 Our work over 20 years with forest communities in Latin America and other regions has shown us how indigenous peoples and local communities can preserve the very forest the lives depend upon. We understand that they are critical in protecting and restoring forest, but they need to have the resources, ownership and support to be able to do that. In particular, funding and decisions during COP26 and after must integrate that local communities need adequate technical and financial support to become ecosystems towards a scale, that governance needs to foster policies to ensure community rights over the forest. Effective alliances and southern governance is needed at all levels of organization from local to regional to international and finally communities livelihoods coming from forest products value chains must be strengthened.