Indigenous-led Rainforest Protection and Cultural Survival in the Amazon

World Centric + Amazon Frontlines & Ceibo Alliance

$30,000 from profits from fiscal year 2020

Indigenous peoples in the Upper Amazon are fighting to protect their rainforest territories and way of life from extractive threats, but they lack the tools, networks, and resources they need to confront some of the mightiest interests on Earth.

The Indigenous organization Ceibo Alliance implements a holistic approach to build power with Indigenous communities, combining strategic litigation and land titling, real time high tech land monitoring and mapping, building capacity for women leaders and community microenterprises, piloting next generation education initiatives, training Indigenous journalists and lawyers, and providing clean water and solar energy to remote communities. Ceibo Alliance has been behind some of the most significant Indigenous rights victories in the last decade, mapped hundreds of thousands of acres of territory, built access to clean water for more than one thousand families and solar energy in 16 villages, and was awarded the UN Equator Prize for the effectiveness of its model.

Amazon Frontlines is Ceibo's closest partner. Their team is comprised of an international group of human rights lawyers, environmental activists, forestry specialists, environmental health scientists, filmmakers, journalists, anthropologists, and farmers. They live and work in the western Amazon. The mission of Amazon Frontlines is to support the struggles of indigenous peoples to defend their rights to land, life and cultural survival in the Amazon Rainforest.

The Impact

Funding from World Centric will contribute to Ceibo Alliance's ongoing strategies to build power for communities of four Indigenous nations: Kofan, Siona, Secoya and Waorani.

• Protect rainforest territory through:
  - Legal campaigning and advancing Indigenous rights
  - Securing legal title for ancestral lands
  - Community-led monitoring and territorial mapping
• Preserving ancestral cultures and strengthening community resilience by:
  - Providing capacity building and accompaniment for Indigenous women leaders
  - Developing women-led community microenterprises to provide sustainable economic opportunities for Indigenous families
  - Supporting community food and medicine sovereignty initiatives
  - Designing and implementing intercultural education pilot projects in Waorani and Secoya communities
  - Training and accompanying youth filmmakers to share Indigenous stories via digital communications
• Building and fortifying Indigenous solutions including:
  - Rainwater catchment system maintenance
  - Solar energy projects and system maintenance in roadless communities
  - Community grantmaking program (Frontlines Action Grants)

About Amazon Frontlines

A World Centric partner since 2021.

Amazon Frontlines is a U.S. 501c3 organization based in the Ecuadorian Amazon that works alongside Indigenous Peoples to advance indigenous rights and autonomy, defend indigenous rainforest territories and cultures, and protect some of the most biodiverse rainforest on Earth. Learn more.