Shaping Solutions for Climate, Communities, and Biodiversity
Getting community engagement right before a project launches is one thing. Sustaining indigenous leadership and local ownership once implementation is underway is another challenge entirely. Benefit-sharing structures, funder requirements, and decision-making processes can shift in ways that dilute ownership that looked solid on paper. This session draws on restoration experiences from around the world to examine what real ownership looks like under real operating conditions. The panel closes with a single forward-looking question to each speaker: if community-owned restoration is the norm twenty years from now, what needs to change starting today?
Executive Vice President, Nature for Justice
Steven Nitah is a respected Indigenous leader from the Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation, serving as Managing Director of First 30×30 Canada and Executive Vice President at Nature For Justice. He brings extensive experience in Indigenous-led conservation, land stewardship, and climate action. As Chief and Lead Negotiator, Steven helped establish Thaidene Nëné and advance a relationship agreement recognizing the Nation as an equal partner in governance, operations, and management. His work reflects the spirit and intent of Treaty relationships through shared responsibilities and benefits. Through First 30×30 Canada, Steven supports Indigenous governments in advancing conservation, protecting special places, and pursuing nature-based solutions.
Senior Advisor, CIFOR-ICRAF
Cathy Watson is an Ashoka Fellow, journalist and social entrepreneur with 40 years’ experience in Africa, reporting from Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Madagascar and Uganda where she also founded NGOs: Straight Talk produced newspapers in four indigenous languages and radio shows in 16; Mvule Trust was a Guardian Christmas Charity and supported 3400 youth on courses, including 156 foresters. Now Senior Advisor at Landscape Alliance in Kenya, she has worked across the Global South from Peru to Vietnam. She is particularly exercised by seed systems for indigenous species and restoration in cocoa, refugee-hosting and urban landscapes. In Nairobi, she has created green jobs and a biodiversity corridor with over 140 tree species. Editor of the 2026 compendium Urban Forests and Green Spaces in Africa: Case Studies and Lessons from Across the Continent, Cathy believes Africa’s future lies in the hands of its botanists.
MODERATOR
Head of Community Partnerships and Land Strategy, Terraformation
Annie Thompson is Head of Community Partnerships & Land Strategy at Terraformation, where she advances the principle that people closest to the forest should lead its stewardship. She leads work on land tenure, FPIC, community governance, benefit-sharing, livelihoods and social safeguards across Terraformation’s native, biodiverse restoration projects. Annie brings 15 years of experience in land governance, community development and natural resource management across Africa, Latin America and Asia, including managing more than $200 million in U.S. government investments. Previously, she worked at the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation and the Rights and Resources Initiative.
TRACK
TIME
FORMAT
