local communities

• CAMEROON: ‘Communities must benefit from what comes from their land’

  CIVICUS discusses the aspirations and roles of civil society at the forthcoming COP28 climate summit with Estelle Ewoule Lobé,co-founder of the Cameroonian civil society organisation (CSO) Action for the protection of environmental refugees and internally displaced people in Africa (APADIME).

  What environmental issues do you work on?

  Our organisation, APADIME, works on several interconnected human rights and environmental issues. We work on the protection of the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities, with a particular focus on Indigenous women and environmentally displaced people. We contribute to the fight against transnational environmental crimes such as the illegal exploitation of forest resources and illegal trafficking of protected species. We work to strengthen the resilience of Indigenous peoples and local communities and to raise public awareness of the need to protect forests. Finally, we implement income-generating activities for Indigenous peoples and local communities.

  When we work on organised crime, we don’t leave out the defence of people’s fundamental rights. Our area of work is the Congo Basin, with a base in Cameroon. Central Africa is home to one of the world’s largest tropical rainforests. It contains enormous resources on which millions of people depend for their livelihoods, including Indigenous peoples and local communities. The forest also provides a habitat for countless animal species and is of crucial importance for the global climate.

  Despite all the legal measures in place to protect Cameroon’s forests, forest exploitation, often carried out in partnership with private companies, gives rise to numerous abuses, resulting in serious human rights violations fuelled by well-organised criminal networks, and generally leading to the dispossession of the lands of these peoples and communities. This is where our association comes in.

  First, our work has a research component that is focused on both the legal and institutional framework to support our advocacy work at the national and international levels, and on carrying out studies and publishing articles and books, the latest of which is In Search of a Status for the Environmentally Displaced.

  Second, there is a field component in which we meet communities and organise consultation events, focus groups, surveys and observations to gather data about the difficulties people face and the needs they have.

  The third strand of the association’s work is education, through which we build the resilience of Indigenous peoples and local communities and awareness about their intrinsic rights, procedural rights, sustainable land management, the preservation of protected species and current forestry legislation. We also organise awareness campaigns to help educate communities.

  The fourth component is access to rights. We help organise communities by setting up networks of institutional and local players to facilitate access for communities whose human and land rights are constantly violated.

  The last component concerns economic recovery through the implementation of income-generating activities, particularly through community fields.

  Have you experienced any restriction or reprisal because of your work?

  We are human rights defenders working in an environment that is not always receptive to the type of work we do. We are confronted with powerful interests such as those of forestry companies that often exploit forests abusively. Our presence often makes an impression and we are subject to threats that force us to limit our scope of action to prevent the situation from degenerating and becoming too risky.

  At an administrative level, the main obstacle is the lack of a positive response or collaboration from officials. Some refuse to take part in our projects, contenting themselves with one general discussion session with us. Others refuse to make their contact information public.

  How do you connect with the global climate movement?

  APADIME collaborates with several of the world’s leading international organisations, including the International Centre of Comparative Environmental Law, an international scientific CSO based in France, which works on environmental protection through the promotion of international legal instruments. We also work with the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC).

  With the support and guidance of GI-TOC, we are currently working with a network of stakeholders in the Republic of the Congo and Gabon to combat organised environmental crime in the Congo Basin and protect the rights of Indigenous peoples to achieve climate justice centred on human rights.

  We are involved with international players in developing the People’s Summit for social and environmental justice, against the commodification of life and nature, and in defence of the commons. Our association is also actively involved as a speaker and observer at major international meetings, the most recent of which was the 11th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (UNTOC), held in Vienna, Austria in October 2022, which produced a call for action by civil society.

  What priority issues should be addressed at COP28?

  COP28’s priority issues are the same as those we have been defending for a long time: support for Indigenous peoples and local communities to ensure their rights are protected, in particular through the funding of conservation activities and income-generating activities to raise their standard of living, and the equitable sharing of the benefits of nature as defined by the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which recognises that in addition to the urgent need to use nature sustainably, communities must benefit from what comes from their land.

  In particular, this involves examining how marginalised communities, including Indigenous peoples, can benefit from the often lucrative therapeutic and cosmetic products derived from the resources of their lands.

