BLOSSOMS

OF HOPE IN
TURBULENT
TIMES
The planet’s greatest, most
undercapitalized opportunity

2023 ANNUAL REPORT

Photo credit: Diego Pérez/SPDA

OUR MISSION: To work in partnership with Indigenous Peoples and local
communities to strengthen their tenure and ability to preserve, protect and
enjoy the benefits of their traditional lands, territories, and resources.

OUR VISION: Indigenous Peoples and local communities thrive in their

ancestral territories with full recognition of their right to own, ­manage,
and develop their traditional lands, territories, and resources.

OUR VALUES: We root our work in three core

values: respect, reliability, and trust.

Tenure Facility was established in 2017. It is registered as a

non-profit organisation in Sweden with a flexible team pre­
sence in countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

Highlights
Impact To Scale
22 million hectares with more secure tenure
14,000 communities benefiting

That’s a lot with a little. It’s impact to scale.

Last year Tenure Facility’s partners succeeded in getting governments to

formalise indigenous and community land and forest rights to over 2 million
hectares and made progress on improving tenure security and governance
in almost 22 million hectares, benefiting nearly 14,000 communities.

Behind these big numbers lie thousands of individual ­stories

and successes, trials, and tribulations. You will find some in
this main report, and hundreds more in this appendix.

Well On Our Way

Ambitious 60 million hectare target by 2027

We are well on our way to achieving our ambitious target of

­improving tenure security and governance in 60 million hectares
by 2027 – an area one and a half times the size of California.

Here’s why.

Large, International, Specialised,

Dedicated
Tenure Facility has become the largest, international finan­cial
mechanism specialised in Indigenous Peoples and communities’
rights and governance of land, forest, and territories. We work
across the tropics in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

Growing
US$ 26 million to 32 projects in 18 countries

In 2023 we gave US$ 26 million to 32 projects in 18 countries. Thanks to our

generous donors, we were able to double the number of projects we funded and
the amount of onward grants we provided, compared to 2022. That contributed
to much greater impact and laid the groundwork for much more to come.

Rainforests, Climate, Biodiversity

We emphasise tropical rainforests critical to the global climate and
biodiversity. Overwhelming scientific evidence shows that indigenous and
community rights over and sound stewardship of these areas protect
vital natural systems and help to stabilize the climate. Where Indigenous
­Peoples and other traditional communities manage forests and have strong
rights over them, this reduces forest loss, safeguards natural habitats,
and slows climate change. By protecting their territories, livelihoods and
cultures, these forest guardians are protecting us and the planet.

Gender Equality
Women’s organisations, leaders, and rights

We take gender equality seriously. We funded 7 major organisations led by

­women (3 of which are all-women organisations) and 3 projects focus entirely on
women’s rights to land and forest. Almost all the projects we funded achieved no-
table results related to gender with regards to policies, tenure claims, leadership
roles, organisational spaces, gender training and awareness, and livelihoods.

Funds To Indigenous Peoples, Afro-

Descendants, And Community
Organisations
Three quarters of the funds we provide go to projects where the
main partner was an Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant, or local
community group. We are now the largest funder of many of the largest
and most influential indigenous and community organisations and
networks in the 18 countries we work in. They are our partners.

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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

Pathways To Success
Our partners use the support we provide to 1) Push and partner with governments,
to get them to officially recognise communal land and forest rights and support
indigenous and community efforts to remain in harmony with nature; 2) Renovate
and invigorate customary institutions, to protect communities and their natural
and cultural riches from external threats, improve their wellbeing, and ensure
women’s rights are respected, and youth can find their place; and 3) Strengthen
their own organisations, to make them more effective, accountable, and inclusive.

Our Special Sauce

Fit for purpose, tailor made

Our policies and practices are tailored-made for our partners. We a) Fund partners
to prepare proposals and consult with communities; b) Provide larger and longer
grants than most – US$ 500,000 to US$ 1,500,000 a year with five-year grant
­agreements; c) Allow partners to respond to emerging challenges and opportunities;
d) Customise our funding and reporting approaches based on partners’ capacities
and contexts; and e) Respect rights and concerns about maps, photos, and stories.

Not Just Money

Learning, building bridges, and making the case

We do not just give money. We provide strategic and technical advice,

learning opportunities, and emotional support. Less year we co-sponsored
six major regional and global learning exchanges, with 1,500 participants.
We help partners get results at scale by facilitating new links to government
­authorities and other sources of funding, training, and solidarity.

We also help to systematise and share these experiences and work with the Path
to Scale coalition, the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC), and
other allies to make the case for greater and better funding for similar efforts.

The Best Is Yet To Come

There are great new opportunities in Brazil, Colombia, the DRC, and
else­where. The seeds we have planted have just started to blossom.
This is a marathon, not a sprint, but it is off to a good start.

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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

Nonette’s message

MOVING FORWARD
We are living in turbulent times, and in an increasingly
turbulent climate. We are in the throes of wildlife extinction,
dwindling forests, run-away climate change, the loss of
languages, and loss of the cultures that nurture this natural
world.

But as a young person walking community organisations that

the forest path with my father, I
learned that Indigenous Peoples,
are securing their territories.
Despite increasing pressures,
they are protecting their forests,
peat lands, and waterways – and
our climate and the planet’s
biodiversity. They can sustain
these efforts and can do more.
Save more forest. Live better
and safer – with law, peaceful
negotiation, and practical steps.
But they need our help now.
They need more than quick fly-in
fly-out cooperation to run the
odd workshop. Our partners are
wise and need wise collaboration.
That is why I am so excited to see
how the Tenure Facility, since our
founding seven years ago, is fulfill­
ing its mandate – to dramatically
scale and shore up Indigenous
and community land and forest
guardianship across the world.
2023 was a year of abundance
and growth for us. This was thanks
to our supportive donors, and
the hard work of our ­partners.
Our main partners include
most of the major Indigenous
Peoples, Afro-descendant, and
are protecting tropical forests,
lands, and waterways across
Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Together we built on last year’s
soil preparation, planting,
and the favourable seasons.
Our strategies became clear.
Our systems stronger. More
­partners got their projects up
and running. Many successfully
expanded their impact, even
with dark clouds on the horizon.
We will enter next year with a
summer of harvesting and richer
results from this year’s growth.
With you, our allies, we helped
secure and improve ­community
tenure and governance in
21.7 million hectares of land
and forests – three times our
­progress last year – benefiting
almost 14,000 communities.
We are well on the way to
­meeting our audacious goal
of 60 million hectares with
­secure land and forest tenure
by 2027 – an area one and a half
times the size of California!
We increased the number of
projects we directly support. We

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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
have 32 large projects managed
and implemented by Indigenous
Peoples, Afro-descendant, and
community organisations and
a handful of allied NGOs. These
projects span 18 countries. We
exponentially increased Tenure
Facility’s onward grant disbursal
to projects and organisations.
At the same time, we kept
our central overhead slim.
The way forward is not straight.
I was raised in the forests of the
Philippines, where Indigenous
­Peoples and communities
live. Early in my life I saw their
NONETTE ROYO
Executive Director
Tenure Facility
territories and forests violently
stolen by illegal loggers, miners,
plantation companies, and drug
dealers. Men, women, and young
people died to defend the places
they called home. My own friends
were affected. As I write, many
rural people, who are defending
their forests and territories,
still suffer death threats, rape,
harassment, illegal evictions,
and forced assimilation.
But that has not stopped them,
and it won’t stop us. We move
forward ­together, with them and
with you. Together. For all of us.
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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

Acronyms

Association of Forest National Confederation of

ACOFOP CNAMIB
Communities of Petén Indigenous Women of Bolivia
Integrated Forestry National Coordination of
CNOP
AFICC Association Cruce Farmers Associations
a la Colorado National Commission of
CNTI
Association for the Indigenous Territories
AIDESEP Development of the
COFO Communal Land Commissions
Peruvian Rainforest
Indigenous Peoples Alliance Coordination of Indigenous
AMAN COIAB Organisations of the
of the Archipelago
Brazilian Amazon
ANT National Land Agency
Confederation of Indigenous
CONAIE
AOPP Small Farmer Organisations Nationalities of Ecuador
National Council of
Amerindian Peoples CONAP
APA Protected Areas
Association Confederation of Indigenous
Ancestral Domain CONFENAIE Nationalities of the
BRWA
Registration Agency Ecuadorian Amazon
Centre for Sustainable National Coordinator of
CADGFT Management of COONAPIP
Indigenous Peoples of Panama
Tropical Forests
Centre of Mojeños Ethnic
Village Land Conciliation CPEMB
CCFV Peoples of Beni
Commissions
Foundation for
Local Community FCI
CFCL Community Initiatives
Forest Concessions
Federation of Community
Community Forest FECOFUN
CFOP Forestry Users of Nepal
Operational Plans
Native Federation of the River
CFR Community Forest Rights FENAMAD
Madre de Dios and Tributaries
Community Forest Papuan NGO
CFRR FOKER
Resource Rights Cooperation Forum
Community Forest FOSPA Pan-Amazon Social Forum
CFUG
User Groups
Free, Prior, and
CFV Village Land Commissions FPIC
Informed Consent
Chepkitale Indigenous Peoples
CIPDP FRC Forest Rights Committees
Development Programme
Centre for Indigenous Peoples National Indigenous
CIPRED FUNAI
Research and Development Foundation
CLAN! Community Land Action Now! GFN Green Foundation Nepal

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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

Indigenous Community Peruvian Society for

ICCA SPDA
Conservation Areas Environmental Law
National Agrarian South Rupununi
INRA SRDC
Reform Institute District Council
Society for Rural, Urban
ISB Indian School of Business SRUTI
and Tribal Initiative

JCS Julian Cho Society TAA Toledo Alcaldes Association

Consortium for Multi-Ethnic Indigenous

KPA TIM
Agrarian Reform Territory
Land from Corporate Mojeño Ignaciano
LPRA TIMI
Concessions to Communities Indigenous Territory
Union of Organisations and
MLA Maya Land Alliance Coordination for Development
UACDDDD
and the Defence of the Rights
Indonesian Ministry of
MOEF of the Underprivileged
Environment and Forestry
Union for the Emancipation
North Pakaraimas UEFA
NPDC of Indigenous Women
District Council
Upper Mazaruni
UMDC
OBH Legal Aid Organisation District Council
Wapichan Wiizi
The Indigenous Women’s WWWD
OMIML Women’s Movement
Organisation of Lomerío
Management and
OMYC
Conservation Organisation
National Organization of
OPIAC Indigenous Peoples of the
Colombian Amazon
Regional Organization of the
ORPIO
Indigenous Peoples of the East
PCN Black Communities’ Processes
Sustainable Resource
PUSyDC Use and Community
Development Plans
Particularly Vulnerable
PVGT
Tribal Groups
Sustainable Development
SDI
Institute
SDLC Sub-District Level Committee

9
Contents
HIGHLIGHTS 3
ACRONYMS 8
INTRO­DUCTION 11
WHY? 15
WHO? 23
WHAT DID WE DO?  35
WHAT DID WE ACHIEVE?  39
HOW? OUR SPECIAL SAUCE 69
WITH WHAT? 72
WHAT NEXT?  75
END NOTES  77
 INTRO­DUCTION

The Giving Trees – And The

Women Who Protect Them
With Their Lives

Photo credit: If Not Us Then Who

 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
We kick off this year’s annual report with two truths, and a
story that brings them to life.
TRUTH 1: Your family’s wellbeing
depends on whether humanity
can summon the will to protect
the lungs of the planet, our last
remaining intact forests. If devil-
may-­care destruction continues
to trounce the better angels
of our nature, our last intact
forest ecosystems will collapse.
As a direct ­consequence, we
will lose the ability to meet our
international ­climate goals, drive
millions of plant and animal
species into extinction, and
experience health-and-safety
threats at a scale no government
is prepared to address.
Now for the story that connects both truths.
BABASSU PALM FORESTS
(Attalea speciosa) cover 200,000
square kilometres across the
Amazon Basin extending from
Brazil to Bolivia, Peru, Guyana,
and Suriname. They do not
come immediately to mind when
imagining the deep rainforest. But
they are home to an impressive
explosion of life, including macaws,
parrots, monkeys, armadillos,
anteaters, giant otters, river
dolphins, and geckos. The palm
absorbs carbon and funnels
rainwater down its fibrous trunk,
storing both ­underground,
and providing moisture to the
surrounding vegetation.
The oil from the babassu palm
nut is rich in anti-inflammatory,
TRUTH 2: You have much more
ability to prevent this scenario
than you realise. You don’t
have to despair. Simply listen
to, learn from, and support
the most courageous and
knowledgeable forest guardians
on the planet: the indigenous,
Afro-descendant, and other
traditional local communities
living in tropical forests. They are
already successfully protecting
their ancestral territories,
lands and waterways They
are conserving wildlife – and
protecting our climate. Read
on to learn how and why they
matter, and how having secure
tenure over their land, forests and
waterways makes a difference.
anti-bacterial, and hydrating
properties. The nuts provide
a sustainable livelihood for
­hundreds of thousands of mostly
Afro-descendant women in
­northern Brazil. After collecting
the nuts, the women – known as
nut breakers or quebradeiras –
crack the nuts apart with small
axes while sitting and singing
together in a communal circle.
Later, all the women share the
profits of their labour. Like
forest guardians all over the
world, they protect the health
of the babassu as if their lives
depend on it. Because it does.
They are warrior women.
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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
Four decades ago, cattle
ranchers stopped the women
from collecting the nuts. They
burnt down and poisoned the
palms to establish pasture. Some
women paid a terrible price
when they went to collect nuts –
­murder, rape, and the torching
of their small wooden houses.
In response the women organised
themselves into what is now
one of the largest rural women’s
movements in the world, the
Inter-State Movement of Babassu
Women Nut Breakers (MIQCB),
with more than 300,000 women.
They persuaded 17 municipalities
to pass Free Babassu Laws,
protecting the babassu
forests and giving the women
quebradeiras full access to them.
“Our struggle for rights is directly
related to broader environmental
goals,” said Maria Alaídes Alves
de Souza, a coordinator of the
MIQCB. “The whole world could
learn from our relationship with
nature. Protecting the forest
means protecting food security,
water, air, life for all of us. There
are ways to live while protecting
the forest and biodiversity.
We, the traditional peoples,
and communities, do that.”
The Babassu women approached
the Tenure Facility for support
to expand Free Babassu Laws
across more municipalities,
enforce existing Laws, and get
title to their forest lands; and in
2023 we gave them their first
grant. We also started funding the
National Coordination of Rural
Black Quilombola Communities.
Quilombolas are the descendants
of people who escaped slavery
by taking refuge in the forests.
These two partners are working
closely with national and local
government agencies to secure
legal title to 200 territories and
protect millions more hectares
and get proper government
enforcement of the laws. With
Tenure Facility support, they
hope to leverage our funding
to get additional finance from
the Brazilian Bank for National
Development (BNDES).
It is a golden moment. The
new Brazilian Ministry of Racial
Equality is enthusiastic about
issuing title to Quilombola lands.
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula
da Silva, is eager to showcase
his global leadership on forests
and climate change in the run-up
to the 2025 climate conference
(COP30) that Brazil will host.
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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
The Trees Signposting Our
Forest Path
We start off this report by delving
deep into our Why? – the moral,
ethical, climate and ecological
imperatives and the scientific data
that drive our passion and focus.
In Section 2, we turn to the
Who? – we, the Tenure Facility,
our evolution and what makes
us unique. And our partners in
Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Who are they? The “Davids” and
“Davidas” achieving improbable
victories on the forest front­
lines against global Goliaths.
In Section 3, What Did We Do?
and Where? – the projects we
funded, in which countries, and
where we supported new projects.
In Section 4, What We Achieved?
– what results our partners got
from their projects, and what they
did to make change happen. We
describe the strategies they used,
what’s working, what’s not, the
challenges they faced and how
they course-
corrected. We also talk about our
own efforts to support learning,
new alliances, and the education
of donors about these issues.
In Section 5, we explain the How
– in other words, our “special
sauce” – with an emphasis on how
we put our values into practice on
the ground, in our grant-making
and our operations. This section
will not be a boring technical
manual or cheery public relations
brochure. We share realistically
how are our internal systems and
governance are working, whether
they are fit-for-purpose, and what
we see as ongoing challenges.
In Section 6, we describe the
With What? – our board of
directors, our team, our do-
nors, and our financials.
In the final Section 7, we look
to What Next? – what’s next
for the Tenure Facility and
our partners in 2024, our as-
pirations and inspirations.
And for those who might still
want more insights, you can refer
to several data-rich appendices
with detailed results, project
and partners summaries, and
media stories about our work.
14
SECTION 1:
Why?

