Landscape Governance, IPLCs Rights & Environmental Justice
The Challenge
Across rangelands and shared landscapes, land and water governance often excludes the very communities who depend on them most. Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) are facing increasing pressure on their lands, weakening tenure systems, and decision-making processes that are distant from their lived realities. Customary governance systems that once guided balance between people, livestock, wildlife, and ecosystems are being eroded or ignored. This has led to land fragmentation, overlapping claims, and growing inequality in access and control over natural resources. At the same time, environmental and human rights violations often go unaddressed, especially among pastoralist and marginalized communities whose voices are least represented in formal governance systems.
Why It Matters
When land and water governance is weak or unfair, it directly affects food security, mobility, peace, and ecosystem health. It also deepens inequality and reduces the ability of communities to adapt to climate and environmental change.
What We Do
We work to restore fairness, voice, and accountability in how land and water resources are governed. We support communities to strengthen both customary and formal governance systems so they can work together in managing shared landscapes. We also help ensure that Indigenous knowledge systems remain central in decision-making processes and are not sidelined in policy and planning.
How We Work
Strengthening community-led land and water governance structures rooted in local systems.
Supporting recognition and protection of Indigenous tenure and collective rights.
Documenting and defending environmental and human rights at community level.
Promoting inclusive decision-making that involves women, youth, and marginalized groups.
Engaging in policy dialogue and advocacy to connect local realities to formal institutions.
Building accountability systems that make land and water governance transparent and fair.
What We Aim to Achieve
We envision landscapes where governance is not imposed from outside, but shaped by the people who live within them. Where land and water rights are secure, respected, and protected. And where justice is not only written in policy, but lived in everyday decisions about natural resources.