Protect an Acre Grants

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CONCONAWEP Federacion Waorani, Comunidad Kofán de Sinangoe, Resguardo Indígena Siona de Buenavista, and Instituto Internacional de Derecho y Sociedad-IIDS

$27,500 to support the launch of a global campaign to raise visibility and resources for Indigenous women across the Amazon fighting threats to their peoples’ lands, from oil extraction to mining, illegal logging and agriculture. This new Women Defenders initiative is being launched by Waorani leader Nemonte Nenquimo together with several other Indigenous women leaders that have won major legal victories in their ongoing struggles to defend their traditional territories in the Amazon. The timing of the launch will strategically leverage the platform provided by several prestigious awards in recognition of Nenquimo’s leadership in securing an historic legal victory that shut down Oil Block 22 and protected half-a-million acres of Waorani ancestral rainforest territory.

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Asociación de Raíces Indígenas Amazónicas Peruanas (ARIAP)

$5,000 to support the Axenon Ikanwe Radio Program, produced by and for Shipibo-Konibo people both as a strategy for maintaining and strengthening a sense of community that is critical in generating greater levels of activism which have been key for protecting their lands in the Peruvian Amazon from deforestation for the expansion of palm oil plantations and recent oil drilling, as well as to contribute to language and cultural revitalization programs through the nearly exclusive use of the Shipibo-Konibo language during the daily broadcasts (the language is labeled as “Definitely Endangered” by UNESCO due to the emergence of a Spanish-hybrid that is increasingly spoken by people under 50).

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Upper Amazon Conservancy

$6,500 to support Yurua communities within the 10 million acre Alto Purús Landscape, one of the largest intact ecosystems in the upper Amazon is Southeast Peru, through providing accurate information on potential impacts of a major road construction project, while also working to ensure that the government complies with all relevant laws related to Indigenous input and approval, protected areas, and isolated tribes.

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Fundacion Kara Solar

$6,000 to support installing solar and shortwave radio communications systems in 5 Shiwiar communities in their territory in the Ecuadorian Amazon located near the border with Peru, covering an area of over 500,000 acres of intact roadless rainforest that has been defended by Shiwiar from being opened up to oil development. The project was initiated at the request of the communities to help address the Covid crisis currently impacting them and will also support future coordination between communities as they continue to defend their rights and traditional territories.

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Fundo Socioambiental CASA

$100,000 to provide long-term support to Indigenous Peoples mobilizing to save their territories, including in response multiple ongoing threats, including Covid-19, increased fires and, in Brazil, the ongoing threat tied to Brazil’s Bolsonaro government slashing environmental protections, human rights standards, and the rule of law to benefit the very actors destroying the rainforest. CASA provided 69 grants at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to Indigenous and forest communities mobilizing to share information and prevent the spread of Covid-19 on their territories, as well as for food, medicine and other basic needs. Funds also supported the Munduruku Campaign to fight the spread of Covid-19 impacting Munduruku in the Tapajos Basin. RAN has worked with CASA to help distribute funds raised during the 2019 Amazon fires – CASA has an existing and robust network of local advisors across different parts of the Amazon and are able to get funds to Indigenous communities that are underfunded, as well as provide rapid response support to address threats to Indigenous leaders.

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Amazon Emergency Fund

$50,000 to support the Amazon Emergency Fund, a newly-formed donor collaborative working in close coordination with COICA (Coordinating Body of Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon Basin) and its 9 national Indigenous organizations, as well as partners and allies across the Amazon and around the world, to support emergency COVID-19 response for Indigenous and forest communities and organizations facing COVID-19 in the Amazon Basin. The Amazon Emergency Fund provides rapid response grants for urgent and immediate prevention and care; food and medical supplies; emergency communications and evacuation; protection and security for Forest Guardians; and food sovereignty and community resilience.

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Nuevo Ponderosa and Nueva Alianza Shawi Villages

$2,000 to support a project coordinating efforts between Shawi villages in the Peruvian Amazon and regional health officials to train 4 Shawi youth leaders and to establish 2 Community First Aid Health centers in communities vulnerable due to the presence of outsiders around their territory, incorporating traditional and western medical supplies and providing education and necessary health protocols to keep COVID-19 from spreading among the villages and from there deeper into Shawi territory.

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Kelompok Studi dan Pengembangan Prakarsa Masyarakat (KSPPM)

$5,000 to support work with Indigenous Tano Batak families in the Lake Toba region in Northern Sumatra, Indonesia, impacted by Toba Pulp Lestari, a US$600 million pulp company, through local organizing and facilitated discussions to raise awareness regarding collective community rights to customary forests as well as using drones to have complete documentation, videos and aerial photographs of forest cover and land use for participatory mapping of customary areas.

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Ceibo Alliance

$20,000 to support Indigenous storytellers with the tools, platforms and support they need to share their stories and ideas with the world. This initiative was launched in response to the 2019 fires across the Amazon region and with the current threat posed to Indigenous communities by the potential spread of COVID-19, efforts to elevate Indigenous perspectives are needed now more than ever.

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Amazon Frontlines in collaboration with Ceibo Alliance and Organización Regional de los Pueblos Indígenas del Oriente (ORPIO)

$20,000 to support a concerted push towards securing land title for three key communities in Peru—an area over 500,000 acres of rainforest—through this process the Siekopai can realize a bi-national biological, social and cultural corridor for their people of over 1.4 million acres and knock down barriers to land titling for dozens of other Indigenous Nations across the country, as well as eliminate the Permanent Production Forest designation over their lands.