Over a thirda of the world’s healthiest tropical rainforests

are within Indigenous Peoples’ lands. More generally, of all
global lands that are still in good ecological condition, at
least 42 percent are managed by Indigenous Peoples and
traditional communities. These remaining forest lands,
with their waterways, peatlands, and wildlife, play an
essential role in supporting all life on Earth.
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

BOX 1: WHY FORESTS MATTER

RIGHTLY CALLED the lungs of the
planet, tropical forests have a large-­
scale impact on the climate. While
reducing fossil fuel emissions is essential
for mitigating climate change, so is
protecting and restoring forests.
Forests capture carbon pollution on a
­hugeb scale absorbing it from the ­­
atmos­phere through photosynthesis
from trillions of leaves on billions of trees,
producing oxygen, and then storing the
carbon in their tree trunks and soils.
Trees also provide extra cooling for the
planet – like natural air conditioners.
They suck up water and pump it into
the air around them – a process called
transpiration – creating big water vapour
“rivers in the sky” that generate rainfall for
farmers in places hundreds of miles away.
As forests shrink, these vital functions
are rapidly dwindling. The planet is
on a breakneck roller coaster ride
towards “tipping points’ beyond which
climate will spiral out of control.
Protecting forests can help slow
this run-away train while we
transition away from fossil fuels.

About one billion rural people in I­ndigenous Peoples and

the tropics depend on forests
to make ends meetc. Their
diversity of languages and
cultures are rooted in these
sacred places. Their territories
“contain 80 percent of the world’s
remaining biodiversity and
intersect about 40 percent of all
terrestrial protected areas and
ecologically intact landscapesd.”
Where Indigenous Peoples and
Local Communities have secure
rights and tenure over their
territories, deforestation is lower,
forests are healthier, fires are
fewer – and the planet is better
offe. But currently they have
­legal rights over only 40 percent
of the landsf they manage.
Given how important forests
are, the large share of forests
communities manage, the proven
efficacy of their stewardship, and
the low cost of securing their
land rights, one might expect
that a lot is being invested in
that. In fact, only a minuscule
amount of international funding
has gone for that purpose – on
average only US$ 270 million
globally per year between 2011
and 2020; less than 1 percent
of international climate aidg.)
To have any hope of saving the
last intact forest ecosystems
and the cultures and peoples and
wildlife that protect them, we
must empower forest guardians,
help them secure and sustain
their tenure over their lands and
forests. And support them now.

16
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
Photo credit: Rohit Jain/Tenure Facility
BOX 2: WHAT IS LAND AND FOREST TENURE?
Tenure is the way by which communities
hold property rights to land and
resources such as forests and waterways.
These rights may be conferred by
rules stemming from custom and
common use, as well as formal laws.
Secure tenure can take many
forms, but they all provide
Indigenous Peoples and Local
Communities the ability to:
17
• Demonstrate that their
rights to land and forests are
recognised by law or custom.
• Protect and sustainably use
resources from their land, free from
imposition or dispute from others.
• Have confidence their rights
and relationship to their lands
and forests are safe, enforced,
and accepted as legitimate.
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
Overwhelming Evidence
That Indigenous Peoples And
Community Forest Management
Are Good For Forests, People,
And The Climate
The scientific community has spoken. Where Indigenous
Peoples and other traditional communities manage forests
and have strong rights over them, forest loss is reduced and
climate change mitigated.
One World Resources Institute
(WRI) study found that
deforestation rates were two
to three times lower in titled
indigenous territories than in
other Amazon forest lands in
Brazil, Bolivia, and Colombia. They
estimated the carbon mitigation
benefits of the titled territories
would be US$ 25 billion – US$
34 billion over 20 years.1
Then the Inter-Government
Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC)’s first report on land
and climate change in 2019
recognised the importance
of securing community land
for climate change.2 At least
three subsequent UN reviews
have reaffirmed that.3
Another research team
demonstrated that across the
tropics, indigenous territories
reduce forest destruction
as much or more than in
protected areas, despite
receiving much less funding.4
Project Drawdown calculated
that by doubling the area
where Indigenous ­Peoples have
secure legal rights to forests
could reduce global carbon
emissions by 8.69 Giga­tons of
CO2 equivalent by 2050. That
equals about one fifth of the
world’s annual CO2 emissions.
2023 witnessed a virtual
explosion of similar reports, with
more than 20 peer-reviewed
studies pointing in the same
direction. A global review of
320 econometric studies found
that Indigenous Peoples and
community forest management
were two of the variables most
consistently associated with
less deforestation.5 Another
study of over 300 sites in 15
countries in Africa, Asia, and
Latin America showed that
where rural communities have
formal control and practical
influence over forests, the
forests store more carbon, have
greater biodiversity, and provide
better livelihood outcomes.6
Among eight 2023 studies from
South America’s Amazon Basin
and Chaco region, six highlight
lower deforestation in titled
indigenous territories and two
18
1 Ding, H., Veit, P.G., Blackman, A. et
al. Climate benefits, tenure costs, The
economic case for securing indige-
nous land rights in the Amazon, World
Resources Institute (WRI) (2016).
https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/
Climate_Benefits_Tenure_Costs.pdf
2 Mowat, H. and Veit, P.G. The
IPCC Calls for Community Land
Rights to Fight Climate Change,
World Resources Institute (WRI)
(2019). https://www.wri.org/insights/
ipcc-calls-securing-community-
land-rights-fight-climate-change.
3 Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations (FAO) and
Fundo for the Development of the
Indigenous Peoples of Latin America
and the Caribbean (FILAC). Forest
Governance by indigenous and Tribal
Peoples, An Opportunity for Climate
Action in Latin America and the Carib-
bean, FAO, Santiago Chile (2021), htt-
ps://www.fao.org/3/cb2953en/online/
cb2953en.html; Inter-­Governmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Climate Change 2022: Impacts,
Adaptation, and Vulnerability.
Contribution of Working Group II to
the Sixth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change. Cambridge University
Press. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, UK and New York, NY
(2022), doi:10.1017/9781009325844;
Inter-Governmental Science –
Policy Platform on Biodiversity and
Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Global
assessment report on biodiversity
and ecosystem services of the
Intergovernmental ­Science-Policy
Platform on Biodiversity and
Ecosystem Services. E. S. Bron-
dizio, J. Settele, S. Díaz, and H. T.
Ngo (editors). IPBES secretariat,
Bonn, Germany (2019), https://doi.
org/10.5281/zenodo.3831673
4 Sze, J.S., Carrasco, L.R., Childs,
D. et al. Reduced deforestation
and degradation in indigenous
Lands pan-tropically. Nat Sustain
5, 123–130 (2022). https://doi.
org/10.1038/s41893-021-00815-2
5 Project Drawdown. Indigenous
Peoples Forest Tenure (2020).
https://drawdown.org/solutions/
indigenous-peoples-forest-tenure
6 Fischer, H.W., Chhatre, A., Duddu,
A. et al. Community forest gover-
nance and synergies among carbon,
biodiversity and livelihoods. Nat. Clim.
Chang. 13, 1340–1347 (2023). https://
doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01863-6
7 Baragwanath, K., Bayi, E., and Shinde.
N. (2023) Collective Property Rights
Lead to Secondary Forest Growth in
the Brazilian Amazon, Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences,
May 22, https://doi.org/10.1073/
pnas.2221346120; Bennett, A. et. al.
(2023) Forty-year Multi-scale Land
Cover Change and Political Ecology
Data Reveal a Dynamic and Regene-
rative Process of Forests in Peruvian
indigenous Territories, Global Environ-
mental Change, Vol. 81, 102695, ISSN
0959-3780, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
gloevncha.2023.102695; Camino, M.
et. al. (2023) indigenous Lands with
Secure Land-Tenure can Reduce Fo-
rest-Loss in Deforestation Hotspots,
Global Environmental Change, Vol. 81,
102678, ISSN 0959-3780, https://doi.
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
greater forest regrowth.7 One
study notes that while most
of the Amazon Basin already
emits more carbon than it
absorbs, the indigenous and
Afro-descendant territories
remain major carbon sinks. In
fact, indigenous territories in the
Amazon soak up as much carbon
each year as, for comparison, the
UK spews out from fossil fuels.8
There are also proven social
benefits. Protecting indigenous
territories in the Brazilian Amazon
helped avoid 15 million cases of
respiratory and cardiovascular
diseases each year and saved
about US$ 2 billion dollars
­annually in health costs.9 Where
communities had secure forest
tenure, they also had more co­
operative behaviour, higher levels
of trust and stronger organi­
sations.10 Community forest
tenure leads to sustainable
poverty alleviation11, as found in
programmes yielding positive
livelihood benefits in Ethiopia12 and
India.13 In Peru, communal tenure
performed better for ensuring
poor families got access to the
forest products they depend on.14
Three studies from Nepal link
the rise of community forestry
with reduced deforestation and
increased tree cover.15 Partici­
pating communities plant more
trees, patrol their forests,
and restrict grazing there.
Indigenous territories even
do a much better job of
­protecting ­forests in the
­numerous bio­diversity hot­
spots around the world
­plagued by armed conflicts.16
Photo credit: Jackie Lebo/Content House Kenya/Tenure Facility
org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102678; Castro de
Hallgren, S. (2023) The Influence of indigenous
Land Tenure on Deforestation in the Paraguayan
Chaco. Master’s thesis, Harvard University
Division of Continuing Education; Hanggli, A.,
et. al. (2023) A Systematic Comparison of
Deforestation Drivers and Policy Effectiveness
Across the Amazon Biome. Environmental
Research Letters. 18 073001; Moutinho, P. and
Azevedo-Ramos, C. (2023). Untitled Public
Forestlands Threaten Amazon Conservation.
Nature Communications, Vol. 14: 1152. https://
doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36427-x; Pratzer,
M., et al. (2023) Agricultural Intensification,
indigenous Stewardship and Land Sparing in
Tropical Dry Forests. Nature Sustainability 6,
671–682 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-
023-01073-0; Prioli Duarte, D. et. al. (2023)
Reducing Natural Vegetation Loss in Amazonia
Critically Depends on the Formal Recognition
of indigenous Lands, Biological Conservation,
Volume 279, 109936, ISSN 0006-3207, https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2023.109936 ; Prist,
P.R.,et. al. (2023) Protecting Brazilian Amazon
indigenous territories reduces atmospheric
particulates and avoids associated health
impacts and costs. Commun Earth Environ 4, 34
https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-00704-w;
Qin, Y., et al. (2023) Forest Conservation in indi-
genous Territories and Protected Areas in the
Brazilian Amazon. Nat Sustainability 6, 295–305.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-01018-z
8 Veit, P.G., Gibbs, D. and Reytar. K. indige-
nous Forests are Some of the Amazon’s Last
Carbon Sinks. World Resources Institute
(WRI) (2023), https://www.wri.org/insights/
amazon-carbon-sink-indigenous-forests
9 Prist, P. R., Sangermano, F., Bailey, A.,
et, al. C. Protecting Brazilian Amazon indi-
genous territories reduces atmospheric
particulates and avoids associated health
impacts and costs. Communications earth
& environment, 4(1), 34 (2023). https://
doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-00704-w
10 Kaur, K.P., Krister P. Andersson, K.P.
(2023). Collective forest land rights facilitate
cooperative behavior. Conservation Letters,
March 2023. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12950
19
11 Wang, L., Wang, E., Mao, X., Benjamin, W.,
Liu, Y. 2023. Sustainable poverty alleviation
through forests: Pathways and strategies.
Science of the Total environment. Vol 904.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167336
12 Girma, G., Melka, Y., Haileslassie, A.,
Mekuria, W. 2023. Participatory forest
management for improving livelihood assets
and mitigating forest degradation: Lesson
drawn from the Central Rift Valley, Ethiopia.
Current Research in Environmental Sustaina-
bility Vol. 5. https://www.sciencedirect.com/
science/article/pii/S2666049022000834
13 Bisui, Roy, S., Bera, B., Adhikary, P.B.,
Sengupta, D., Bhunia, G.S., Shit, P.K. 2023.
Economical and ecological realization
of Joint Forest Management (JFM) for
sustainable rural livelihood: a case study.
Tropical Ecology. https://link.springer.com/
article/10.1007/s42965-022-00275-5
14 Begazo Curie, B., Vranken, L., Maertens,
M. 2023. Forest for people in the Peruvian
Amazon: Livelihood contributions, con-
servation and restoration. PhD Thesis. KU
Leuven. https://kuleuven.limo.libis.be/discovery/
fulldisplay?docid=lirias4097230&contex-
t=SearchWebhook&vid=32KUL_KUL:Liri-
as&lang=en&search_scope=lirias_profile&a-
daptor=SearchWebhook&tab=LIRIAS&que-
ry=any,contains,LIRIAS4097230&offset=0
15 Ning, C., Subedi, R., and Hao. L. (2023) Land
Use/Cover Change, Fragmentation, and Driving
Factors in Nepal in the Last 25 Years Sustai-
nability, 15(8), 6957; https://doi.org/10.3390/
su15086957 ; Luintel, H. et. al. (2023) Do
Formal Community Forestry Programs Improve
Collective Action and Forest Outcomes? http://
dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4514143 ; Smith, A.C.
et. al. (2023) Community Forest Management
Led to Rapid Local Forest Gain in Nepal: A
29 Year Mixed Methods Retrospective Case
Study, Land Use Policy, Vol. 126, 106526, https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2022.106526
16 Beattie, M., Fa, J. E., Leiper, I., et. al. (2023).
Even after armed conflict, the environmental
quality of Indigenous Peoples’ lands in biodiver-
sity hotspots surpasses that of non-indigenous
lands. Biological Conservation, 286, 110288.
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

