In November 2025, Prince William used the stage of the fourth annual United for Wildlife Global Summit in Rio de Janeiro to unveil a new alliance for the people who defend the Brazilian Amazon. The partnership aims to protect Indigenous leaders and nature defenders working across territory covering 110 million hectares. Actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio added his voice to the occasion through a surprise video message. The initiative arrived days before the United Nations climate conference in Belém, at a time when destruction of the rainforest and violence against its guardians were rising. Here is what it promises.
What Prince William announced at the 2025 United for Wildlife Global Summit in Brazil
United for Wildlife reported that on Tuesday, 4 November 2025, the Prince of Wales unveiled an ambitious initiative to partner with Indigenous Peoples and nature protectors across the Brazilian Amazon and to strengthen their protection. The strategic partnership brings together The Royal Foundation’s United for Wildlife programme, the Coordination of Indigenous Organisations of the Brazilian Amazon, the Podáali Fund, Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN) and Rewild.In his keynote address, Prince William told the summit audience: “We cannot manage our forests while their protectors live in fear.” He added that the initiative means working alongside those who know the land best, strengthening Indigenous-led systems and delivering legal aid and emergency support.
Leonardo DiCaprio appeared by surprise video message and urged world leaders to take urgent action
The summit had a surprise guest. People reported that DiCaprio, then 50, joined the Prince of Wales, then 43, by video message on 4 November. He told leaders at the meeting that the time to act had come. People also reported that Prince William unveiled a plan to help those striving to protect Indigenous people who are losing their livelihoods to deforestation.The video was also published on DiCaprio’s Instagram page, and the Oscar winner said, “Nature is our most powerful solution.” DiCaprio was not named as a partner in the initiative. His message gave added profile to its cause.
DiCaprio’s message gave added profile to its cause (Images: Wikipedia)
Why the Amazon needs protecting: Illegal logging, gold mining, land-grabbing and threats to defenders
According to United for Wildlife, the Amazon faces a double crisis of accelerating environmental destruction and escalating violence against those who protect it. In 2024, more than 1.7 million hectares of rainforest were cleared, much of it driven by illegal logging, gold mining and land-grabbing.Satellite analysis published in June 2025 by the Monitoring of the Andes Amazon Program, using University of Maryland data, shows how far the damage reached. It found that deforestation across all nine Amazon countries in 2024 was the fifth highest since 2002, a 34 per cent jump from 2023, with Brazil responsible for 54.7 per cent of the total and Bolivia for 27.3 per cent. Fire made 2024 even worse, blazes damaged a record 2.8 million hectares of primary forest, and Brazil and Bolivia accounted for 95 per cent of that damage. Deforestation and fire together affected 4.5 million hectares, the highest combined total ever recorded. The programme noted that agriculture and gold mining drove most deforestation hotspots without major fires.Indigenous communities, whose lands host approximately 27 per cent of the Brazilian Amazon, bear the damage to their livelihoods, ancestral lands and sacred sites. Their stewardship works: United for Wildlife noted that deforestation in Indigenous lands is up to 83 per cent lower than in unprotected areas.The people doing that work face growing danger. In 2023 and 2024, 393 cases of violence against environmental defenders were recorded in Brazil. Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities were disproportionately affected, accounting for around a third of those killed or who disappeared in 2024.
How the partnership will work across nine states and shared threat data
According to United for Wildlife, the partnership seeks to break down barriers to the safety of Indigenous leaders across nine states of the Brazilian Amazon. It will prioritise wider access to legal support and an emergency response fund to help people at risk reach safety, whether through emergency evacuation, secure communications, safe houses or humanitarian aid.The partnership will also raise global awareness of Indigenous Peoples’ rights and their vital role in protecting the Amazon, and will improve the monitoring of threats through a shared data platform.
What 110 million hectares means, the scale of Indigenous territory reached by the Amazon partnership
The scale comes from the Indigenous partner at its centre. United for Wildlife said the Coordination of Indigenous Organisations of the Brazilian Amazon reaches 750,000 Indigenous people across approximately 110 million hectares of Amazon territory.Its Executive Coordinator, Toya Manchineri, told the summit that the safety of those who defend the forests with their own lives must be central to global discussions. For Indigenous peoples, he said, the territory is sacred, a place where the spiritual and the material come together. He described protecting it as a mission inherited from ancestors and invited the world to join the struggle.Doctor Tom Clements, Executive Director of United for Wildlife, said that protecting the land and resources of Indigenous Peoples and local communities is one of the most effective ways to protect nature and fight climate change. He stressed that the initiative is built and led by Indigenous-governed delivery mechanisms, offering a model for how the global community can support nature protectors everywhere.
