Indigenous Forest Guardianship

Session 95 summary

Nonette is from phillipines and she has worked in parts of southeast asia including and especially Indonasia, Papua and now based in Stockholm. Nonette chooses to look at indigenous people, local communities and their partners as holders of local wisdom- key to protect world’s ecosystems and strengthen climate resilient communities. It is very important in this challenge that we are facing in the world is that we disagrigate so many things and we forget that actually the solutions are in the agrigation and not in the disagrigation- looking at the ecosystem (all of it and not parts of it). So, they are looking at forests, biodiversity, waters and climate in land fissions. So based on what indigenous community people and local communities had been very used to, ultimately because of their interdependence with these resources and that is what people tend to forget if now sitting around in comfortable tables, desks and computers.

Tenure Facility’s approach

They call it 4 S’s: Sourcing, Securing, Sustaining and Sharing. They actively source from trust based partnerships, rights networks and alliances to secure rights de jure and de facto by mapping and titling with actions from Indigenous People’s and communities themselves, to address land rights recognition. They sustain by engaging effectively through nurturing existing legal frameworks, build alliances, with CSO, governments, private sector, universities, other groups and agencies. They facilitate extensive exchange and learning amongst community leaders, women, youth, advisors and allies and build a stronger community of leaders for secure tenure in guardianship of land, territory and resources (Share). Summarising them: sourcing is to build trust, then to secure their rights and governance and to sustain their efforts a lot more to support economic independence, creating a biodiversity based enterprise and sharing those lessons. Their vision is to secure indigenous people and local communities’ land rights so that they can sustainably thrive in their forests and protect the forests not just for themselves but also for the others and the planet and Tenure Facility aims to start from 9 million to 92 million hectares. They are on scale on the 5^th year to get upto 14 million hectares in process and they are aiming upto 50 million till 2027. They start with tropical rainforest countries in the Amazon, in the Congo basin and in Asia, particularly Indonasia, Nepal and India.

Columbia [2018-present(2022)]

In Columbia they have worked with the afro-descendant columbians in pushing for their land rights, achieved through their peace negotiations with government and currently the new government has reinvigorated and recommitted themselves to recognition of these land rights. They are aiming for 1.5 million hectares there- upto 2 million hectares of indigenous afro-descendant community land and in addition to that indigenous people’s land rights. This is to benefit upto 1.5 million people afro-Columbians and in addition to that indigenous people. This at the moment is a huge opportunity, not only for the government but for the people themselves in Columbia.

India [2018-present(2022)]

In India they have provided support through the India Business School(IBS) and Vasundhara, and the Society for Rural, Urban and Tribal Initiatives (SRUTI). The implementation of the forest rights act in india, as known the Forests Rights Acts, gives the schedule tribes/adivasi and other traditional forest dwellers their rights to govern, manage and improve forests. So, it is right to governance of community forests and this has huge implications, especially to the unregistered lands going upto 14 million hectares in India. This has advanced since 2018 to the present (2022) in such a way that even women’s organization’s, adivasis, etc. are working together with their local governments in advancing their applications for their community forest areas.

Challenges and opportunities with indigenous peoples

In Panama since 2018 it has been a challenge because 80% of the lands in Panama are protected areas. Atleast these 80% overlap with indigenous peoples lands rights. So, their support in Panama has actually led to securing almost 600,000 hectares and they won their case in court in Naso deir tim in one of the indigenous territories where the supreme court recognised that even if these are protected areas, this can be owned and secured to the rights of the local indigenous peoples- this time around it is indigenous peoples of naso. Now they are learning how to be really good stewards as caretakers of protected areas in Panama. There are some challenges in some of the films Tenure Facility has received, as it is not always a success. There are many challenges because land is such a commodity- a very valued commodity by the government. There have been threats which have not come recently but have been there for 50-70 or even 100 years for many communities, especially those living in the sacred and very intact forests and lakes. People come eventually and dig and get natural resources from their area.

How is Tenure Facility helping the communities in protecting their territories?

The answer to this is that the local communities and indigenous peoples have not stopped defending their territories, that is why they still have the amount of forests they currently have, that is why still 80% of the biodiversity is guarded/stewarded by these people, that is why there is  the ability to look at the potential for our climate change solution of reducing deforestation and making sure emissions are absorbed by the forest that they are protecting. So, they have for them delivered the resources that we need to get ourselves to get 30 by 30- a global goal to keep the 30% of the planet’s natural resources intact by 2030 because the scientists have realised that beyond that it will be hard for humans to recover and for the planet to survive with the number of people living if we do not keep the 30% of the current natural resources intact. The key to that stratergy is to guardian/ steward the current forests that are being currently protected by the indigenous people because this is where they live and interact. This is why the maps produced, the titles, registrations and verification processes that involve not only indigenous peoples, but also the technicians speakers- they do not use the basic maps drawing boards, they use high technology/ advanced technology to record their boundaries and to ensure that they have documented their rights. They have got government to verify this and they go into the government offices to process these data to become maps. It gives them the evidence to help fend their territories and to legally command these police and courts’ other agencies to act with them and in addition help them and several of these indigenous people gaurdians now have formed their commities, day and night monitoring territories in such amazing unique and very grounded ways. some of them they saw include shamans and these are young committed apprentices who would essentially take on the work of monitoring forests in a very deeply way, not only physical but also in the spiritual way.

What is possible with Tenure?

The team asks themselves – how can they continue to work with forest gaurdians despite threats? how can they advance women’s equal rights and equal roles in governance to land and resources without fragmenting the community? how can they ensure learning remains a process and not an event? how can they expand, to reach others, other organizations in the broader ecosystem? how can they encourage actions, contributions in cash and kind, with potential donors to scale up implementation? how can the Tenure Facility best influence the broader conservation communities to strengthen a rights-based approach?