20
Photo credit: Jackie Lebo/Content House Kenya/Tenure Facility
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
Two Contradictory Trends And
High Stakes For The Outcome
While there were many dark clouds on the horizon in 2023
and real cause for alarm, there were also positive signs.
Which prevail, will depend on all of us. And the stakes could
not be higher.
One the downside, Latin America’s
Indigenous and Afro-­descendant
Peoples, communities, and ­for­
ests faced a litany of threats
from ranchers, gold miners, oil
companies, soya bean farmers,
loggers, drug traffickers, fires,
and infrastructure projects. Even
some communities with land
titles suffered land invasions, fires
from nearby farms, or mining
or logging ­concessions imposed
without consent. ­Progress in
Africa was stymied by large new
oil, mining, and oil palm deals,
Jihadist ­violence and coups, and
armed militias in the Congo. In
Asia in­creasingly authoritarian
national governments prioritised
large-scale coal, minerals,
and oil projects, oil palm and
pulp plantations, and logging
over social or environmental
concerns, and cracked down
on groups who dissented.
The United States and Europe
were distracted by horrific wars
in Ukraine and Gaza, political
uncertainty, and high inflation.
Parts of Europe experienced a
backlash to domestic climate
policies as consumers and
farmers fretted about how these
might affect their pocketbooks.
Meanwhile, the global climate
crisis showed troublesome
signs of spiralling out of control
­(record heatwaves, fires, floods).
On the upside, deforestation
rates plummeted in Brazil and
Colombia after respective
presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da
Silva and Gustavo Petro enacted
positive forest and land policies.
Suriname’s parliament debated
the country’s first law enshrining
Indigenous and Tribal Peoples’
land rights. The Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC)
implemented favourable policies
such as local community forest
concessions and an Indigenous
Peoples’ Rights Law. Kenya and
Liberia slowly moved ahead on
recognising communal land rights.
Asia saw an uptick in government
recognition of customary
forests in Indonesia and Forest
Rights Act implementation in
a few states in India, as well as
an on-going commitment to
community forests in Nepal.
Within the mixed panorama on
climate action, the relatively
narrow objective of securing
community land and forest tenure
– a proven and cost-effective
approach with outsized benefits
– was a source of inspiration.
The global five-year US$ 1.7 billion
Forest Tenure Pledge, signed
21
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
Photo credit: If Not Us Then Who
by donors in late 2021 at the
climate conference (COP26) in
Glasgow, continued to resonate
and highlight the need to recog­
nise and reward Indigenous
Peoples and communities for
their role as nature’s guardians.
Donors who signed the pledge
and others boosted their funding.
Public interest and awareness
grew as the world began to wake
up to the opportunities for tapping
into the courage, leadership,
and knowledge of the likes of the
women babassu nut breakers and
the tens of millions of other forest
guardians around the globe.
22
SECTION 2:
Who?

What makes the Tenure Facility unique?

 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

We specialise in funding major Indigenous Peoples (IP), Afro-

descendant (AFD) and traditional community organisations
in the pan-tropics, with our operating systems specifically
designed to respect their rights and meet their needs.
Tenure Facility is the only large international financial
mechanism dedicated to supporting community land and
forest rights and their governance.

We are the largest funder of these our partners develop strong

organisations. The size of our
grants – US$ 500,000 to US$
1.5 million a year – makes a signi-
ficant difference on the ground.
We also enter long-term
partnerships of five years or more,
providing continuity so community
organisations can ramp up their
efforts in forest protection
and get on a firm footing.
collaborations with others ­helps
them get results at scale.
We pay special attention to
gender equality and youth
inclusion, and to cultural
sensitivities. The community
organisations with which
partner are diverse, as are their
leaderships; they involve the old
and young, women, and minorities.

But we do not just give money: we At the Tenure Facility, we also

provide strategic and technical
advice, learning opportunities,
and emotional support.
We help IP, AFD, and traditional
community organisations to
connect to governments, and
to other sources of funding,
training, and solidarity. Helping
work at the global level with
partners and allies to get key
donors and intermediaries to
scale up their support for IP,
AFD, and other community
organisations, in ways
that meet their needs.

24
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

BOX 3: GETTING OUR HOUSE IN ORDER

In 2023, we doubled the amount granted
to our indigenous and community
organisation partners and their
projects. Some 75 percent of our total
spend reached their hands, and our
overhead remained slim at 10 percent.
been working protect integrated forest
and water ecosystems – “lifescapes” – but
face threats from industrial fishing and
tourism. When a new global Marine tenure
initiative emerged, we offered a home,
agreeing to be their fiscal sponsor in 2024.

We continued to decentralise our team
– a third of which is now in the tropics.
This allowed us to be closer to partners,
bringing granular knowledge about diverse
cultures and complex political economies.
Many coastal groups with which we have
U.S. and European donors will find
it easier to support us now that we
have established a sister entity, the
Tenure Facility Fund, with charitable
501 (3) (c) status in the United States,
which will help us channel funds.

MORE THAN TARGETS,

­MAKING CHANGE HAPPEN

By 2027, we are
committed to achieve:

• 15 million hectares of
communal land and
forest rights with formal
government recognition.

• 60 million hectares
with progress towards
secure tenure and better
territorial governance.

• 15 million people in
indigenous and rural
communities benefitting
from these advances.

But it is not just about targets. It is

about our five-pronged approach
for delivering on our promises.
Photo credit: Diego Pérez/SPDA

25
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
BOX 4: FIVE STEPS ALONG OUR PATH TO SCALE
Tenure Facility funds and supports
indigenous and community
­organisations and their allies to:
• Push governments
• Partner with governments
• Protect their territories and
­assert their rights themselves
• Strengthen their own capacity
• Share lessons and reach
out to influence others
Our funding and support help indigenous
and community organisations to both
push and partner with governments.
Pushing or pressing governments can
consist of anything from calling on them to
design or implement policies, regulations,
and procedures (without violating U.S.
lobbying restrictions), taking them to
court, or simply helping communities
to prepare claims and applications. In
most places we work, communities must
jump through and over many hoops
and hurdles to get land tenure or forest
certificates approved. They face myriad,
often inconsistent, rules and procedures,
involving multiple agencies, and unfamiliar
languages or formats. To get anything done
in such contexts, takes a little pushing.
At the same time all the groups we
support partner with governments and
help them to deliver. They participate
in advisory bodies and commissions,
assist officials to visit the communities,
educate them, help agencies consult
26
communities properly, and prepare
­studies required to process land claims.
Communities can do a lot to strengthen
their tenure security and governance
without involving government. We support
that too. To start, they can bolster their
community and indigenous authorities
and governance bodies. These may be
village assemblies, territorial governments,
conservation co-management bodies,
women and youth commissions, chiefs,
caciques, capitanes, or apus. This often
means creating or updating their bylaws
and rules for sustainable land use or care
of sacred sites, mustering volunteers
for communal activities or getting legal
or tax status for village enterprises.
Communities can also strengthen control
over lands by participatory mapping,
preparing community land use and
conservation plans, documenting local
knowledge and passing it from one gene­
ration to the next, monitoring forests
for fires and illegal miners and loggers,
resolving conflicts informally, and agreeing
on boundaries with neighbours.
For the organisations we fund to do
all these things, they also must be
strong and well-managed. So, that is
another central pillar of our work.
Finally, it is also about sharing lessons
and outreach to influence governments,
funders, NGOs, and business, and
getting more of them actively supporting
communal land and forest tenure.
This is the path to scale.
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
BOX 5: 17 MILLION INDONESIAN VOICES
The Dayak Iban Peoples of Sungai Utik,
Indonesia, warmly welcome respectful
outsiders who want to visit their long house
and learn about their forests and rivers.
If you visit, we dare you to try keep up with
80-something elder Appai Janggut on a
walk through what he calls “the super­
market” – the pristine hardwood forest
that has provided almost all his commu-
nity’s nutritional and medical needs for
centuries. Apai walks through dense forest
with an ease unfathomable in a Westerner
of a comparable age. He also demonstrates
an understanding of forest species that
no Western scientist can match – from
a potent anti-malarial called engkerebai
to a towering Dipterocarpus tree that
provides a home for bees to make a honey
especially rich in antioxidants and vitamins.
“Our peoples see the forest as our mother,
the river as our father,” Apai explains. “They
provide us with our food, medicine, clean
water, resins for waterproofing ­canoes,
wood for homes. We have ­every­thing
we need in these sacred groves.”
27
Apai traces his community’s struggle for
legal tenure back to 1998, when Indonesia’s
military dictator, Suharto, was forced to
step down. Marginalised communities
started to make their voices heard, and
Sungai Utik began mapping its territory.
Apai and Sungai Utik’s other elders at
first got little help from local, provincial, or
national officials in navigating the byzantine
processes of government agencies.
Joining their voices to a movement of
indigenous communities across Indonesia,
this first cry moved Gus Dur, a new
Indonesian president, to recognise the
emergent indigenous People’s Alliance
of the Archipelago (AMAN). Twenty-six
years later, AMAN has become a huge
grassroots force and one of Tenure
Facility’s largest partners. By amplifying
the voices of 17 million indigenous
Indonesians, it is helping indigenous or
“adat” communities all over the country
to take back control of their forestlands.
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
WHO ARE OUR PARTNERS?
Tenure Facility has partners
in important tropical forests
across the world. Most are large
indigenous federations and
grassroots community-based
organisations and networks,
whose members, and their
cultures and ways of living, are
rooted in the enchanting locales
they inhabit. A core part of their
mission is to defend rights, keep
forests standing, and generate
sustainable livelihoods.
In 2023, more than three quarters
of Tenure Facility projects were
managed by a main partner that
is a major grassroots indigenous,
Afro-descendant, or some other
rural community organisation or
network. They are sometimes
located at the local level,
sometimes national, sometimes
both. This level of support for
these types of organisations is
practically unprecedented.
See appendix for summaries of
­Tenure Facility’s main partners.
Many Indigenous Peoples in
the tropics are organised
at multiple levels, from local
village organisations to national
umbrella organisations to broader
networks with presence on the
global stage. In general, there is
a strong thread of legitimacy and
accountability of leaders to their
memberships: villages gather in
assemblies to elect, or select by
consensus, their village leaders,
who then elect the leaders of
the federations at district or
provincial level. These, in turn,
elect representatives to national
and regional organisations,
which come together in
international coalitions.
28
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

BOX 6: HOW FAR CAN THE VOICE OF A YOUNG

HARAKBUT WOMAN FROM A REMOTE FOREST REACH?
Consider a young indigenous Harakbut
woman leader in the village of Puerto Luz
in the uplands of Madre de Dios in Peru.
She is elected to represent her ­community
in the Harakbut, Yine, and Masti­genka
Council (COHARYIMA), a regional body
which represents 17 villages from ­three
different indigenous ethnicities.
AIDESEP is an active member of the nine-
country Coordinating Body of Indi­genous
Peoples of the Amazon Basin (­COICA),
and COICA belongs to the Global Alliance
of Territorial Communities (GATC),
comprised of indigenous and community
organisations from the Amazon and Congo
Basins, Mesoamerica, and Indonesia.

COHARYIMA, for its part, belongs to
a Tenure Facility partner called the
Native Federation of Madre de Dios and
Tributaries (FENAMAD). This in turn, forms
part of the Interethnic Association for the
Development of the Peruvian Rainforest
(AIDESEP), which represents all the
Indigenous Peoples of the Peruvian Amazon.
Thus, the young Harakbut woman and the
issues facing her village are given voice in
the Madre de Dios regional capital of Puerto
Maldonado, in the Peruvian legis­lature in
Lima, in Belém at a summit of Amazonian
Indigenous Peoples, and in New York,
Rome or Jakarta at a UN conference.

