up structures that are able to fund both regions,” to achieve the greater shared goal of achieving global socioecological resilience.

Beverley Choo from Mongabay’s development team interviewed Suárez Visbal and Ferreira. This interview is edited for clarity and length.

Mongabay: How are you finding the summit so far? Are there any unexpected parallels or shared challenges between Asian and Latin American philanthropy networks?

Carolina Suárez Visbal: This is our first time here, and it has been a really interesting experience. Even though we are so far apart geographically, we are seeing that we share many common challenges. You just mentioned coming from an ocean session, for instance — we are dealing with the same environmental issues. That said, I wouldn’t say we are simply similar just because people call us the Global South. You cannot compare a Singapore economy with any of the economies in Latin America. But beyond that, I think the natural issues are the same, because we are both in the tropics. So I think this has been a good experience, and it’s one that should continue — strengthening the connection between Asia and Latin America, and Southeast Asia in particular. For us, Southeast Asia is a region we find ourselves sharing a great many issues with, and one we should be working much more closely alongside.

Mongabay: What are the top funding priorities you’re seeing among philanthropists in Latin America? And within climate, is there more focus on mitigation, adaptation, biodiversity, nature or energy?

Carolina Suárez Visbal: Something we are also sharing with you here: the top priorities are education, health and employment. But we are seeing more philanthropists becoming interested in climate issues.

Juan David Ferreira: Latin American philanthropies are starting to work a great deal around climate adaptation and climate resilience — for the communities they work with, and across what they see as cross-sectional issues cutting through their existing portfolios in health, education and even entrepreneurship. On the other side, there is also a growing focus on leveraging nature as a solution and protecting it more strategically. Those are the two main areas within the climate–nature spectrum where we see organizations working more in Latin America.

It is also important to note that most climate funding for Latin America still comes from outside the region. At Latimpacto, we are trying to incentivize more local philanthropists to engage with this. We are seeing a major shift in Brazil over the past ten to fifteen years, and that trend is beginning to take hold in countries like Colombia and Peru, as well as among some philanthropists in Central America and Mexico.

Mongabay: When you say you’re trying to incentivize more Latin American philanthropists to give locally on climate, what do you mean by incentivize?

Carolina Suárez Visbal: It’s about how local philanthropists can become more involved in investing in these issues, moving beyond the assumption that this is a niche only for international donors.

Mongabay: COP30 was in Belém, Brazil, with a lot of focus on the Amazon and the Tropical Forests Forever Facility. Latimpacto also has a Pan-Amazon Fellowship. How has the momentum from COP30 translated into actual capital deployment on the ground?

Juan David Ferreira: One thing that worries us at Latimpacto about capital deployment and about major events like COP30 with all their big announcements is that people keep announcing funds and initiatives, but when you trace the record, this capital turns out to be very difficult to actually mobilize. In the Amazon, for instance, the investment thesis or the objectives of a fund often do not align with the realities on the ground in the territories.

That is part of why we developed the investor education fellowship. We want to train and support organizations that are willing to deploy capital and resources in the Amazon, so that they can structure initiatives and funds capable of being deployed rapidly and effectively — so that the money does not sit in a bank account in New York, but flows towards organizations that are already delivering impact in the Amazon, and specifically towards communities and organizations at the forefront of the major challenges the region faces.

Mongabay: How long have you been running the fellowship?

Juan David Ferreira: We have completed one edition, and this year we will start our second, which will be more accelerated. We begin with a lot of online training on finance, and in conversation with Indigenous representatives, multilaterals, and government representatives from subnational governments across the Amazon. The vision is to help participants see the region not as a homogeneous rainforest but as a very heterogeneous and dynamic place, one that includes the remote and isolated communities you typically see in the news, but also major cities like Manaus and Belém, each with over 2 million people.

After the online training, we do an immersion of about a week to a week and a half at the triple border of Colombia, Peru and Brazil — the Amazonian Trapezium — and then on to Manaus. It connects with our annual conference, which is being hosted in the Amazon this year, from September 9 to 11.

Carolina Suárez Visbal: I think it will be a unique opportunity to gather investors in the Amazon itself. Compared to COP30, we will have a smaller number of people, but the depth of discussion and direct interaction with communities will be critical.

Mongabay: Latimpacto’s initiative InNature Lab supports nature-based climate innovations, and I noticed that a requirement for projects is to involve communities at the design stage and integrate ancestral knowledge. Can you explain to philanthropists why these matter?

Juan David Ferreira: When we started the InNature Lab, it was important for us to redesign — or at least rethink — the concept of innovation, especially when working in the Amazon. For us, innovation starts by becoming more accessible and meaningful to the lives of people living in the region, and specifically to Indigenous communities.

That is why we designed this program by rethinking innovation as a process through which people doing interesting things in research and solutions design have built those solutions with local communities — with people in the territory who understand their own challenges and bring a different vision. We believe that through that vision, solutions are far more likely to be sustained in the long term.

