Mygrandfather was born in an impoverished Indigenous community in the Chimborazo province in the central Andean highlands of Ecuador. Home of the Puruwá nation, Chimborazo owes its name to the majestic snow-capped mountain, which at 6,310 meters (20,700 feet) above sea level is the country’s tallest. Ecuador is one of the poorest countries in Latin America, and Chimborazo is the poorest of all its 22 provinces. In the early 1900s, my grandfather left his community to work, study, and travel. He spent close to 18 years in Europe, and came back to Ecuador to raise a family in the port city of Guayaquil with the ability to speak six languages, including his native Quichua.

As nations and communities across the globe embark on the ambitious mission of reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change, Indigenous Peoples and traditional forest-dwelling communities represent important allies and guides. Forest-dependent communities have long served as effective guardians of forests, and have modeled key practices around sustainable land use and natural resource management, including the protection of a greater variety of forest types within their territories as compared with other protected areas[1]. Nonetheless, the knowledge and benefits contributed by these communities have often gone unnoticed or undervalued.