Tenure Facility partners indigenous communities of

with Indigenous Peoples and
community organisations at
various levels of this vertically
integrated chain. FENAMAD in the
Peruvian Amazon, for example,
represents two federations and
38 communities, which together
cover millions of hectares of
forests. AMAN in Indonesia,
on the other hand, represents
2,332 communities and almost
17 million people across the
archipelago. The Coordination
of Indigenous Organisations of
the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB)
in Brazil, National Organization
of Indigenous Peoples of the
Colombian Amazon (OPIAC) in
Colombia, and the Confederation
of Indigenous Nationalities of the
Ecuadorian Amazon (CONFENAIE)
in Ecuador represent all the
the Brazilian, Colombian,
and Ecuadorian Amazons,
respectively. And CONAIE
and COONAPIP represent all
the indigenous communities
of Ecuador and Panama.
Afro-descendant partners in
Latin A
­ merica are organised
alowng the same lines. ­Malungu
represents more than 500
Quilom­bola communities in
the ­Brazilian state of Para, and
in turn is part of ­CONAQ, the
National Coordination Body of
Quilom­bolas, which represents
23 state a­ ssociations and
dozens of other regional and
local associations nationwide.
Similarly, PCN in Colombia is
composed of 140 Afro-­Colombian
community councils and other

29
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
grassroots organisations spread
across the country, and 77
Saamaka Maroon Tribal villages
belong to VSG in Suriname.
We also support specialised
units created by these large
federations, such as the Podáali,
Babassu and Mizizi Dudu
territorial community funds in
Brazil, Indonesia’s specialised
community mapping unit, the
Ancestral Domain Registration
Agency (BRWA), and Colombia’s
indigenous Technical Secretariat
(STI-CNTI), designed specifically
to negotiate with government.
Some indigenous partners have
constituted themselves as NGOs.
These vary from Amerindian
Peoples Association (APA) in
Guyana, with members in over
80 indigenous villages, and John
Cho Society (JCS) in Belize, linked
to an association of traditional
Photo credit: Andrés Yépez/Tenure Facility
village heads (“alcaldes”), to
Union for the Emancipation of
Indigenous Women (UEFA) in the
DRC, composed of indigenous
gender experts who work with
local NGOs and women’s groups.
Mixed networks like Community
Land Action Now! (CLAN!) in
Kenya, TenForest in Burkina
Faso, CREF Network in the DRC,
and FOKER in Papua each bring
together several dozen indigenous
and community groups and
local NGOs. While these are not
massive federations, by coming
together as networks they have
achieved economies of scale and
can manage larger projects.
Some of our partners focus
primarily on forest management
or farming. FECOFUN in
Nepal is comprised of 22,226
community forest user groups
throughout the country.
30
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

Meanwhile, MIQCB in northern Of these, ACOFOP in Peten,

Brazil represents over 300,000 ­Guatemala, probably has the
predominantly Afro-descendant greatest technical capacity.
women babassu palm nut They represent 24 community
breakers. KPA Indonesia is organisations in the Maya
an Indonesian federation Biosphere Reserve in Peten.
representing 508 small farmer
groups. And CNOP, in Mali,
is the largest small farmer
organisation in the Sahel.

BOX 7: VOICES FROM THE FIELD

A Q&A with Thakur Prasad Bhandari, Q: HOW WOULD YOU SUMMA-

Chairperson, Federation of Communi- RISE THE IMPACT OF FECOFUN
ty Forest Users Nepal (FECOFUN) ON THE FORESTS OF NEPAL?

Q: WHY HAVE YOU DEVOTED YOUR LIFE
TO THE CAUSE OF FORESTRY USERS?
A: It has always been painful to me that
women, Dalits, Indigenous Peoples,
and other marginalised people who
have devoted their whole lives to forest
conservation and management have
been denied their rightful access to
forest resources. From childhood, I knew
I would devote my life to the cause of
forestry users, thinking they must exercise
their full rights over forests and land.
A: FECOFUN has been a driving force
promoting and expanding the community
forestry model in Nepal. Through advocacy,
capacity building, and networking
efforts, FECOFUN has helped establish
community forest user groups (CFUGs)
and has initiated a groundbreaking effort to
achieve 50 percent women’s involvement
in community forestry in Nepal.

Q: PLEASE DESCRIBE THE

MAIN CHALLENGES FOR
­FORESTRY USERS IN NEPAL.

A: Indigenous peoples and local

­communities lack full security over
­forests and land ­resources and face
­legal hurdles to exercising their rights to
land, territories, and natural ­resources.
This has been a major impediment in THAKUR PRASAD ­BHANDARI,
improving their livelihoods through Chairperson, Federation of ­Community
community-based forest enterprises. Forest Users Nepal (FECOFUN)

31
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
We have now federated more than 22,000
CFUGs into FECOFUN. These CFUGs cover
3.1 million households and protect more
than 2.3 million hectares of forests. That’s
37 percent of Nepal’s total forest area.
Q: CAN YOU SHARE A STORY ABOUT
A SPECIFIC COMMUNITY IN NEPAL
FOR WHICH FECOFUN HAS MADE A
SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE IN TERMS
OF RIGHTS AND LIVELIHOODS.
A: The remarkable 20-year journey of
Mrs. Sharmila Ghising shows the power
of women as forestry leaders. With our
support, Mrs. Ghising and other women in
her community used their forest wisdom
Photo credit: Keshab Raj Thoker/Tenure Facility
32
and countless hours of labour to establish
the Hemkarna Female Group Forest.
­Under their stewardship, the forest is much
healthier and now helps provide livelihoods
for 135 households. Prior to establishing
the group forest, she could barely afford
her daily bread. Her quality of life has now
increased dramatically, largely because she
can raise cows and goats (the animals can
eat the fodder provided by the woodland)
and she can sell dairy products. Her ­social
status has grown as well. “We women
are not weak,” she told us. “We have an
immense power. If we have the guts to do
the hard work, we can achieve anything.”
We have hundreds of stories like hers.
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

BOX 8: MORE RESPLENDENT THAN THE QUETZAL’S PLUMAGE

In Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve, as being sustainably managed and their

ACOFOP, and the community forest
concessions they represent work
closely with the National Council on
Protected Areas (CONAP) government
agency to sustainably manage over half
a million hectares of rainforest in the
Multi-Use Zone of the protected area.
The communities have ensured there is
practically no illegal land clearing, logging,
or forests fires in the areas they manage.
They assist park authorities in monitoring
the core national parks next to their areas.
members export millions of dollars of
products each year. Their community
fire patrols and the harvesting of timber,
xate leaf fronds, natural chicle gum resin,
and tree nuts, have not just protected
the forest and provided livelihoods, they
have increased the forests’ richness.
There are more precious species, like
mahogany trees, and jaguars, in the
areas the communities manage than in
the “fully protected” national parks.

The forests in all the community

concessions are independently certified

Although most of the main In Liberia, our main partner,

partners in our projects are
indigenous, Afro-descendant, or
community organisations, that is
not always the case. Sometimes
we see opportunities to advance
land rights where there are no
strong indigenous or community
organisations except a few
tiny village clusters or groups
at local level, or areas where
governments restrict our ability
to fund communities. Then we
seek other types of network or
NGO to fund and help smaller
community organisations grow.
This includes some of our
partners in the DRC, Liberia, and
India. We support two national
NGOs in the DRC – CAGDFT and
Tropenbos DRC – to help develop
community forest concessions
and simple forest plans, and
to promote rights-­based
approaches to conservation.
Parley, is a national NGO which
has been heavily involved in
community land rights and forest
management work since the
end of the country’s civil war.
In India, where the government
restricts foreign funding for most
grassroots organisations, we have
opted to work with one of the
country’s elite private business
schools (ISB) and two national
NGOs (SRUTI and Vasundhara.
Many projects we fund also involve
other organisations who play
more limited, typically financial,
or technical, roles. Some are
fiscal sponsors, others produce
studies and/or provide legal
assistance or communications
or mapping support, and/or
different types of training.
33
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

34
Photo credit: ACOFOP
SECTION 3:
What Did We Do?

We had a banner year in 2023. We almost tripled the

number of projects we funded to 32 projects in 18
countries (from 12 projects in 10 countries in late 2021 and
17 projects in 13 countries in late 2022).
See appendix for a full description of our projects.
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

Similarly, Tenure Facility disburse- than double 2022’s US$ 12 million,

ments to its partners skyrocketed and more than five times the
to US$ 26 million in 2023, more roughly US$ 5 million in 2021.

FIGURE 1. EXPANSION IN NUMBER OF ­PROJECTS

AND DISBURSEMENTS 2021-2023

30M
US$ total grand disbursements

25M

20M

15M

10M

5M

0
2021 2022 2023
12 projects 17 projects 32 projects

We supported 16 projects in Latin Guatemala, Guyana, India, Indo-

America, nine in Africa, and seven nesia, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Nepal,
in Asia. This covered projects Panama, Peru, and Suriname.
in Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina
Faso, Colombia, the DRC, Ecuador, See Map 1.

MAP 1. TENURE FACILITY REACH IN 2023:

TOTAL PROJECTS AND COUNTRIES

36
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
All but one of the new projects
were in the world’s most vital
tropical rainforest areas – the
Amazon regions of Brazil,
Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador,
Peru, and Suriname, in eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo,
and in west Papua in Indonesia.
These new projects alone are
expected to improve land rights
MAP 2. PROJECT GROWTH:
NEW PROJECTS IN 2023
In 2023 we funded our first
projects in Brazil, eastern DRC,
Bolivia, Ecuador, Suriname, the
Colombian Amazon, and west
Papua. By year’s end, we were
supporting four projects in Brazil
and had become the largest
and governance in over 26
million hectares, in areas that
will determine whether Amazon
destruction passes a tipping
point, the Congo Basin follows
suit, and Indonesia loses its
largest remaining intact forest.
See Map 2.
private funder of land rights for
Afro-descendant Quilombolas.
We funded three new projects
in highly biodiverse areas of eas-
tern DRC and made progress on
several others in the country.
37
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

38
Photo credit:
SECTION 4:
What Did We
Achieve?

A lot with a little.

 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

How many times have you heard people say that we need
billions of dollars to solve this or that major world challenge?
Maybe we do, but it is amazing what people can achieve with
a tiny fraction of that when they are well-organised, highly
motivated, and understand the problems.

Relatively small amounts of to protect the places they call

money can go a long way when
you have the sort of partners
Tenure Facility works with.
­These are people who work long
hours, often volunteer their
time, and are willing to put their
lives on the line to protect their
families and ancestral lands.
In 2023, they achieved more
with the US$ 26 million that the
Tenure Facility channelled to
their organisations than many
big multilateral or government
projects that spend many times
more could even dream of.
Over the year, these partner
organisations were able to get
governments in nine different
countries to formally recognise
the rights of 1,033 communities
over more than two million
hectares of land and forests.
Hundreds of thousands of
people living in villages in
those areas can sleep easier
now, knowing their lands and
futures are more secure.
home, preserve their cultures,
and manage their affairs in an
area almost the size of the United
Kingdom – 21.7 million hectares.
This represented more than
double the number of hectares
and communities that got formal
recognition and made other
types of progress in 2022.
This left us well positioned to
achieve our three ambitious
targets for 2027: (15 million
hectares of formal recognition,
60 million hectares in total with
meaningful progress, and 15
million people who benefit).
See Figure 2.
For a complete detailed
description of the progress
during 2023 see appendix.

But that was just the tip of

the iceberg. In total, 13,896
communities were able to
make some sort of measurable
progress towards being able

40
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

FIGURE 2. SUMMARY OF PROJECTS RESULTS, 2023

Area and Number of Communities that Achieved Formal ­Government

­Recognition of Communal Land and/or Forest Rights and Total Area
and Number of Communities where Projects Made Progress

Hectares Communities

Formal Recognition 2,048,767 1,033

Total Progress* 21,754,239 13,896

*This can be thought of as the project’s “footprint”. It is the

­total area and communities that benefitted in some meaning-
ful way, including, but not limited to, formal recognition.

Photo credit: KPA

Most of the families that bene- biodiverse and carbon rich

fitted were in denser population tropical rainforest areas of the
areas in Asia. However, most Amazon Basin and Indonesia.
of the land where progress
was made was in the highly See Table 1.

41
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

TABLE 1. SUMMARY OF PROJECT RESULTS BY COUNTRY, 2023

Area and Number of Communities that Achieved Formal ­Government

­Recognition of Communal Land and/or Forest Rights and Total Area
and Number of Communities where Projects Made Progress