  Do you think that COP28 will provide sufficient space for civil society? What are your expectations regarding its outcomes?

  The participation of civil society in climate negotiations is extremely important because we are active stakeholders and, when we are able to influence the negotiations, we are a key factor in progress towards sustainable development. Our actions are complementary to political dialogue, which is why it is necessary, even compulsory, for us to take part in these negotiations.

  As usual, COP28 will officially be open to civil society as participants and observers, but the difficulties of access will lie in financing travel to and stay in the United Arab Emirates, where this global event will be held.

  But we hope that despite all these difficulties, progress will be made on the issues that are at the heart of our work, namely direct funding for communities to guarantee adaptation actions and strengthen their resilience.

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  Civic space in Cameroon is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Contact APADIME on itsFacebook page and follow@EwouleE on Twitter.

• COP28: ‘We are worried that the host country, the United Arab Emirates, restricts civil society’

  CIVICUS discusses the hopes and roles of civil society at the forthcoming COP28 climate summit with Gideon Abraham Sanago, Climate Coordinator with the Pastoralists Indigenous Non-Governmental Organizations’ Forum (PINGOs Forum).

  Established in 1994, PINGOs Forum is an advocacy coalition of 53 Indigenous peoples’ organisations working for the rights of marginalised Indigenous pastoralists and hunter-gatherer communities in Tanzania. It was founded by six pastoralists and hunter-gatherers’ organisations promoting a land rights and development agenda.

  What environmental issues do you work on?

  PINGOs Forum works with Indigenous peoples’ communities across Tanzania to address the impacts the environmental and climate crisis is having on them.

  Although it is a global phenomenon, climate change affects communities in different ways and presents a variety of challenges. These include prolonged and severe droughts, floods, biodiversity loss, land conflicts and displacement, and the loss of livestock that communities depend on for their livelihoods. This also leads to the loss of culture and identity as young men migrate towards towns looking for an income-producing job, leaving women, children and older people abandoned at home.

  To respond to these challenges, PINGOs Forum supports community initiatives for land conflict resolution, the development of land use plans and the recognition of land rights for Indigenous peoples, as well as for water provision and restocking of agricultural supplies for destitute families. We also build capacity to tackle climate issues and support Indigenous peoples’ participation in national, regional and global climate forums to ensure their voices are heard and the resulting policies respond to their needs.

  PINGOs Forum is a member of the Climate Action Network (Tanzania Chapter), the CIVICUS alliance, the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change and other bodies engaging with the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change. We use these platforms for advocacy and campaigning. They have been instrumental for us in being able to voice our concerns and engage in productive dialogue and exchanges.

  Have you faced any restrictions or reprisals for the work you do?

  Human rights defenders face threats and intimidation when advocating for the rights of Indigenous peoples to land and resources and organising to respond to their violations.

  The state of Tanzania does not recognise the existence of Indigenous peoples in the country. Instead, it always refers to them as marginalised groups, forest-dependent communities, forest dwellers and other such terms. This limits the ability of Indigenous peoples to exercise their rights as enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, of which Tanzania is a signatory but clearly does not respect.

  The UN declaration includes the key right of Indigenous peoples to give free prior and informed consent, which of course the Indigenous peoples of Tanzania have never exercised. Their rights to ownership of land and resources have been repeatedly violated through forceful evictions from their ancestral lands. We have seen examples of this in Loliondo/Ngorongoro and Kimotorok in Simanjiro District.

  Another major challenge is access to the media. We believe in the power of media and recognise the pivotal role it plays in addressing the challenges faced by Tanzanian Indigenous peoples. But the media is restricted when it comes to publishing any information coming from Indigenous people’s organisations regarding issues such as land crises, as happened in the case of Loliondo. All media outlets were warned not to publish any information about it.

  What priority issues do you expect to see addressed at COP28?

  There are several key priorities for Tanzanian Indigenous peoples on the frontline of climate challenges, the first one being funding of loss and damage. One of the key decisions from COP27 was to establish a loss and damage funding mechanism. We would like to see this funding mechanism operationalised with sufficient resources to urgently respond to the challenges faced by Indigenous peoples. We are eager to understand how this mechanism will address economic and non-economic losses and provide compensation for what we have already lost.

