Living Treasure

Ramón López and other locals from Cruz de Ocote ejido, in the Sierra Norte de Puebla, Mexico, take care, cultivate and manage its forests under the scheme known as Community Forestry Management. It ensures economic benefits for local families as well as biodiversity conservation. However, they struggle daily against illegal logging and require the support […]

A new model of conservation is emerging. It is one that values the role of local communities and reconciles protecting biodiversity with the use and management of resources. In the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Michoacán, communities play a vital role in conservation efforts and several have been recognised with awards for their work. However, […]

The Dongria Kondh are an indigenous community residing in the sacred Niyamgiri hills and forests (Odisha, India). For nearly two decades the community has been campaigning and fighting legal battles to save their sacred land from bauxite mining. More than seventy million tonne of bauxite lies beneath the ancient sacred groves of Niyamgiri that a […]

On the island of Halmahera, North Mollucas, more than 300 mining permits threaten the existence of priceless tropical forests. Illegal logging is also a problem for indigenous people in the village of Forest Tobelo people in Dodaga village. Deeply concerned with the condition of their forests that they struggle to resist.

Mutis Mountain, an area of rich biodiversity the headwaters for all of West Timor’s major rivers, which supply drinking and irrigation water for much of the people on the island. The indigenous Mollo people’s survival is inextricably linked to these natural resources, which are considered sacred. By organizing hundreds of local villagers to peacefully occupy […]