COUNTRY FORMAL RECOGNITION TOTAL PROGRESS

Hectares Communities Hectares Communities

Belize - - 140,447 30

Bolivia 1,154,339 75 1,154,339 75

Brazil - - 2,184,000 34

Burkina Faso - - 100,900 80

Colombia 71,341 16 1,175,757 55

DRC - - 436,114 13

Ecuador 42,360 6 42,360 9

Guatemala 89,881 4 557,656 17

Guyana 89,031 2 5,228,535 58

India 123,568 412 1,254,851 10,698

Indonesia 427,465 44 7,042,574 766

Kenya - - 135,651 15

Liberia - - 899,313 36

Mali - - 101,000 127

Nepal 43,073 473 162,243 1,838

Panama - - 864,574 18

Peru 7,709 1 283,925 27

TOTAL 2,048,767 1,033 21,764,239 13,896

42
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
Policy Reforms Favouring
Communal Land Rights
When the Rights and Resources
Initiative NGO helped to establish
Tenure Facility in 2018, it assumed
we would only fund projects to
implement government policies
in countries that already had
favourable laws and procedures.
But government policies and
the resolve to implement them
fluctuate, meaning there are
always gaps and contradictions.
So, many partners have had to
use our projects to overcome
policy bottlenecks to move ahead.
Six rounds of negotiations
between Colombia’s main
indigenous organisations –
represented by CNTI, the
Indigenous Technical Secretariat
of National Commission of
Indigenous Territories – and
government land agencies
and government agencies
led to 93 agreements about
budgets and procedures, and
expediting urgent cases.
Meanwhile, the Proceso
De Comunidades Negras,
representing Afro-Colombian
communities, was the driving
force behind new regulations
related to land titling and
mining, logging, and water use
their territories, some signed
by the president himself,
before a huge crowd.
Colombia’s new National Deve­
lopment Plan mandated the
creation of community forest
concessions in protected forest
reserves, based largely on
learning exchanges between
a variety of Colombian groups
and the community forest
concessions represented
by ACOFOP in Guatemala’s
Maya Biosphere Reserve.
In Peru, public awareness efforts
by FENAMAD, ORPIO, and SPDA
about the need to protect un-­
contacted and recently contacted
Indigenous Peoples helped to
convince the National Congress
to shelve a legislative initiative
that threatened the country’s
four million hectares of reserves
for these vulnerable groups
and the forests they inhabit.
CAGDFT collaborated with other
NGOs and government agencies
in the DRC to inform a new Land
Use Planning Law approved by the
National Assembly. The Law gives
Indigenous Peoples and other
local communities a stronger
voice in land use zoning and
recognises their right to reject
harmful investment projects
them and be compensated in
advance if they are evicted.
43
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
RECOGNITION OF LAND AND FOREST RIGHTS
Usually when one thinks about
communal land and forest rights
the first thing that ­comes to
mind is a land title. But formal
recognition of these rights
can take various forms.
While there was progress on
this front in nine countries we
worked in, our partners’ most
notable results were in Bolivia,
Indonesia, Nepal, and India.
While Bolivia and Indonesia
accounted for three-quarters
of the 2,048,000 hectares
that governments recognised
during the year, India
and Nepal accounted for
87 percent of the 1,033
communities that benefitted.
In Bolivia, the government ­formally
recognised two autonomous
indigenous governments as
the official authorities in two
large lowland territories.
44
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
BOX 9: MARCHING FOR TERRITORY AND DIGNITY
IN THE BOLIVIAN AMAZON
Indigenous Peoples in two territories
of lowland Bolivia had their traditional
authorities recognised as autonomous
governments responsible for governing
and conserving huge areas of lands,
forests, and wetlands. They used their
project resources to elect and train their
authorities (men and women), develop new
territorial governance and conservation
laws, and verify demarcation of additional
areas within their territorial boundaries.
In July, more than a thousand men and
women from the five Peoples – Mojeño
Ignaciano, Mojeño Trinitario, Tsimane,
Yuracare, and Movima – gathered
in a forest clearing in the indigenous
Multiethnic Territory to cast their secret
vote. They placed their ballot papers
in baskets woven from palm leaves
– traditional urns. The process was
accredited by the Bolivian government.
Three of the five leaders elected by the
communities were women. This newly
recognised autonomous government now
has formal responsibility for an area of
650,125 hectares, half of which includes
the Loma Santa Conservation Area where
communities protect important riverheads
and wildlife from illegal mining and fires.
It was from this territory over 30 years ago
that the first “Indigenous March” set out
45
on an arduous walk to claim “dignity and
respect for territory”. It took the Amazon
community “marchistas” 34 days to reach
the freezing Andean Mountain capital city
of La Paz, with many groups joining them
as they winded their way up hill along dirt
trails far from their tropical forest home.
Some distance away in the Cavineña
Nation Assembly there were
“jidadya, jidadya, jidadya!” shouts of
joy as Bolivia’s Constitutional Court
recognised traditional government as an
autonomous indigenous territorial unit.
It covered 473,480 hectares, including
1,618 additional hectares that were
identified during the verification of the
territory’s. In coordination with the Vice
Ministry of Autonomy, the Cavineños
community used project resources to
help advance the process recognising
the new autonomous government and
recover the additional territory.
The communities remembered their
history with emotion as they took back
their territory which had been taken
away from them by missionaries, then
by the army in the 1900s. But it now
faces new illegal incursions by big
­cattle ranchers and illegal fishers.
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

In another major victory, took steps towards demarcating

together with our partners the
Coordination of the Indigenous
Organizations of the Brazilian
Amazon (COIAB) and the Podáali
Fund, the Brazilian government
the indigenous territory of
Kaxuayana Tunayana, which
covers 2.2 million hectares, an
area almost the size of El Salvador.

BOX 10: THE MISSING PIECE OF THE WAYAMU

TERRITORY IN THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON

The remote Wayamu territory is a huge one of the world’s largest remaining
mosaic of large indigenous territories rainforests, including parts of the
­surrounded by protected areas in Brazilian states of Pará, Amazonas, and

MAP 3: KAXUYANA-TUNAYANA IN THE “CENTRE” OF A MOSAIC OF ­INDIGENOUS

­TERRITORIES AND PROTECTED AREAS (SOURCE: IEPE, 2020)

Protected Areas
Indigenous Territories
Quilombola or Afro-Descendant territories
Overlapping
46
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
Roraima. It covers some 9.5 million
hectares, about the size of Ireland.
The Kaxuyana, Tunayana, Kayana, and
other Indigenous Peoples have inhabited
an area in the middle of that territory for
hundreds, if not thousands, of years. That
area is now called the Kaxuyana-Tunayana
Indigenous Territory , or TIKT, and is
the only remaining piece of the massive
Wayamu Territoriy still to be demarcated.
In 1968, the Brazilian government forcibly
removed most of the Kaxuyanas; dropping
them in an unfamiliar savanna area near
the Suriname border. After 30 years
in exile, many managed to return in the
1990s. Since 2002, they have fought
for government recognition of their
territory, for them, seven other Indigenous
Peoples, and several isolated indigenous
groups that remain uncontacted.
The process has been torturously slow.
The government agency responsible
47
for Indigenous Peoples – the National
Indigenous Foundation, FUNAI – took 11
years to conclude that the territory should
be recognised. Then the Ministry of Justice
sat on it for another five years before
approving demarcation to start in 2018.
Even then, efforts to physically demarcate
the territory did not get underway until
last year, when Luis Ignacio Lula de Silva
became president. To kick off the process,
FUNAI, COIAB, the Podáali Fund, local
indigenous groups and others held a
three-day planning workshop. COIAB
negotiated with FUNAI about how this
would work and helped to coordinate the
groups. Podáali funded local indigenous
groups to strengthen their organisations,
participate actively in the demarcation, and
monitor illegal mining and logging. They
expect the process to conclude in 2024.
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
In India, the State Governments of
Odisha and Jharkhand dramatically
ramped up efforts to implement the
country’s 2006 Forest Rights Act. Our
partners Vasundhara, the Indian School
BOX 11: TRIBAL FOREST-DWELLERS OBTAIN
RIGHTS ACROSS ODISHA, INDIA
When India’s parliament approved the
Forest Rights Act in 2006 experts
­estimated it could help over 150 million
tribal forest dwellers in 170,000 villages
to obtain rights to 40 million hectares
of forestlands (an area larger than
­Germany). However, only a fraction of that
has been achieved. Most State Govern­
ments charged with implementing the Act
have been unwilling or unable to do so.
Last year Odisha was the big exception.
With an eye towards the next election,
in a State where tribal peoples make up
over one fifth of the electorate, a high-
profile scheme called “My Forestland”
was launched to recognise the rights of
32,000 communities in just two years.
The new scheme came with its own
programme management unit with a
healthy budget, awareness campaigns,
teams in every district, and extensive
training of public officials and village
Photo credit: SRUTI
48
of Business (ISB), and the Society for
Rural Urban and Tribal Initiative (SRUTI)
helped almost 10,000 villages in Odisha
to make progress towards obtaining
rights over 882,645 hectares.
leaders. The State Government
­entrusted our partner Vasundhara, an
Odisha-based NGO, to coordinate the
scheme in half the State’s 30 districts.
It was a truly massive effort. Vasundhara
hired 52 programme officers, trainers, and
field assistants, and recruited 1,018 local
community volunteers to help file claims
at the village levels. In a matter of months,
they developed a web platform for claims
in 15 districts, conducted “awareness
camps” in 9,487 villages in 11 districts,
trained 1,349 community volunteers and
public officials, and helped 645 villages to
file Community Forest Rights claims. In
total, they managed to reach over 9,815
villages covering 882,645 hectares; and by
the end of the year 328 communities that
had submitted claims during earlier project
phases received Community Forest Right
certificates to almost 70,000 hectares. ISB
and SRUTI complemented these efforts.
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

Thanks to strong support from President Gustavo Petro

and Vice President Francia Marquez and recent efforts to
strengthen our partners CNTI and PCN, there was a notable up-
tick in processing Afro-Colombian and indigenous land claims,
with over 70,000 hectares titled.

Guatemala not only completed the renewal of the community

forest concessions in the Peten Maya Biosphere Reserve
in a ceremony presided over by then President Alejandro
Giammattei, but it also approved two new community forest
concessions covering 62,373 hectares.

CUSTOMARY GOVERNANCE AUTHORITIES

For communal land and forest
rights to reap their main social
and environmental benefits,
the customary authorities that
manage the resources must be
well-organised, accountable, and
inclusive, and have clear rules and
responsibilities. So, strengthening
those authorities is a big part
of most projects we fund.
These authorities go by a
wide ­variety of names. But the
essence is always the same.
Residents volun­teer their
time and get elected to serve
and protect their neighbours,
lands, water, and forests.
Last year our partners ­helped
thousands of these local groups
to prepare statutes and consti­
tutions, hold assemblies and
elections, gain formal recognition,
make strategic and operational
plans, train village leaders
about local laws and how to
perform their duties, set rules
about natural resources, and
implement small projects.
In response to the growing
exodus of rural youth, partners
in at least 10 countries took
steps to ­engage them. They
held workshops, ­dialogues, and
leadership ­conferences, ensured
youth were represented in
local decision-­making bodies,
and provided training, seed
money, and access to land for
small livelihood, ­cultural, and
natural resource projects.

49
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

CONFLICT RESOLUTION collaborations allowed CNTI

These customary authorities
and the partner organisations
that represent them play vital
roles in resolving conflicts
over land and other resources.
Thirteen projects report
notable results in this regard.
Our partners helped to address
these conflicts at multiple levels.
The KPA Consortium for
Agrarian Reform in Indonesia
and CNTI in Colombia took
a macro approach, regularly
monitoring major land conflicts
and working with government
authorities to resolve them.
KPA works largely to resolve
conflicts between the hundreds
of communities they represent
and the large palm oil, pulp, and
timber plantations. Each year
they publish a national report on
land conflicts and partner with
the Ministry of Agrarian Affairs to
solve the most urgent ones. Last
year they jointly prioritised 30
conflict areas one which to focus.
to help the Pasos and Nukak
Maku Indigenous Peoples regain
partial control over their titled
­territory covering almost one
million hectares in Guaviare,
and to get the government to
provide protection to four Sikuani
­indigenous communities seeking
title to 89,998 hectares in Meta.
At the more local level, at
least 10 projects were heavily
involved in efforts to harmonise
boundaries and resolve dozens
of long-­standing disputes
between neigh­bouring villages
and/or ethnic groups. A few
also focused on conflicts
within villages themselves.

In Colombia, CNTI and PCN

worked closely with the
government to resolve major
land disputes. The Ministry
of Agriculture, the National
Land Agency and CNTI jointly
developed an inter-­institutional
protocol for addressing different
types of conflicts. PCN was
key in the Inter-Ethnic Forum
of Cauca established by Vice
President Francia Marquez and
local governments to ­resolve
violent land disputes. These Photo credit: PCN