  More broadly, Indigenous peoples are in dire need of direct access to reliable and flexible funding, including for adaptation measures and to build resilience in the face of the impacts of climate change.

  Regarding the carbon market, Indigenous peoples would need to be engaged and the technicalities and political issues around these investment approaches should be clarified. Indigenous peoples should be able to exercise their right to free, prior and informed consent when it comes to carbon credits in their ancestral lands and forests to avoid any rights violations resulting from climate interventions.

  All this would require a recognition of the rights and knowledge of Indigenous peoples and their full and effective participation in climate forums at all levels to inform better policy formulation and decision-making processes.

  Do you think COP28 will provide enough space for civil society?

  We are particularly worried about the fact that COP28’s host country, the United Arab Emirates, restricts civil society movements and campaigns. It is key for civil society and Indigenous peoples’ organisations to be able to exercise their rights to express their views and peacefully demonstrate at any time during the negotiations. Otherwise their perspectives will not be reflected in the outcomes and their concerns will not be addressed.

  Civil society and Indigenous peoples’ organisations play a pivotal role as observers at COPs. They hold negotiating parties accountable and make a difference when they are reluctant to take important decisions during the negotiations. During COPs, civil society campaigns, mobilises, develops position papers and issues joint statements to push parties to take urgent actions on agreed points.

  What are your expectations concerning its outcomes?

  Our main expectation is to have an ambitious COP28 addressing key points of climate change action. We expect the loss and damage financial mechanism to be operationalised in ways that take into consideration the rights of Indigenous peoples and address both the economic and non-economic losses they are experiencing. We expect direct and flexible funding to become accessible to Indigenous peoples, as well as capacity building and the transfer of the required technologies.

  We also would like to see a clear definition of adaptation actions and serious emission reduction commitments by developed countries. But above all, we want this to be a COP of actions and not of empty promises – we want to see developed states live up to their commitments, giving vulnerable communities reasons for hope that they will be able to face and survive the impacts of climate change.

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  Civic space in Tanzania is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with PINGOs Forum through itswebsite ofFacebook page, and follow@PINGOsForum on Twitter.

• Local Action, Global Accountability

  This speech was delivered at the "Local Action, Global Accountability" UNGA-Side Event on September 20, 2024, at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice in New York City, USA.

  By Sita Supomo, Executive Director of Indonesia untuk Kemanusiaan (Indonesia for Humanity - IKa) on behalf of Femme Forte, Trend Asia, CAPAIDS Uganda, IKa, Africa Philanthropy Network and Innovation for Change East Asia, the Convening Partners of the Local Leadership Labs – CIVICUS 

   

  Good morning everyone.

  Thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of six CIVICUS Local Leadership Labs partners in Southeast Africa and Southeast Asia. It is an honour to be part of this crucial conversation.

  Today, I will share insights on the challenges and strategies we are employing to support civil society in Indonesia, working alongside communities as equal partners so they can confidently shape their own futures.

  Before discussing our work in Indonesia, let me briefly introduce the Local Leadership Lab (LLL). This pilot initiative tackles barriers preventing governments, donors, and stakeholders from supporting diverse local civil society groups as key development actors.

  LLL is implemented with support from CIVICUS Alliance and Hilton Foundation. Another "sister" initiative called Localization Labs, is led by NEAR Network.

  LLL centers the political power of communities, especially those excluded from decision-making. It creates inclusive spaces for dialogue and co-creation at various levels, where local civil society groups co-shape policies alongside key actors.

  Five elements characterize LLL's approach:

  • Being locally-driven,
  • Building power,
  • Promoting relational strategies,
  • Encouraging innovation and flexibility,
  • and Fostering a collective learning mindset.

  
  Indonesia is facing a shrinking civic space, with restrictive policies, increased state surveillance, and other forms ofrestrictions.These pressures undermine social movements and public support. Beyond visible restriction,resourcing, such as funding sustainability, threatens the independence of social movements. Without addressing these issues, their capacity for transformative change will falter.

  AtIndonesia for Humanity (IKa), we are strengthening resources for the social justice movement. We raise and channel resources to support them in challenging environments. Our approach is rooted in mutual trust, solidarity, and community-driven change.

