We are not beneficiaries of conservation efforts – we are partners
This Mother Earth Day, explore the ten geographies spanning the globe where Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) are harnessing scaled and direct finance for people and nature.
Joseph Itongwa Mukumo is an Indigenous Walikale leader from the North Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Reflecting on a message to the world, he does not hesitate to proclaim,
To the world, it is now time to help Indigenous Peoples fighting to fulfill their commitment to the protection of our biodiversity. We are not beneficiaries of conservation efforts – we are partners.
Scaling biodiversity investments in Indigenous leadership
Joseph is the National Director of the National Alliance for the Support and Promotion of Indigenous and Community Heritage Areas and Territories in the DRC (ANAPAC) and the sub-regional coordinator of the ICCA Central Africa consortium. His organization, ANAPAC, is among a global consortium of Indigenous-led organizations spearheading the Inclusive Conservation Initiative (ICI) – a Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded project implemented by Conservation International (CI) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on directing conservation and biodiversity finance to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs).
With IPLC partnerships in ten geographies – Argentina, Chile, the DRC, Fiji and the Cook Islands, Guatemala and Panama, Kenya, Nepal, Peru, Tanzania, and Thailand, ICI represents a new approach to inclusive biodiversity financing, as it directs finance at scale to IPLC organizations. Indeed, for many of its IPLC partners, ICI is the first time Indigenous organizations are directly receiving and implementing funding at scale that is not controlled through state or private entities, enabling IPLC communities to take the lead in territorial and resource management.
This International Mother Earth Day, ICI IPLC partners share how they are making progress, utilizing Indigenous territorial and biocultural life maps as foundations through which they identify areas of cultural, spiritual, and biological meaning and importance and improve the safeguarding of territories to guide informed, collective, and sustainable approaches against diverse challenges.
Indigenous knowledge powering inclusive and comprehensive science-supported action
The foundation for informed action is knowledge. In every place, ICI partners are documenting Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge, merging their Indigenous worldviews with biodiversity and conservation action for global environmental benefits. As William Naimado, a young Maasai leader from the Indigenous Movement for Peace Advancement and Conflict Transformation (IMPACT Kenya) asserts,
What we are fighting for now, is not for us to be considered as if we are conservationists. We are not conservationists, we are part of the land and conservation is our life, so we cannot say that Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities need to be recognized as doing conservation – we need to be recognized as our lifestyle: it is conservation on its own.
These Indigenous biocultural, territorial, and life maps are paired with newer technologies, offering IPLC partners the pathway to merge Indigenous science and observation with geospatial sciences to assist in the demarcation, protection, and defense of their lands, territories, and natural resources while also ensuring comprehensive and inclusive approaches to scaled IPLC conservation contributions. In Kenya, IMPACT has completed all 22 planned biocultural maps and calendars, and it currently using them in the development of biocultural protocols at community levels with four different IPLC groups.
In Kenya, ICI’s biocultural maps and calendars document historical and present-day territories and the traditional and cultural practices and systems that contribute to the sustainable use and protection of biodiversity.
In Tanzania, the Ujamaa Community Resource Team (UCRT) demarcated boundaries with GPS coordinates – which have been submitted to the Tanzanian Ministry of Land. Communities are now also using smartphones to take photos to monitor changes over time while collecting and planting seeds in bare lands via grazing coordinators – all while exploring satellite vegetation cover analysis for tracking future progress.
Under a consortium led by Sot’zil, in Guatemala, mahogany, cedar, and Santa Maria timber trees have been reforested in Aldea La Pintada in Livingston, Izabal through community engagement with Indigenous leaders – while documenting 250 KML files (Keyhole Markup Language files which display geographic data and visualizations in browsers such as Google Earth).
Students study geospatial work under Ak’Tenamit, a partner in Central America’s ICI work led by Sotz’il. Below, examples of Google Earth data generated by ICI partners under Sotz’il highlight Indigenous contributions to both traditional and satellite sciences. Photo credits: Ak’Tenamit and Sotz’il
Graciela Coy, the President of Ak’Tenamit, a partnering Indigenous organization, shares that these approaches benefit from girls’ and youth empowerment:
In Guatemala, we are carrying out various activities, mainly in terms of capacity building for girls and women, young Indigenous Peoples. We have also conducted workshops mainly through training in the use of tools such as GPS for land measurement. Women are the main protectors of all that is biodiversity and the natural resources of our Mother Earth. We consider the transfer of knowledge to be very important so that they can be strengthened through other generations.
In the DRC, ANAPAC has mapped 53,882 hectares in Madi-Ndombe, Kasai, and Sankuru provinces in Mpembe, Bolonga, and Losomba, respectively. These mappings were conducted inclusively with neighboring villages via trainings of local surveyors on how to use technologies such as GPS and led not only to community-driven demarcated boundaries – but also the first ever map of the Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas (ICCAs).
