By promoting, developing and supporting legally recognized indigenous-led associations, ACT seeks to develop the skills and abilities of our tribal partners to ensure the long-term sustainable management of the rainforests of Amazonia. The establishment of indigenous associations is a means of re-establishing the authority of local leadership in a way that is legally recognized by national governments. Associations are therefore central to the restoration of tribal conservation capacity through their ability to develop local leaders and to advance the communities' land management rights and self-governance capacity. In effect, they act as the "glue" that binds together ACT's other conservation programs.
ACT works with these registered institutions to develop and manage long-term community development and self-governance plans. In addition ACT provides training to association members in a wide range of administrative and programmatic subject matter, including:
- Accounting and organizational administration
- Sustainable development and agricultural management systems
- National indigenous legislation and public policy
- Negotiation with official institutions
- Land management and conservation planning
- Territorial delineation, threat analysis, and biological and cultural surveying
- Ethnocartography
- Watershed protection
Outcomes
In Brazil, ACT supports eight indigenous associations across four rainforest regions; in the southwestern Colombian Amazon, ACT has nourished the development of six tribal associations as well as two associations of traditional healers; and in Suriname, ACT helped found and sponsors the activities of the pan-tribal land management association of the Surinamese interior.
Indigenous association strengthening has been particularly apparent in Colombia, where the associations enjoy public authority status under the national constitution and thus have great say regarding the management of their reserve lands. With ACT’s guidance, for example, the Inga association Tandachiridu Inganokuna fought for the creation of and now shares in the official management of the 77,000-hectare Alto Fragua Indi Wasi National Park.
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