  Over the past six months, we've facilitated four FAJAR dialogues with over 60 organizations, conducted three sensing journeys, and identified seven local resourcing models. All of which helps guide partner selection across four provinces. FAJAR (Forum for New Resourcing), a forum initiated by IKa, strengthens connections between local and national dialogues, amplifying community-driven issues within broader alliances.

  So what have we learned in six months with LLL:

  Building trust, practicing patience, intently observing and actively listening are essential for amplifying local voices. We've learned that providing spaces for communities to co-create their visions and articulate their demands effectively is critical to closing gaps and fostering collective action.

  To conclude, I want to offer a reflection and a call on the international donor community to rethink its roles. We know, donors in the Global North are also grappling with your own social, political, and economic shifts. But this moment calls for more than just adaptation. It demands a fundamentalrethinking of how we operate and the roles we play as enablers of change. It's not just about increasing funding; it's about transforming partnerships to create equitable, sustainable futures.

  So, let us LLL partners, urge you to:

  First - Invest in institutional strengthening through flexible, predictable funding.

  Second - Intentionally show up as allies by participating in locally-led dialogues.

  Third - Ensure accountability by prioritizing local needs and being transparent.

  Together, we can shift power to communities, fostering a just, inclusive world where every community shapes its path forward.

  In the words of Arundhati Roy:"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

  Thank you.

• MEXICO: ‘When climate activism threatens powerful interests, it is labelled on the same level as terrorists and drug traffickers’

  CIVICUS speaks about the role of civil society and its expectations for the upcoming COP28 climate summit with María Reyes, a young human rights and environmental activist from the Mexican state of Puebla.

  María is part of the Indigenous Figures (Futuros Indígenas) collective, made up of peoples, including young people, from Mexico and Central America. She participates in the global south division of Fridays for Future (FFF), an organisation that fights for environmental justice and advocates for action in the face of the climate emergency.

  What are Mexico’s main environmental problems?

  Generally speaking, Mexico is very vulnerable to the climate crisis. Water scarcity is a central issue, partly caused by droughts, but also by infrastructure problems, as many people do not have access to piped drinking water, and by very poor distribution and overexploitation of aquifers by private companies. If we add to the existing drought the fact that in many communities there are companies that obtain concessions through non-legal and non-transparent means and appropriate the little water that is left, the situation for people becomes unbearable.

  Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries to be an activist and environmental defender. In the southeast of Mexico there is a series of transnational extractive megaprojects, such as the Interoceanic Corridor and the ‘Mayan Train’, which threaten the environment through logging and water extraction, and displace wildlife, expropriate territories and resources, harm people and commit human rights violations. Local communities, particularly Indigenous communities, are criminalised when they oppose these megaprojects that are imposed on their territories without any consultation and without their consent or through the staging of rigged consultations.

• UGANDA: ‘Shrinking civic space means affected communities are not able to make their voices count’

  
  CIVICUS discusses the hopes and roles of civil society at the forthcoming COP28 climate summit with Ireen Twongirwe, a climate activist and CEO of Women for Green Economy Movement Uganda (WoGEM).

  WoGEM is a community-based civil society organisation (CSO) dedicated to advocating for and promoting women’s and girls’ participation in a greener economy. It brings together vulnerable women and girls and equips them with knowledge and capacities to engage in the search for sustainable community livelihoods and climate change mitigation and resilience efforts.

• UGANDA: ‘We’ll participate in COP28 to pressure world leaders to divert funding away from oil and gas’

  
  CIVICUS speaks about recent developments involving the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project and civil society’s efforts to stop it with Zaki Mamdoo, Campaign Coordinator of Stop EACOP.

  Established in 2020, Stop EACOP is a coalition of Ugandan environmental and climate justice organisations that oppose the pipeline project due to the significant threats it poses to protected ecosystems, water resources and community lands across Tanzania and Uganda.

  What are your coalition’s aims?

  Our aim is to halt the construction of EACOP to avert the catastrophic environmental and climate consequences associated with the pipeline and safeguard human rights and communal territories.

  To achieve this, we employ a multifaceted strategy: heightening public awareness, exerting pressure on financial institutions and raising their reputational costs so they distance themselves from the project, mobilising impacted communities and rallying to force governments and oil corporations to suspend the project.