Maps produced by ANAPAC in DRC.
Across Asia, the Indigenous Peoples’ Foundation for Education and Environment (IPF) in Thailand and Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN) have supported IPLCs to improve conservation practices and the sustainable use of territorial protected areas –utilizing the power of telecommunications, such as radio programming in Nepal and GIS training in Thailand. IPLCs are strengthening collective knowledge on rights-based advocacy, climate change, and biodiversity conservation while restoring lands by maintaining firebreak lines, planting trees, and monitoring dams.
In Nepal, ICI participants working under NEFIN’s leadership weave ancestral knowledge, identity, and heritage. Photo credit: NEFIN
In Argentina and Chile, Futa Mawiza completed a combined 11 of 13 planned territorial biocultural maps – which have informed the design and roll out of a small grants program to support local livelihoods and conservation initiatives and the development of curriculum for the Mapuche School of Traditional Knowledge in Chile.
Building landmark progress
Though ICI’s field implementation is only completing its first 12 to 15 months of activities, the impacts thus far have been far-reaching – breaking new ground in diverse ways. In Chile, a co-governance agreement was signed between representatives from over 13 Mapuche communities and Villarrica National Park. The agreement marks the first time in Chile’s history wherein an Indigenous community gains formal recognition of their territorial rights over a State-Protected Wilderness Area.
María Teresa Huentequeo Toledo, Director of the National Forestry Corporation (CONAF) for the Region of La Araucanía, signing the agreement alongside Simón Crisóstomo Loncopán, President of the Association of Mapuche Winkulmapu Communities of Kurarewe sign the co-governance agreement. Photo Credit: Nicolas Amaro
In Tanzania, UCRT not only mapped and demarcated lands but also secured and issued 12 Certificates of Village Land (CVLs) across three clusters of villages in Yaeda Lake Eyasi, Simanjiro-Makame, and Longido-Natron – covering 203,390 hectares by resolving land boundary conflicts and enabling participatory land management. UCRT also launched the Makame Wildlife Management Area (WMA) General Management Plan, a ten-year plan which embodies the views of 113 participants (31 women) in demarcation, socio-economic surveys, and stakeholder consultations to ensure sustainable resource use.
In Tanzania, URCT has demarcated lands and resolved land disputes under ICI [top photos], leading to secure and issued Certificates of Village Lands (CVLs) [bottom photo]. Photo credit: UCRT
In Peru, the Federación Nativa del Río Madre de Dios y Afluentes (FENAMAD) has developed a Women’s Agenda and set up gender-based violence protocols in 6 communities, while a protocol and small fund on gender-based violence response was created in Argentina under Futa Mawiza’s leadership. In the Fiji Lau seascape and Cook Islands, two Indigenous trusts – the UANKA and Lau trusts – have been established by partners at Bose Vanua o Lau (Fiji), House of Ariki (Cook Islands) and Conservation International Fiji to oversee the implementation of ICI project funding, ensuring collective, self-determined conservation action.
“We are not alone” – Delivering global environmental benefits – together
These approaches are delivering global environmental benefits across biodiversity, climate change mitigation, international waters, land degradation, and forestry considerations. Together, ICI’s IPLC leaders have directly engaged nearly 50,000 beneficiaries who are direct initiative stakeholders in improving the management of millions of hectares.
These achievements have taken place in the context of significant threats and barriers – spanning fires, complex governance relationships with various authorities, engaging with restrictive protected area regulations, armed conflicts, extractive industries, and continued and growing dangers to Indigenous environmental human rights defenders. On this International Mother Earth Day, we are reminded that urgent action is needed as nature is suffering while oceans acidify and extreme weather events are affecting millions of people and their adaptive capacities and resilience throughout the globe. While nature beseeches us to recover our ecosystems to ensure the sustaining and thriving of all life on Mother Earth, it requires more – it necessitates collective action and a vision of unity for nature.
ICI partners share insights during the ICI Abyia Yala regional learning exchange in March 2025. Photo credit: Jogo Dule
Responding to these challenges, ICI’s IPLC partners have formed a global community built upon solidarity. They not only regularly engage in leading ICI’s governance through an elected process determining ICI’s Global Steering Committee, but also engage in global and regional exchanges – supporting one another, identifying synergies, and jointly advocating for change and progress within global environmental policy-making spheres. As Roko Josefa Cinavilakeba of Totoya in Lau shares:
We are not alone. The Pacific is not alone. Fiji is not alone. This is why we came together as an Indigenous community – for all our people.
From the heart of indigenous wisdom and the spirit of our ICI family, we honor and celebrate Mother Earth today and every day. As stewards of the planet, we call upon all to unite in a shared commitment to protect and cherish our Mother Earth. Let us walk together in harmony, honoring the deep connections we share with the land, waters, and all living beings. Happy Earth Mother Day to all.
This story was published by the Inclusive Conservation Initiative and originally appears here.