Mongabay contributor Glòria Pallarès earned an honorable mention in the 2025 Trace Prize for Investigative Reporting, announced May 28, for her investigation into how Indigenous communities in Peru, Bolivia and Panama were misled into handing over their rights to millions of hectares of forest.

The January 2024 investigation, “False claims of U.N. backing see Indigenous groups cede forest rights for sketchy finance,” uncovered a network of companies that used false claims of U.N. endorsement to help them win contracts, some lasting several decades, with various Indigenous communities.

The economic rights to more than 9.5 million hectares (23.5 million acres) of forest were signed away via these schemes. The agreements were signed without full community consent and were based on unclear promises of jobs, local development projects and, in some cases, a financial return from carbon credits and green bonds, Pallarès found.

The 2025 Trace Prize praised the story as “a singular contribution to our understanding of how financial innovations that put a capital value on natural resources can abet the exploitation of vulnerable populations.”

One of the most egregious contracts that Pallarès’ uncovered involved 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) of the Matsés community’s land in Peru, bordering the territories of several isolated tribes.

The company that got the contract, Get Life, had a registered capital of less than $700, and its sole owner told Mongabay that he lacked experience in sustainable finance and carbon markets. Pallarès found that he had been partnering with Ysrael Urday, a former public official investigated for the alleged embezzlement of social assistance funds.

“I didn’t quite understand the contract [with Get Life], none of us really did,” said a Matsés Indigenous representative, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “But they talked about creating employment and international organizations, so that gave me hope.”

Following the investigation, the Matsés community terminated their contract with Get Life; the NGO Conservation International also cut ties with the company. Contracts in Panama and Bolivia have also since been challenged or scrapped over questions of community consent, Pallarès reported.

“Unverified financial and market-based models are proliferating amid a lack of regulations and due diligence,” Pallarès told the Trace Prize judges in a written statement. “[The honorable mention] encourages me in my pursuit to continue exposing false solutions to the world’s environmental and development challenges.”

Banner image: The Matsés in Peru were one of the Indigenous communities targeted by the finance schemes. Image by Mongabay.