  A cornerstone of our approach is engaging with young people. Our partner programmes in both Tanzania and Uganda are focused on youth. We proactively seek out young people in various initiatives, including security training sessions. Recently, we’ve identified student leaders from various universities who had organised to spread awareness about the project’s impacts among their peers. We are actively pursuing funding and other opportunities to bolster their efforts.

  Internally, we give space to youth representatives to contribute their perspectives. We’re committed to amplifying young voices and offering avenues for their growth and development as activists. A reflection of this is that I am 26 years old and trusted with the leadership as campaign coordinator.

  How has the situation evolved since welast spoke over a year ago?

  There have been significant changes over the past year. Drilling has started in one of the most important biodiversity hotspots. One of the companies leading the project, French energy conglomerate Total Energies, has launched oil drilling in Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park, home to diverse animal and bird species, including elephants, giraffes and lions. Its ecological significance is heightened by the presence of the Murchison Falls-Albert Delta Wetland System, essential for Lake Albert fisheries.

  The pipeline threatens the park’s biodiversity and tourism appeal. It will also have economic impacts, as the park is a major contributor to Uganda’s economy, accounting for 59 per cent of exports and having generated over US$1 billion in revenue in 2022.

  Negative consequences are already evident, with displaced elephants damaging crops and posing threats to human lives in nearby communities. Tragic incidents involving elephants have already occurred in Buliisa district, where the park is located.

  This is clearly just another a case in which profit is prioritised over environmental and socioeconomic considerations.

  Our demands, however, remain unaltered: we adamantly call for the project’s complete cancellation due to its intolerable environmental and human risks. And while governmental authorities have largely remained unresponsive, we’ve achieved progress with financial institutions. Remarkably, 27 banks have already denied funding for EACOP, and an additional 23 major insurers and reinsurers have declined to support the pipeline.

  What restrictions do Stop EACOP activists face?

  We operate in fairly restrictive environments in which the freedom to protest is often violated. Recently, for instance, four of our activists were forcibly arrested on charges of ‘inciting violence’, transported in police vehicles and kept in jail overnight for protesting against the pipeline in Kampala, Uganda’s capital.

  The activists, three women and one man, were protesting peacefully, but their arrests were unnecessarily violent. It must be emphasised that only four protesters were involved, so the degree of force applied was clearly excessive, yet not entirely unexpected. Historically, Ugandan authorities have responded aggressively to any demonstrations perceived as anti-government, in line with a dictatorial regime indifferent to public sentiments or alternate viewpoints. This reaction is not unprecedented, although it’s intriguing that the government seems threatened by even small-scale protests like this four-person event.

  But this won’t stop us: we will continue to demonstrate peacefully. Several of our members maintain a fund to secure bail or engage lawyers whenever activists are arrested. We arrange legal representation and explore the possibility of anticipatory bail when possible. However, given the sporadic nature of these protests, support is often provided post-arrest. We’ve also partnered with organisations that specialise in security training so that we can provide tools for advocates to voice their concerns without jeopardising their personal safety.

  How do you connect with the global climate movement?

  We connect with climate activists worldwide by sharing experiences and strategies and providing each other with support across borders. Global solidarity strengthens our efforts, so we appreciate any form of international backing for our cause.

  What lies ahead remains uncertain, but as demonstrated in numerous instances globally, when we come together to back local communities as they advocate for their rights and a more promising tomorrow, there is a potential to counter even the largest of corporate giants effectively.

  More than a million people have already raised their voices against EACOP. We believe that together we can stop it.

  Are you planning to engage with the upcoming COP28 climate summit?

  We’re deliberating on the optimal way to participate in COP28 to pressure world leaders to address the pipeline project directly and divert funding away from new oil and gas developments. I will be there to represent the campaign.

  Despite controversies surrounding the summit’s leadership and lack of an enabling civic space in the host country, the United Arab Emirates, we are hopeful that substantive progress will be made. But we recognise that lasting change will require continued people-powered mobilisation. We’re committed to sustaining our fight for climate justice and environmental preservation in East Africa.

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  Civic space in Uganda is rated ‘repressed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with Stop EACOP through itswebsite and follow@stopEACOP on Twitter.