50
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
PARTICIPATORY
MAPPING, PLANNING
AND MONITORING
One of the most important ways
communities can gain effective
control over their traditional
territories is to get together to
take stock of what they have,
how they have been using it, and
decide what they want to do going
forward. That leaves them much
better positioned to make claims
and negotiate with governments,
companies, international funders,
and NGOs, address unwanted
incursions, and implement
other collective activities.
This goes way beyond drawing
lines on a piece of paper or
preparing formal documents. It is
a chance to work collectively, see
their surroundings in a new light,
learn from each other, reaffirm
their identity, and build consensus.
It is especially important to
capture the unique knowledge and
perspectives of elders, women,
youth, and minority groups.
Sometimes participatory maps
and plans are an initial step
towards obtaining formal land
rights, public funding, or permits
to harvest forest resources. Other
communities use them for their
internal purposes or to negotiate
with neighbours or companies.
This is a major area of many of our
partners’ work and they do it well.
Besides overseeing participatory
processes, about one dozen
have formal Geographical
Information Systems or work
with other organisations who do.
By far, the largest mapping
undertaking in 2023 was that
of the BRWA ancestral domain
registration agency in Indonesia.
It oversaw a massive effort to
mobilise tens of thousands
of villagers to map millions of
hectares, and then verified,
registered, and certified those
maps, and worked to get them
recognised by government.
51
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
BOX 12: THE POWER OF MAPS
In most nations where the Tenure
­Facility works, government maps do
not d­ elineate the territories stewarded
since time immemorial by Indigenous
Peoples and local communities. This is
why a critical step in the fight to protect
the communities from land grabs – is
literally putting these them on the map.
Indonesia’s BRWA is the largest
independent agency in the world helping
communities map and register their
territories. With its sister organisation, the
AMAN indigenous alliance, it has mobilised
tens of thousands of villagers to support
community-led mapping processes
across the Indonesian archipelago.
With Tenure Facility support, BRWA
registered, verified, or certified 4.9
million hectares of indigenous ­community
52
lands in 2023. This represents an
area nearly the size of Costa Rica.
BRWA’s work involves much more than
holding a GPS device and marking down
the coordinates of a boundary. For BRWA,
mapping is a holistic, participatory process.
It involves all the community walking the
forest and navigating rivers – often with
women, youth, and men together. It can
be empowering for the entire community.
“These maps we make are ours”, one
Indonesian community member said. “We
decide what maps to make, and what use
we will make of them – whether it’s a map
we keep to ourselves because we do not
want to share with outsiders where our
valuable bird nest caves or sacred sites are,
or whether we make a map to negotiate
with a government agency to get our land
and forest tenure secure and recognised.”
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
Two other cases that stand
out when it comes to mapping
were forest management group.
One is CAGDFT’s work in the
DRC to assist 10 communities
seeking government recognition
of Local Community Forest
Concessions to map 246,018
hectares The other is that of
Nepal forest group, FECOFUN,
the Green Foundation Nepal, and
Indigenous Peoples researchers
CIPRED, which together
supported 382­­Community Forest
User Groups and ­indigenous
communities to map the forest
use, rights, and governance in
45,198 hectares of forest.
Besides mapping, communities
often take additional action.
Many projects are for their own
use, but others are required
by ­governments to grant titles
or certificates, allow them to
log or collect forest products,
or give them funds. In the
DRC, Guatemala, and Nepal,
communities prepared forest
management plans. In Guyana,
they made Village Sustainability
plans to access carbon
funding, wildlife and watershed
management plans, and strategic
plans for District Councils. In
Panama, COONAPIP helped
territories to prepare Land Use
Plans, Sustainable Resource Use
and Community Development
Plans, and Environmental
Management Plans. Together,
the planning efforts involved
tens of thousands of people,
and millions of hectares.
Six Latin American partners
organised and trained villagers
to use drones and patrol their
forests on foot to monitor forest
fires, illegal logging, mining,
hunting, and land invasions. At
least two tested water quality
for pollution. This was especially
successful in Bolivia, Guatemala,
and Peru, where communities
successfully monitored over
one million hectares. In
Guatemala, local monitoring
has all but eliminated forest
fires in the community forest
concessions, although they
continue to pose huge threats
in neighbouring national parks.
PROTECTED AREAS
A surprising share of the projects
involved community rights in and
around protected areas. In Bolivia,
Brazil, Guatemala, Panama, and
Peru, and mostly recently the
DRC, partners helped to create
large biological corridors by
ensuring that communities, which
respect and protect the forests,
have secure rights to areas next
to parks. In Brazil and Peru,
COIAB and indigenous human
rights and environmental group
FENAMAD supported reserves
for uncontacted and recently
contacted Indigenous Peoples.
Indigenous local governments
such as the South Rupuni District
Council in Guyana and the two
recently recognised Autonomous
indigenous Governments in the
Multiethnic indigenous Territory
and Cavineño territories took on
responsibilities for conservation
in their territories and where
protected areas overlap.
Indigenous confederations
CONAIE and CONFENAIE in
Ecuador and COONAPIP in
Panama worked to title indigenous
lands in protected areas, while
respecting their integrity.
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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
Partners in the DRC and Kenya
addressed evictions of indigenous
villagers from parks and ensuing
conflicts. And, as noted previously,
Guatemala’s community forest
concessions manage large
areas forest sustainably in the
multiple use zone of the Maya
Biosphere Reserve in the Petén.
Building trust between
communities and parks
authorities can take time. But,
when successful, rights-based
conservation leads to better
outcomes. Indigenous elders
can impart their knowledge to
community youth, who then use
new geo-spatial and information
technologies to alert parks
authorities so they can jointly
control illegal incursions. This
kind if of collaboration is needed
to keep the forest standing,
revitalise indigenous culture
and traditional knowledge
about conservation, and build
confidence along the way.
Three new projects in 2023
focused largely on ensuring
indigenous and community rights
and improving relations between
communities and park authorities
in large blocks of tropical
rainforests, where indigenous
and other forest communities
overlap with protected areas.
These included the CREF network
and Tropenbos DRC projects in
North Kivu in the DRC and the
FENAMAD Project in the Madre
de Dios River Basin in Peru.
Even though these projects
only recently began, the CREF
Network, which aims to conserve
and restore forests, has already
reached agreement with the
director of the Maiko National
Park in North Kivu to collaborate
on community participation
in park demarcation and
development of its new 10-year
management plan. This has
opened a path for potential co-
management with communities
of approximately one million
hectares adjacent to the park.
For much of the year, CONAIE
and CONFENAIE worked
diligently with Ecuador’s
Ministry of Environment to
design a mechanism for titling
the estimated one million
hectares of indigenous lands in
protected areas in the Amazon.
However, these efforts stalled
with the country’s change of
government, and the some of
the action shifted to the courts.
Similarly, Panama was progressing
on titling indigenous lands in
protected areas in the Province
of Darien when a competing
claim from the Sinclair Oil
Company appeared unexpectedly.
COONAPIP ultimately convinced
the government to discard
this claim, but it significant
delayed the process.
Wider Guaramag, President of the Nixon Andy, Coordinator of the
A’i Cofan Protectd Community ”Guardia” of the A’i Cofan Protected
of Sinagoe, Ecuador. Community of Sinagoe, Ecuador.
54
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
GENDER EQUALITY
Full equality between men and
women and respect for women’s
rights is not only fair and just, but
essential for Indigenous Peoples
and other communities to sustain
control over their traditional
lands and deliver the benefits
that offers. Tenure Facility takes
that seriously and it is a key
tenet of every project we fund.
Two new projects last year
focused entirely on women’s
rights to use forest resources (the
MIQCB babassu coconut breakers
project in Brazil, and the UEFA
project in the eastern DRC) and
three others had predominantly
women leadership (the CNAMIB
project in Bolivia and Podáali
and CONAQ projects in Brazil.)
Almost all of the 23 projects that
were fully operational last year
reported achievements related
to gender equality. For example,
• Thanks to PCN, Colombia
awarded the first ever collec­
tive land title to an Afro-­
descendant women’s group.
• Indonesia’s National Land
Agency increased land
registration for women and
youth in agrarian reform sites
in collaboration with KPA.
• Indigenous women ­leaders
in Peru prepared and
presen­ted a proposal to the
Ministry of Agri­culture to
enhance women’s involve­
ment in land titling.
• TenForest in Burkina Faso
organised a dozen workshops
and a radio campaign to
get local governments
and landowners to make
land available for women’s
groups, with great success.
• Some 61,788 rural women
joined the Forest Rights
Committees decision-making
bodies in Odisha, India, at
least in part due to efforts by
eco-group Vashundhara to
ensuer that the committees
followed government policies
requiring at least half of their
members to be women.
• Local governments in Nepal
approved Local Forest Acts
requiring that at least half the
elected leaders of Community
Forest User Groups be women.
Partners established new
­women’s commissions and/or
ensured w ­ omen were better
represented in their governing
bodies. They conducted studies
to assess women’s problems,
needs, and concerns, and they
adopted gender policies and
strategies and hired gender
­experts. They trained thousands
of women and men about women’s
rights, gender bias, and gender-­
based violence. Many supported
­women-run forestry, farming, and
handicrafts enterprises. They
helped women’s groups get legal
status, develop experience in fund
management, mobilize support
from male leaders, and connect
with other women’s groups.
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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
BOX 13: WOMEN’S WAY
It is no coincidence that half the leaders
elected in the newly recognised indigenous
autonomous self-governments in Bolivia
were women. Indigenous women’s
confederation CNAMIB, the main project
partner, has nurtured women whose
main mission is to protect resources
for their children and grandchildren, to
take on broader ­decision-making roles
and in ways that mend bridges and ­avoid
polarisation. C­ NAMIB is developing a
woman’s leadership and governance
training programme, along the lines of
some other partners. These programmes
not only enable women to participate
in decisions about their forests and
­territories, but also gives them legal tools
they can use, if they wish, to counter
machismo, femicide, and gender violence.
Photo credit: CNAMIB
56
Women get together to cook, wash
laundry, gather medicinal plants, exchange
knowledge about how to make juice from
the majo palm nut (Oenocarpus bataua)
and jewellery from the flaming red and
black sirari seeds (Ormosia coccinea).
In these gatherings they decide what
rights they want recognised to their
forest farm gardens where their food and
fruits grow, and to the places with plants
producing valuable weaving fibres and
seeds. Women’s gatherings are also places
of comfort and solidarity when women
suffer harassment or worse in their homes
and communities, or physical violence
from illegal loggers. They provide spaces
where women can discuss the need for
bi-lingual education and inter-cultural
health systems as integral parts of their
tenure security in their own languages.
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

Many mixed-gender partner organisations have focused

on gender-parity policies, ensuring 50/50 women/men
representation.
In all projects women are stepping up and out in front of village
gatherings and discussions with government, elected as leaders
in their organisations, participating in mapping activities, joining
their territory’s environment defender network.

PARTNERSHIP WITH GOVERNMENT

AND COMPANIES

Practically all our partners local leaders, regulate extractive

collaborate with some national
or local government agencies.
Typically, both sides achieve
much more together than
they could on their own.
The organisations we work with
inform government policies and
procedures, prepare paperwork
so governments can process
claims, train government
officials, design apps and other
software used by government
agencies, facilitate government
visits to communities, provide
intelligence about illegal activities,
fund events co-sponsored by
governments and government
travel to meetings. Ironically,
when there is great political
instability, constant rotation of
agency staff, and chronic loss of
public documents, our indigenous,
Afro-descendant, and community
partners often serve as the
State’s institutional memory.
At the same time, our partners
depend on government to issue
titles and certificates, approve
land use and management plans,
remove illegal occupants, protect
activities, and collect data.
Some collaborations are
mandated by law, such as the
negotiations between Indigenous
Peoples and government
agencies in Colombia’s National
Commission of indigenous
Territories (CNTI) and Amazon
Regional Roundtable (MRA) and
Indonesia’s joint KPA and Ministry
of Agrarian Affairs Task Force to
Define Priority Agrarian Reform
Areas. In response to growing
tensions between Indigenous
Peoples and government,
Panama’s president established
a National High-Level Roundtable
for government ministers and
COONAPIP to regularly meet to
address indigenous land titling,
illegal land invasions, defores­
tation, and other sensitive issues.
In at least eight countries.
our partners signed formal
Memorandum of Understanding
with government agencies,
delineating specific activities
and each partiers’ rights,
and responsibilities.