In this way, we have worked with innovators from the Peruvian, Brazilian and Colombian Amazon who are building genuinely interesting things. Some of them are based in the Amazon and have Indigenous voices embedded in their governance, in their steering committees. Those communities are also the end users of the innovations being built. For us, that is a game changer. You need to center your solutions on what the people in the territory are actually thinking about.

I believe this can be a hugely positive driving force. However, achieving it has been difficult because capital is not flowing towards these organizations — concessional capital that aligns with the calendar of the rainforest and the communities, which is very different from the calendar that a financial institution operates on. These innovators have already changed a great deal about their structures and how they design their solutions. I think it is time now for philanthropy and concessional finance models to start rethinking how they can better adapt to what the territory actually needs. That, for us, is a real way to foster innovation.

Carolina Suárez Visbal: What we always want investors to understand, including both international and local investors, including philanthropies, is the context of the territories — the realities and the timelines that these communities and entrepreneurs are working within.

Mongabay: Can you give some examples of the kinds of ancestral knowledge that have been integrated, and how it has shaped the projects?

Juan David Ferreira: There is one project in Colombia working with fungi in the Guavinía region, which is one of the less visible departments of the Colombian Amazon.

What they are trying to find are health and nutritional solutions through the use of this fungus. They approached communities where it grows and designed their solution in conversation with those communities, learning how the fungi is used locally to treat conditions like joint pain, or to attract animals for hunting and fishing.

This is how these new innovators are approaching solutions — by working with organizations in the territory, identifying something that is of use to the local community, and then exploring the potential to scale it for a broader audience. Crucially, the benefits stay with the community. They are not extracting intellectual property — everything is shared. The community receives a portion of the income, and when the innovators fundraise, they also think about how they can support other initiatives the community might be designing: improvements to the chagras — the community gardens — or the community spaces themselves. It creates a very holistic and articulated relationship between those with research and design expertise and the people on the ground.

We also found that many of these innovators were missing entrepreneurial skills. So beyond supporting their ideas through visibility or financing, we offer a bootcamp where they develop financial literacy, learn how to build an impact-centered business model, and explore how to use social media to promote their work. It’s about leveraging these tools for good.

Carolina Suárez Visbal: And the bootcamp also brings these entrepreneurs together so they can exchange knowledge and practices amongst themselves because they often feel very isolated working in their own spaces. Being in the same room and realizing they are not alone in this has been genuinely powerful.

Beyond the InNature Lab, through our Green Climate Fund we will also be selecting entrepreneur-support organizations, and through them 250 entrepreneurs — most of whom should be working in the Amazon. We want to promote the Amazon as a regional concept, because not enough people understand that the Amazon spans nine countries. It is not only Brazil. The Brazilian Amazon is the most developed in terms of the support ecosystem, but what we are doing through the InNature Lab, the Green Climate Fund and the fellowship is helping people understand the very different realities that exist across the Amazon as a whole.

Mongabay: Trust-based philanthropy has been increasing in popularity recently. Is that trend present in Latin America, and what does Latimpacto think of it?

Carolina Suárez Visbal: It is a trend, but not at the scale we would like to see. We want to see much more of this kind of philanthropy. But we are still seeing a lot of organizations focusing on promoting and funding projects that are of their own interest — it is still largely funder-driven.

Juan David Ferreira: Most of the trust-based philanthropy happening in the region comes from outside it. This is a concept that is well advanced in the U.S. and in Europe, and those funders do deploy it in Latin America. But as Carolina said, grantmaking within Latin America tends to remain very much project-based. You give me a grant, I give you a project, I measure results, you put it in your report — it’s essentially a transactional relationship.

There are, however, a few organizations, foundations, and philanthropies in Latin America that have begun doing trust-based philanthropy on a meaningful scale. One of them is the Luis von Ahn Foundation. Luis von Ahn is the co-founder of Duolingo and a Guatemalan who moved to the U.S. at a young age — which is likely where he encountered the concept of trust-based philanthropy. His foundation does grantmaking exclusively in Guatemala, across education, women’s rights, Indigenous rights and climate. They have been pioneering this approach in Central America, and Guatemala is actually a place where quite a lot of trust-based philanthropy is happening, even though it is not a large country like Colombia or Brazil.

The foundation works with a diverse portfolio of organizations, supporting their operational costs, responding to their actual needs, and understanding how changing political and social contexts affect their operations. They are part of Latimpacto, and we have been trying to highlight them across the region as a strong example of how philanthropy should be done on the basis of trust. But it remains the exception rather than the rule, and the examples that exist tend to come from overseas.

Mongabay: Both of you have mentioned several times that a lot of funding — whether trust-based or otherwise — still comes from outside the region. What is stopping Latin American philanthropists from giving more at home? Are they giving elsewhere, or just not giving enough?

