Working to empower indigenous and traditional communities to develop community-based solutions to effectively manage and conserve their biological and cultural resources for long-term sustainability.  

Ancestral Lands PROJECT

Indigenous and traditional communities throughout the world have been systematically dispossessed of their ancestral lands over the past several hundred years. These injustices continue to occur in the present day with far reaching negative consequences for these cultures and the environment. We are working to empower and assist indigenous and traditional communities in their fight to not only maintain ownership of their ancestral lands but also to protect them from mega-development projects that are incompatible with their traditional ways of life. For example, we helped the Maijuna indigenous group push the Peruvian Government to officially create the Área de Conservación Regional Maijuna Kichwa (Maijuna Kichwa Regional Conservation Area; ACRMK). This protected area is made up of 391,000 hectares (22% larger than Yosemite National Park) of biologically diverse and culturally important Maijuna ancestral territory. This work was in close collaboration with Nature and Culture International, The Field Museum of Chicago, and the Regional Government of Loreto. We have also recently finished work on the award-winning documentary film Guardians of the Forest that tells the inspiring story of the Maijuna and their fight to stop the construction of a road that the Peruvian government wants to build directly through the heart of their ancestral lands and protected area.

Biocultural Resource Management Project

Indigenous and traditional cultures are nourished and sustained by their ancestral lands. We are working to assist communities in the development of community-based management plans for culturally and biologically significant resources ultimately helping to ensure their long-term sustainability. For example, we are working with the Maijuna indigenous group to develop community-based management plans for ecologically and culturally important wildlife species. This work is in close collaboration with researchers at the University of Suffolk, George Mason University, and the Institute for Conservation Research at the San Diego Zoo.