57
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
BOX 14: WHERE THERE IS A WILL, THERE IS A WAY: AN
UNUSUAL PARTNERSHIP IN COLOMBIA BEARS FRUIT
When new authorities came into
office recently in Colombia and Brazil,
they were shocked by the sorry
state of the public land agencies they
inherited. Years of neglect had left
a legacy of few trained staff, shoddy
equipment, and poorly kept records.
Juan Camilo Cabezas, who had headed
the Ethnic Affairs department of
Colombia’s National Land Agency
(ANT) for some time, was a competent
public servant, who always wanted to
help Afro-descendant and indigenous
communities get their titles, but he never
got much support. Once the Colombian
administration changed in 2022, he
came under great pressure from above
and below to move faster. But Camilo
Cabezas was seriously shorthanded.
So, he reached out to Tenure Facility
asking for equipment to survey land for
titles and tablets to help sort out records.
Seeing the evident sincerity, we were
inclined to help. But rather than giving the
equipment directly to the government, we
Photo credit: PCN
58
gave US$ 50,000 to our Afro-­descendant
community partner PCN to purchase
it and lend it to the land agency.
PCN and ANT signed a formal agree­
ment stipulating that they would jointly
determine how and where to use the
equipment. PCN members would visit the
Afro-Colombian communities to explain
the process and arrange logistics for the
ANT surveyors. Then the surveyors would
come with PCN staff and make the maps.
The results exceeded everyone’s
expectations. In a matter of months,
they mapped 12 Afro-Colombian and five
indigenous territories covering 82,236
hectares and another 63 parcels with
16,198 hectares, which the government
purchased to redistribute to communities.
ANT was able to straighten out many of
their records. Most importantly, this built
trust and good will between the ANT, PCN,
and the communities. Eighty percent of
the land titled by ANT in Afro-Colombian
communities last year was in territories
they worked in together with the PCN.
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
These partnerships cover a
range of issues, including land
titling, forest concessions and
management plans, indigenous
self-­government, conflict
resolution, protected areas,
watershed management,
deforestation, forest fires, carbon
finance, spatial data, legislative
and regulatory reforms, and
consultations about public and
private investment projects.
In some cases, the indigenous
communities and NGOs pay the
bill; in others the government, and
in others they agree to split it.
There were fewer partnerships
with companies, but those that
existed were quite successful.
In India business school ISB
organised roundtables and
meetings with key industry
leaders to show them how secure
forest tenure and sustainable
supply chains can help achieve
business goals. This opened the
way for successful partnerships
and large purchase agreements
between women’s groups and
private companies in Jharkhand
(plant-based food group AAK
for sal seeds used for oil and
medicines (Shorea robusta)),
and Odisha (paper company
BGPPL for bamboo), and
progress on several others.
The Julian Cho Society and the
Toledo Alcaldes Association in
Belize persuaded the government
to approve a protocol requiring
government agencies and project
developers to get the consent
from Mayan communities before
making investments there. That
allowed communities to reach
more favourable agreements with
solar power companies and a
telecommunications project, with
other negotiations underway.
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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
USE OF THE COURTS
Sometimes partners need to take
governments to court to get them
to act. About half of our projects
reported using national or
international courts successfully
last year. For example:
• Ecuador: A court ordered
the Ministry of Environ­
ment to provide the Siekopi
Indigenous People with
the first ever certificate of
indigenous land ownership
inside a protected area.
• Nepal: The Constitutional
Court issued a temporary stay
stopping the triple taxation by
the federal, provincial, and local
governments of the 22,000
Community Forest User
Groups, a system that has
hindered their development.
• Guyana: In response to a legal
ruling by the Inter-­American
Commission on Human
Rights, the government
­revoked 17 mining licenses.
Photo credit: APA
• Belize: To comply with a 2015
Caribbean Court of Justice
Consent Order, which required
the government to title
Mayan community lands, the
government presented a draft
Maya Customary Land Policy.
• Kenya: Local courts ­issued
interim orders to stop
evictions of Ogiek villagers
by the Kenyan Forest
­Service from their ancestral
lands in the Mau Forest.
• Ecuador: In a separate case,
the Constitutional Court
struck down a law governing
consultations of Indigenous
Peoples about mining
concessions, temporarily
halting new concessions in
indigenous communities.
In other cases, partners
provided legal assistance
to community leaders who
have been criminalised by the
justice system for lawful efforts
to defend their territorial
rights or to seek protection
from threats of violence.
Photo credit: APA
60
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
STRENGTHENING ORGANISATIONS AND
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
As we saw in Section 2, Tenure
Facility funds mostly large and
well-organised indigenous and
community groups. Typically,
they have greater reach, political
legitimacy, credibility, and track
records serving communities and
protecting forests, than most
other civil society groups. This
belies the common notion that
they are weak and lack “capacity”.
Even so, because most rely heavily
on local staff and volunteers, have
had limited access to funding
and use traditional forms of
organisation, these groups often
lack relevant professional skills,
tools, and systems. Tenure Facility
funding allows them to explore
which of these might help, and
which might distract and distance
them from their constituents.
The influx of Tenure Facility
funds in 2023 allowed many
organisations to expand,
prepare strategic plans, develop
human resource policies, train
staff and members, improve
communications, upgrade
Geographic Information Systems
and data bases about land claims
and community forests, and hold
organisational congresses and
assemblies. Partners organised
most of the training themselves,
but in a few cases Tenure
Facility funded outside groups
(e.g., If Not Us than Who for
filmmaking, Spring Strategies for
finance, Cadasta for Geographic
Information Systems, Landesa
for gender equality, and Tebtebba
for preparing proposals to the
Green Climate Fund.) These
efforts will help partners to
sustain their expanded efforts
once Tenure Facility funding ends.
More than a dozen projects
we funded reported major
improvements in financial
management. Since most
partners are not used to
managing projects that large,
we have given special attention
to this aspect. That begins with
rigorous financial due diligence
during project design, which
helps to identify and agree
on areas for improvement.
In addition to technical assistance
by our finance team and training
by local service providers,
we funded Spring Strategies
to pilot a customised, highly
interactive, in-person and
virtual, training programme
on Financial Innovation and
Resilience for partners’ managers
and finance staff. ­Forty-five of
them from Kenya, Nepal, India,
Guyana, and Belize participated
in the initial pilot, which will be
replicated in other regions.
Many partners adopted new
budgeting, procurement, cash
management, bank reconciliation
and audit policies and procedures.
They hired administrative staff,
arranged additional training, and
acquired accounting software.
This allowed two partners in
eastern DRC, who initially lacked
the capacity to manage a large
grant, to meet all their agreed
milestones and administer funds
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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
themselves. Similar advances
allowed indigenous federation
FENAMAD to manage its own
project in Peru, after being a
sub-grantee in a previous project.
In at least three instances,
partners reported that
improving their financial
management allowed them to
increase and diversify their
funding from other sources.
While financial management may
sound routine and potentially
boring, the reality where our
partners apply them is anything
but. This is often in remote
areas, with few or no banks, and
limited internet, where they
must haul cash over dirt roads
and treacherous rivers, and risk
assault along the way. They must
also find ways to transfer funds
to local groups that have not
been registered as legal entities
and/or have no bank account
acceptable to the auditors.
Photo credit: UEFA
One innovative mechanism
that has been gaining traction
to address such situations
are so-called community
“territorial funds” – funds
created by the indigenous
and community organisations
themselves to channel money
and other assistance to local
groups in the territories.
The four projects we funded
in Brazil last year all involved
territorial funds. In the case of
the indigenous Podáali Fund,
Tenure Facility staff were able
to help them to improve their
financial and grant-management
systems, based partly on systems
developed by the Samdhana
Institute in Indonesia. Samdhana is
the fiscal sponsor for the FOKER
network in west Papua, which
is applying similar systems.
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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
BOX 15: AN INNOVATION – COMMUNITY
TERRITORIAL FUNDS
Ever since the US$ 1.7 billion Glasgow
climate summit pledge by funders in 2021
to support indigenous and community
land and forest rights and management,
there has been an outpouring of interest
in how to fund those groups directly.
This coincided with a flurry of interest in a
novel funding approach called territorial
or community funds. Indigenous, Afro-
descendant, and community federations
are creating specialised units that
provide small grants for land and forest
rights, local institutions, and other
homegrown initiatives. These funds get
the money where it needs to go. Just as
importantly, they give diverse groups
within communities the opportunity
to discuss and decide who to fund for
what and to monitor the process.
The Brazilian Amazon is ground zero for
territorial funds. It has almost a dozen,
with another six under construction. The
Photo credit: Podáali
63
DEMA fund is almost two decades old,
but most funds are just getting started.
Tenure Facility will support four territorial
funds in the region. Two already exist, the
indigenous Podáali Fund, an independent
entity created by COIAB, and the Babassu
Fund, which is as a unit within the babassu
coconut breakers organisation. Two
others, the National Quilombola Fund
and Mizizi Dudu Quilombola Fund, linked
to CONAQ and its local affiliate Malunga,
in the State of Para, are being incubate
with the support of the Brazilian Fund
for Human Rights and the DEMA Fund.
Good ideas tend to spread, and this one
has caught on like wildfire. Indigenous and
community organisations recently set
up funds in Mesoamerica and Indonesia,
and the Global Alliance of Territorial
Communities created a global platform
called Shandia to promote them.
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
CHALLENGES
Of course, 2023 was not
all a bed of roses. Political
changes, insecurity, and natural
disasters threatened progress
in a handful of countries. In
others, problems emerged in
the projects themselves.
Partners in Burkina and Mali faced
Jihadist insurgencies, while in
the eastern DRC and Colombia,
it was armed militias and
criminal gangs. Political unrest
in Panama and Peru became a
distraction and made it hard to
travel for meetings and events,
as protesters and police blocked
the roads. Ecuador’s unexpected
snap elections interrupted
fruitful negotiations about
titling indigenous territories in
protected areas and forced them
to practically start again from
scratch. Strong Congressional
opposition to indigenous and
Afro-descendant land rights
threatened the mandate of
the new Ministry of Indigenous
Peoples and the budgets of key
agencies in Brazil, putting the Lula
Administration on the defensive.
Despite a unanimous ruling by
the African Court for Human
and People’s rights ratifying the
rights of the indigenous Ogieks
to live in their ancestral lands in
the Mau Forest, Kenya’s Forest
Service violently evicted hundreds
of villagers from their homes.
Governments in Belize and
Guyana shunned dialogue with
autonomous indigenous groups
and insisted on acting unilaterally.
A major earthquake affected
the work in Nepal; in ­Guatemala,
the problem was floods.
Elections of new leaders in
indigenous organisations
FENAMAD in Peru and OPIAC in
Colombia slowed things down,
while they settled into their
new roles. In several countries
tensions between partners had
to be resolved. It also proved
difficult to find appropriate
options to help partners manage
funds in the eastern DRC.
TRAINING, EXCHANGES,
AND OUTREACH
The main way Tenure Facility
achieves impact beyond funding
large projects and building ties
between our partners and other
stakeholders is to facilitate
sharing of practical knowledge
that partners, government
officials, funders, and others
can use. It is also working with
others to make the cause for
greater and more appropriate
types of funding for efforts such
as those described above.
One main form this took in
2023 was a half dozen large
multistakeholder in-person
and virtual Learning Exchanges
focused on specific topics,
with over 1,500 participants.
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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
BOX 16: LIST OF LARGE LEARNING EXCHANGES
• Asia Regional Exchange on Social
Inclusiveness and Youth in Indonesia,
designed to promote gender equality
and youth participation in efforts
to secure communal tenure rights.
(Co-sponsors: Coalition for Tenure
Justice in Indonesia, International
Land Coalition (ILC), and Samdhana
Institute. 120 participants, mostly
from Indonesia, India, and Nepal.)
• Africa Regional Exchange on
Rights and Conservation in Kenya,
designed to promote indigenous
and community participation in
conservation and respect for their
rights. (Co-sponsors: Community Land
Action Now! (CLAN!), International
Land Coalition (ILC). 120 indigenous
and community representatives
and others from across Africa.)
• Congo Basin Learning Forum on
“Nature Conservation and Land
Rights of Local Communities and
Indigenous Peoples: What can we
learn from the Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC)?” in the DRC, designed
to highlight and build upon Congo
Basin experiences with rights – based
conservation. (Co-sponsors: CAGDFT
and the Ministry of Environment and
Social Development. 190 diverse
participants from the DRC, Republic
of Congo, Gabon, and Cameroon.)
• Virtual Learning Cycle on “Delimitation
and Recognition of indigenous and
Afro-descendant Territories in Latin
America”, designed to provide a
regional overview and share practical
experiences on the topic. (Co-sponsors:
UN Food and Agriculture Organization
65
(FAO), ILC. 100+ government officials,
indigenous and Afro-representatives,
and other participants from ten
Latin American countries.)
• Radical Forest Futures in India,
designed to discuss land rights
challenges shared by indigenous
communities from different countries
and exchange experiences on women’s
empowerment, youth engagement
and sustainable livelihoods. (Sponsors:
ISB, SRUTI, and Vasundhara. 200
participants from across India and
leading figures from Latin America,
Africa, and other Asian countries.)
• National Tenure Conference on ­­Socio-
Ecological Justice through ­Agrarian
Reform in Indonesia, ­designed to
identify successful approaches to
tenure reform and recommend agrarian
and natural resource policies the in-
coming Administration could adopt
to promote social justice. (Sponsors:
A national coalition of civil society
organisations. 750 representatives of
indigenous, small farmer, fisherfolk,
women, youth, trade union, and
slum dweller organisations.)
• Tenure Facility also co-hosted regular
Land Dialogues webinars on topical
land rights issues for policymakers
and practi­tioners. Conducted with
with Land Portal, Ford Foundation,
and Thomson Reuters Foundation
the webinars regularly drew several
hundred participants. Over one
thousand attendees participated in the
webinar on “Free and Prior Informed
Consent and Carbon Markets”.
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

Our work and our partners’ combined efforts helped to sustain

momentum for greater funding for communal tenure rights and
forest guardianship, following the US$ 1.7 billion pledge in 2021.
Together with the Rights and
Resources Initiative (RRI), we
co-­hosted the Path to Scale
coalition, an informal network of
50 public and private funders
and intermediaries committed to
scaling-up global funding to legally
recognise the land and resource
rights of Indigenous Peoples,
local communities, and Afro-
descendant Peoples, particularly
women. Path to Scale forms the
nucleus of a vibrant community
of organisations that share
information and experiences
about funding trends and proven
best practices and implement
joint events and initiatives.
We also supported indigenous
and community platforms to
promote their owners’ visions
and mechanisms for channelling
funds. We contributed to the
Global Alliance of Territorial
Communities’ Shandia platform,
which promotes and facilitates
direct, long-term, effective, and
sustainable funding for their
constituencies. We accompanied
AMAN and KPA as they launched
the Nusantara fund in Indonesia
and supported the Network of
Indigenous and Local Populations
for the Sustainable Management
of Forest Ecosystems in Central
Africa (REPALEAC) to follow-up
on a Central African and Congo
Basin forum of indigenous and
community women it had co-­
hosted with RRI. We contributed
to an Asia Indigenous Peoples
Pact workshop in Indonesia to
design a new Indigenous Peoples
of Asia Solidarity Fund (IPAS) and
we funded Tebtebba Foundation
to help Indigenous Peoples
organisations access funding
from the Green Climate Fund.
Our staff met regularly with
funders and made presentations
about our experiences and
the importance of this funding
at events organised by the
European Union, World Bank,
Ted ­Audacious, Skoll Foundation,
Bridgespan, Childrens
Investment Fund Foundation,
Ford Foundation, UNFCCC
High Level Champions, Devex,
Conservation International, and
Avina Foundation, among others.

LESSONS LEARNED
The differences in context between regions (and sub-regions within them)
are too great to use the same approach everywhere. Our approaches
must vary depending on the level of political will and space for civil society,
the institutional configuration of government decision-making and policy
implementation, the types, and capacities of partners available to work
with, and the presence and influence of various types of donors. This has
increasingly led us to organise our programmatic work around regional –
and in some cases sub-regional teams (i.e., Congo Basin, Amazon Basin).
66
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
BOX 17: LESSONS LEARNED ABOUT PARTNERSHIPS
As we expanded the number and
complexity of our partnerships in
2023, we learned a great deal, and
some key lessons emerged:
• Democratic decision-making within
our partner organisations can be
slow, but there is a lot to be said for
democracy. Democratically elected
indigenous or community leaders have
greater credibility, legitimacy, political
influence, and capacity to mobilise
community resources. They are more
responsive to their constituents.
• To achieve lasting change not just
for men but for everyone in the
communities, we need to redouble
our support for women’s collectives
(e.g., CNAMIB, MIQCB, UEFA) and
organisations led by women (e.g.,
AMAN, KPA, CONAQ, APA, Podáali).
Photo credit: Ley Uwera/Tenure Facility
67
Women’s collectives and women-
led organisations represented a
quarter of our partners in 2023. Their
achievements further demonstrate
their unique power to broker
agreements, resolve entrenched
conflicts, and design solutions that
result in more equitable outcomes.
• More than half of our projects involve
multiple partners. Multi-party projects
require the partner organisations
to create clear, formal govern­ance
arrangements from the outset.
They tend to work best when the
organisations have already worked
together for some time and there is
trust-based history for collaboration.
We discovered the wisdom of the ­African
proverb: “If you want to go fast, go ­alone.
If you want to go far, go together.”
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

The level of support from government agencies tends to

fluctuate over time. When discussing potential projects with
partners it is useful to consider different scenarios in that
regard and how they might adjust. In general, in cases where
central government agencies have become less supportive it
has been necessary to consider approaches that communities
can undertake on their own, options involving sub-national
governments and alternative national government agencies
and using international agencies and other stakeholders to
communicate with and influence government officials.

Our partners have a growing August that banned oil drilling

demand for reliable accurate and
understandable information and
advice about carbon markets.
We must find ways to respond to
that demand, often by identifying
experts and reference materials
to which we can refer partners.
As threats to the Amazon
continue to mount, alliances
between those committed to
its conservation and indigenous
organisations are of increasing
importance. Although there
is a history of conflict and
mistrust between indigenous
and Afro-descendant groups
and some conservation-
focused organisations, when
they join forces, major wins
can be achieved. The fight
against rollbacks for protection
of Uncontacted Indigenous
Peoples in Voluntary Isolation
in Peru mentioned above is one
example, as was the landmark
referendum in Ecuador last
in Yasuní National Park.
We learnt that we must pay
more attention to disability. In
many communities where we
work, mercury contamination
of waterways used for daily
fishing, drinking, and washing
has unleashed a growing
epidemic of disabilities.
Within the Tenure Facility team
itself, we are also challenged
to understand how so-called
disabilities are perceived or valued
within our partners’ cultures. One
culture may view as impediments
and mock, for example, cognitive
changes linked to aging, but other
see it as the wisdom of elders.
Blindness and abilities to wander
into other dimensions are often
hallmarks of spiritual leaders and
shamans, held in high regard, and
cared for. These are dimensions
we must explore with humility.

68
SECTION 5:
How?
Our Special Sauce

Tenure Facility is not just any financial mechanism.