Carolina Suárez Visbal: They are giving — just not enough. Something I am beginning to see, though, is that philanthropy is reclaiming a good name in the region. But it is still not a priority for local families and high-net-worth individuals.

Part of the problem is that we simply do not have enough incentives or the right tax regulation to motivate more giving. We don’t have anything like India’s requirement for corporations to give 2% of profits to CSR efforts, or the tax incentives that the U.S. uses to promote philanthropic giving. This is something we are actively looking at and trying to advance. It is also about helping governments understand the importance of supporting philanthropy — because philanthropic capital is uniquely positioned to take risks and to be patient in a way that government money and private sector capital are not.

Mongabay: Even though philanthropy is best positioned to take on more risk and have longer timelines, funding environmental projects tends to involve especially long horizons and lower immediate financial return. How do you convince traditional corporate foundations and family offices to invest in biodiversity projects?

Carolina Suárez Visbal: We have a knowledge team and access to documents from bodies like the IPBES that we share with families. For example, at our conference in Manaus this year, we want to dedicate an exclusive day for families — held at a lodge in the middle of the river — and bring experts to speak about climate and biodiversity issues. The idea is to create the conditions for motivation and awareness.

We are already seeing a good number of Brazilian families investing in the Amazon, but we need to see more, and not only in Brazil. In Mexico, we are also seeing some families beginning to invest in the ocean. Ultimately it comes down to connecting the family with the need. Once they truly understand the reality, they have more incentive. And you achieve that through knowledge, through training, through fellowships and immersions — bringing them to the places themselves, facilitating peer exchange, showing them the entrepreneurs and the impact they are already making.

Juan David Ferreira: From the perspective of corporate foundations specifically, I think it anchors on two things.

The first is how we drive more corporate foundations to think in terms of systems change. Systems change requires understanding that impact takes time, especially in the environment. There are many foundations that have spent years doing social projects and are now beginning to think about environmental ones. But the mindset and the timeframes are very different. Part of our work is supporting them through that transition, helping them understand the difference in how you measure impact and the timelines involved in environmental versus social work, and how to see the two as interrelated through a systems-change lens.

The second, which is still very much an issue in Latin America, is the shift from measuring results to measuring impact. Foundations can sometimes be very focused on a number: How many trees have I planted in this region? Give me X number, and if you can’t, there is no program. The objective is to shift their thinking towards what the impact of planting those trees actually is: How has it restored the land? What biodiversity has it recovered? How has it mitigated CO₂ emissions? What have been the social benefits for nearby communities in terms of climate and disaster resilience? That same principle applies to social impact, by the way — it is not about how many children you have reached, but how the project has changed or improved their lives.

Carolina Suárez Visbal: And once they understand that these investments are not isolated — that they can also benefit their own operations — that changes things, too.

Mongabay: Given the similarities you’ve both noted between Latin America and regions like Southeast Asia — in climate, ecosystems, and shared challenges — how can we build greater solidarity across the “Global South”?

Carolina Suárez Visbal: The fact that we are here is part of the answer. We are already talking about how to build this solidarity. I think through Temasek [the global investment company headquartered in Singapore], the Philanthropy Asia Alliance, Africa Philanthropy Forum [APF], and Latimpacto, as ecosystem builders in our respective regions, we can deepen and multiply these collaborations among our members. We are thinking, for example, about how next year we might bring a larger Latin American delegation here for a deeper exchange — not just a panel appearance, but real conversations. And equally, we would love for Temasek and APF to come to our conference with a delegation, to interact there as well. It is about creating a genuine exchange of practices: learning, fellowship, immersion. That is how we incentivize this.

Juan David Ferreira: I have one specific suggestion, and it would be great to have your help in building on it. Both Southeast Asia — especially in Borneo and Indonesia — and Latin America have major tropical forests. There are already various programs that create exchanges between Indigenous communities, and a Governors’ Climate & Forests Task Force. But what we don’t see is a dedicated space for local philanthropies working in these regions to collaborate and exchange ideas.

Building that could be a high-potential opportunity. It could bring in not only those working on the Amazon rainforest but also those focused on the Cerrado in Brazil, the Mesoamerican forest in Central America, the Chaco in northern Argentina — and connect them with the larger tropical forest philanthropy community in Southeast Asia. Creating a forum for philanthropists to discuss what they have done, what they have learned, how they are funding, and which strategies have worked — and eventually building funding structures that can operate across both regions — that feels like a very promising and achievable scenario.

Banner image: Indigenous peoples sing and dance as they participate in an opening ceremony as part of the People’s Summit offsite from the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Nov. 12, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. Image by AP Photo/Fernando Llano.

Cite this article

Beverley Choo (2026). A fraction of promised climate money reaches Amazon communities: Interview with Latimpacto’s leaders. Mongabay Conservation news. DOI: https://doi.org/10.66709/news-322870

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