It specialises in providing funds, managing grants, and
facilitating partnerships in ways that are specifically
suited to the needs of indigenous, Afro-descendant, and
community organisations and the contexts in which they
work. These are ways that are “fit for purpose.”
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
We have not got all the mix of ingredients right in our sauce, but
here are some parts of the recipe which worked well this year.
Our first few partners came
to us through longstanding
relationships they had with the
Rights and Resources Initiative,
an organisation that incubated
and spun off the Tenure Facility.
It had identified them as effective
and well-respected organisations
in their countries, and had built
trust with them over years,
often before any funding.
In 2021, we adopted a more formal
system, to identify countries with
good opportunities and the best
strategies and potential partners
for promoting indigenous, Afro-
descendant, and community land
and forest rights. This includes
a combination of gathering
information, analysing and
having dialogues with potential
partners. The feedback from
partners was that this worked
reasonably well in 2023.
We first do an initial “scan” of
a country and, if things look
promising, follow up with thorough
country assessments, which give
a good sense of who we might
work with on what. In countries
where we already work and know
the relevant players well, we
sometimes skip this step and open
dialogues with potential partners.
Our board then approves our
country assessments and initial
project ideas to make sure they
fit our strategies and principles.
Having diverse board members
that come from the constituencies
we serve helps to make us
more accountable. In 2023, we
completed country assessments
in Gabon and Republic of Congo
(Brazzaville), and began others in
Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Vietnam.
Prospective partners design
the projects themselves, which
are usually centred on their
on-going work related to land
and forest rights, territorial
governance, gender equality, and
youth inclusion. Once they have
an agreed concept note and we
have looked at their financial
management, we sign a five-year
partnership agree­ment and fund
them to prepare a full proposal
and consult with the communities
involved to make sure the
proposed project has their free,
prior, and informed consent.
We visit the partners physically,
face to face in their offices,
and in some of the forests and
territories where participating
communities plan to carry out
activities – in the jargon of some
funders – “project appraisal”.
But we prefer to see this as the
beginnings of “accompaniment”.
If a group does solid work
and has strong support from
their constituencies, they can
still manage a project even if
they are not so experienced
at administering funds. In that
case, they need to find a fiscal
sponsor to administer their
funds, but they still call the shots.
In 2023 about one third of the
projects had fiscal sponsors of
various sorts. In some cases, this
was temporary, until the group
could manage its own funds.
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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

Practically all the projects to be finished next year. We will

include activities to help partners
strengthen their organisations.
Most of these activities are
proposed by the organisations
themselves to meet their own
objectives, although a small part
of that may be to help them do
a few things they need to do to
manage a larger Tenure Facility
supported project. Most partners
are keen on those as well,
because they are already looking
how to scale up their efforts.
We listened to what our partners
have had to say on all of this.
As a result, this year we
continued to make the process
and requirements of agreeing
grants as clear and simple as
possible, including simpler ways
for partners to share with us
what results they are achieving
with Tenure Facility grants.
also learn from the experiences
of community territorial funds
as to how they successful
operate in such conditions.
We take care to respect our
partners’ sovereignty over
the data, maps, stories, and
photos they produce. To get the
details of that right, in 2022 we
commissioned a study on the
issue and then last year held a
workshop with academics and
partners to discuss the results.
That allowed us to have a clearer
understanding with partners
on this, and with our donors.

We have adapted our

financial assurance or due
diligence requirements to
types of organisation and
contexts. Our partners are
not monolithic organisations.
They work at multiple levels,
have varying governance and
organisational structures, and
speak multiple languages.

Working in remote forest regions,

far from capital cities, such as in
eastern DRC, brings challenges
– few or unstable banks, few or no
roads, long distances, weak digital
connections, few people giving
receipts for goods and service.
In 2023, we commis­sioned a
study on best practices for cash
management in settings like these
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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
With What?
OUR BOARD OF
DIRECTORS
The Board of Directors in 2023
was composed of 12 senior
international leaders and experts
from 11 countries, who all serve
in their individual capacities.
They include Indigenous leaders,
develop­ment practitioners,
human rights experts, and finance
specialists. For full biography see:
https://thetenurefacility.org/about-
us/our-team/board-of-directors/
Myrna Cunningham, the ­Board
Chair, is a Miskitu leader from
Nicaragua. She is a medical doctor,
former chair of the ­United ­National
Permanent Forum on Indi­genous
Issues, founder ex-rector of the
University of the Auto­nomous
Regions of the ­Caribbean Coast of
­Nicaragua (URACCAN), and former
­Governor of Nicaragua’s northern
­Caribbean Region. She has ­chaired
many international boards and
received numerous international
awards and honorary degrees.
Augusta Molnar from the United
States served most of 2023 as
Board Secretary and head of the
Project Selection Committee. She
previously serves as Director of
Country and Regional Programmes
at the Rights and Resources
Initiative (RRI) and Senior Natural
Resource Specialist at the World
Bank and Chairwoman of the
Board of the Mountain Institute.
Similarly, Donald Roberts was
Board Treasurer for most of
the year. Don is the President
& CEO of Nawitka Capital
Advisors and has over 30 years’
experience as a financial services
executive, investment bankers,
and equity professional.
Other Board Members included:
Eleni Kyrou, a Greek economist
who chairs the governance
committee and is Senior I­mpact
­Programme Officer at the
­European Investment Bank
(EIB); Abdon Nababan, former
­Secretary General of AMAN
in Indonesia; Joan Carling, a
Kankanaey sociologist from
the Philippines, who serves as
Executive Director of Indigenous
Peoples Rights International
(IPRI); Juan Martinez, a Mexican
anthropologist working at the
Inter-American Development
Bank (ADB); Albert K. Barume,
a Congolese Lawyer who works
as an expert on Mali at the
United Nations Security Council
(UNSC); Christine Halvorson, a
Brazilian anthropologist who is
currently Programme Director
at Rainforest Foundation United
States (RFUS); Carl Lindgren is a
Swedish Independent Economic
Advisor; and Mary Hobley is a
British forestry expert, author,
and development practitioner.
Tenure Facility’s Executive Direc­
tor, a human rights lawyer from
the Philippines, also serves as an
ex officio member of the Board.
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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
In 2023, the Board also welcomed
three new members who formally
joined in 2024: Viviana Figueroa,
an Omaguaca lawyer specialized
in Indigenous Peoples rights from
Argentina; Lesle Jansen, a South
African lawyer who serves as
Head of Indigenous Peoples and
Local Communities Resource
Rights at Jamma International,
and Jennifer Tauli Corpuz, a
­Kankanaey-Igorot lawyer from the
Philippines, who is the Managing
Director for Policy at Nia Tero.
OUR TEAM
At the end of 2023 the Tenure
Facility team was composed
of 56 people from diverse
backgrounds, half of whom work
part-time. (So, an equivalent
of 40 full-time people.)
We are organised in four units
(programme, finance, operations,
and development) plus the
Executive Director’s team. Within
the programme unit, there is a
sub-unit focused on Monitoring,
Evaluation, and Learning. Three
regional teams, each with its own
regional coordinators, draw on
members from these four units.
In 2023 Tenure Facility continued
its trend of decentralising its
programme team to the regions
where our projects are based.
During the year we had team
members in one dozen countries
(up from eight in 2022): six in Latin
America, four in Africa, and two in
Asia. This allowed us to be close
to partners in the key countries
where we worked and intimately
knowledgeable about their diverse
cultures and political economies.
During the year, we created
a new Development Unit,
responsible for donor relations
and communications, and
brought on a new lead for
Strategic Partnerships, several
new financial controllers, and
a new specialist in Monitoring,
Evaluation, and Learning.
We also contracted Arthan
human capital advisory services
in India to help refine our global
Human Resources policy to
ensure that we have the diverse
talent that we need, policies are
clear and comply with relevant
legislation, and all team members
are treated fairly and well.
FINANCIALS
We wish to thank our donors.
Without them, none of this
would have been possible.
In 2023, we had 21 active donors,
6 of whom made new funding
commitments for a total of
US$ 33.3 million last year.
See donor list.
Our total annual operating
expenses during the year were
US$ 34,094,515. Of that US$
26,132,000, or 76.6 percent went
to our partners in grants. See full
financial statements and a detailed
list of all partner projects grants
and amounts in the appendix.
Between 2021 and 2023 our
total grant disbursements grew
exponentially, from US$ 5 million
in 2021 to US$ 12 million in 2022
and US$ 26 million in 2023.
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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
FIGURE 3: EXPENDITURE GROWTH
AND ALLOCATION, 2021-2023
$30M
$20M
$10M
$4,8
$1,2 $1,6
$0M
2021
Grants
While our disbursements more
than doubled between 2022 and
2023, thanks to economies of
scale and better administrative
systems, our overhead costs
increased only 33 percent.
See Figure 3.
A new integrated Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) and
accounting system that went into
operation on January 1, 2024,
will permit us to provide financial
reports faster and with greater
detail and analysis in 2024.
Now that we have established a
new sister organisation called
Tenure Facility Fund in the United
States, which has received
charitable, tax-exempt status
(IRS 501 (3)(c)) there, some US
foundations and individuals will
now find it easier to support
$26,1
$12,1
$4,4 $3,6
$2,8 $2,7
2022 2023
Project support Overhead
us. European donors can easily
support the international Land
and Forest Tenure Facility, which
remains a charitable grant-making
foundation registered in Sweden.
PWC Sweden audited Tenure
Facility’s 2023 Financial
Statement and Tenure Facility
Board of Directors and Treasurer
­approved the audited statement.
KPMG audited the Tenure
Facility’s Grievance, Redress,
Ombudsman and Whistleblowing
Procedure and helped us develop
an IT Incident Response Plan.
The annual financial statements
of our partners are all certified
by national auditors accredited
by the International Federation
of Accountants (IFAC), using
international standards
(ISA 805, ISRS 4400).
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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

What Next?
As we looked back over the year, many things inspired us. The
new generation of powerful women leaders outperforming
their predecessors and taking what’s rightfully theirs.
Seeing scientists and so-called experts finally catch up with
what Indigenous Peoples have known forever – that they
are the Guardians of the forests. The hunger among many
philanthropies to find new ways to relate with people that they
fund. The growing list of relevant governments willing to embark
upon this journey. Local leaders who put their lives on the line
every day, but never cease to smile.

It has been hard to imagine Congos, and we expect to launch

and internalize how quickly
Tenure Facility has grown
and matured, from an idea
in a few peoples’ heads to an
international organisation
with extensive networks and
a formidable footprint on the
ground. But even more amazing,
the best is yet to come.
Almost half of our projects are
just taking off and the earlier
projects are coming of age. This
year we just began new projects
in Cameroon, Peru, and both
several more. We may not be
able to double again the area and
number of communities where
we see advances this year. But
we are confident that our recent
investments will yield high returns.
More formal land and forest
rights. Organised and vocal
communities. Mapping and
monitoring. People and parks.
Women and girls. New and
surprising partnerships, with
unusual suspects. And greater
global desire to learn and assist.

Photo credit: Andrés Yépez/Tenure Facility

75
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
Photo credit: Andrés Yépez/Tenure Facility
The up-coming Biodiversity
Summit (COP 16) in Colombia in
October 2024 and the Climate
Summit in Brazil (COP 30) are
especially propitious. Indigenous
Peoples, Afro-descendants,
and communities will be high on
the forest and climate agenda.
With strong social movements
mobilizing to make their voice
heard and governments willing
to listen. They offer moments to
reflect on the progress since the
US$ 1.7 billion pledge of support
for this agenda and to lay out a
framework for moving forward.
No. The challenges won’t go
away. The dark clouds continue
to haunt us, and breaking
news distracts. We know that
there will be setbacks.
We also know that while the task
could not be more urgent, it
won’t happen overnight. These
are inherently lengthy processes.
Forests don’t grow in a day. It
takes time to talk things through,
and bureaucracies are not known
for speed. While we count and
savour each short-term victory,
this will take a little patience.
Nor do we naively believe there
are simple solutions to these
very complex problems. But we
do believe that those closest
to the problems that affect
them are best able to develop
the solutions that work. Since
they have taken up the mantle,
we are there to lend a hand.
And, so far, it seems to be working.
When we report back next
year, we hope you will be with
us again. It means a lot to us,
and the world around us. And
it might just surprise you.
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 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023

END NOTES
a
https://wwflac.awsassets.panda.
org/downloads/report_the_sta-
te_of_the_indigenous_peop-
les_and_local_communities_
lands_and_territories_1.pdf
b
In the 2010s intact tropical
forests removed roughly 25
billion tonnes of carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere. https://
www.sciencedaily.com/relea-
ses/2020/03/200304141623.
htm#:~:text=Overall%2C%20
intact%20tropical%20
forests%20removed,di-
oxide%20emissions%20
soared%20by%2046%25.
and recommendations for actions.
Gland, Switzerland. https://wwflac.
awsassets.panda.org/downloads/
report_the_state_of_the_indige-
nous_peoples_and_local_commu-
nities_lands_and_territories_1.pdf
e
https://www.fao.org/3/
cb2953en/online/cb2953en.
html some of the 2023 studies
f
Communities have legal rights to
about 20% of the total land, about
40% of the land they occupy.
https://rightsandresources.org/
wp-content/uploads/Who-Owns-
the-Worlds-Land_Final-EN.pdf

c
This figure does not include
China or the Middle East.
P. Newton, A T Kinzer, D. C. Miller,
J.A. Oldekop, A. Agrawal. The
Number and Spatial Distribution
of Forest Proximate People
­Globally. 2020. One Earth Vol 3.
Issue 3. pp363-370.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
oneear.2020.08.016
g
Rainforest Foundation Norway
/ Rights and Resources Initiative.
2022. Funding with a purpose: a
study to inform donor support for
indigenous and local community
rights, climate, and conservation,
https://rightsandresources.org/
publication/funding-with-purpose/

d
WWF, UNEP-WCMC, SGP/
ICCA-GSI, LM, TNC, CI, WCS, EP,
ILC-S, CM, IUCN. 2021. The State
of Indigenous Peoples’ and Local
Communities’ Lands and Terri-
tories: A technical ­review of the
state of Indigenous ­Peoples’ and
Local Communities’ lands, their
contributions to global biodiver-
sity conservation and ecosystem
services, the pressures they face,

77
 TENURE FACILITY ANNUAL REPORT 2023
2023 Donor List
(in alphabetical order)
Ballmer Group
Bezos Earth Fund (through
Climate and Land Use Alliance)
Robert Bosch Stiftung
Crankstart
ELMA Philanthropies
Ford Foundation
Foreign Commonwealth
and Development Office of
the United Kingdom
Hampshire Foundation
Lost Horse LLC
Norwegian Agency for Development
Cooperation (NORAD)
Oak Foundation
Sall Family Foundation
Sara and Evan Williams
Sea Change Foundation
Seadream Foundation
Skoll Foundation
Sobrato Philanthropies
The Christensen Fund
3 anonymous funders
Donors: Amounts Donated
or Committed, 2017-2023
MORE THAN US$ 20 MILLION
Bezos Earth Fund (through
Climate and Land Use Alliance)
Lost Horse LLC
Norwegian Agency for Development
Cooperation (NORAD)
US$ 10 MILLION – US$ 20 MILLION
Ballmer Group
Ford Foundation
Foreign Commonwealth and
Development Office of the
United Kingdom (FCDO)
Swedish International Development
Cooperation Agency (Sida)
Anonymous
US$ 5 MILLION – US$ 10 MILLION
ELMA Philanthropies
European Commission
Oak Foundation
Sara and Evan Williams
2 Anonymous
LESS THAN US$ 5 MILLION
Climate and Land Use
Alliance (CLUA)
Crankstart
Good Energies Foundation
Hampshire Foundation
Judith Brown Meyers
Mulago Foundation
Robert Bosch Stiftung
Sall Family Foundation
Sea Change Foundation
Seadream Foundation
Skoll Foundation
Sobrato Philanthropies
The Christensen Fund
78