We believe that supporting indigenous peoples' aspirations for self-determination is the key to securing their wellbeing on their own terms. Our work has three pillars: Legal Servicing; Policy Development; and Campaigns and Advocacy. We ensure that across these three pillars, a gender analysis is applied, cognizant that natural resources issues affect women differently. 

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We provide legal services to indigenous communities entangled in tenurial rights' claims and work with them in realizing their lawful rights. We also support resource-dependent communities that pursue access to justice options in relation to the ecological use of natural resources.

 

Helping these communities assert their rightful claims to land and environment will also result in the protection of environmental commons, such as forests and watersheds, which are crucial in the fight against the climate crisis.  

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These are some of our communities we are assisting:

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• A group of Tuwali indigenous people and the provincial government of Nueva Vizacaya in their struggles against a large-scale mining operation in Didipio, Nueva Vizcaya. 

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• A T'bolo-Manobo community who is pursuing legal action against a large-scale coffee plantation that they maintain is operating without their free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC).  

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• A Blaan community trying to protect swathes of ancestral land against a large-scale mining plantation in Tampakan, South Cotabato, Mindanao. 

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• Residents of Marinduque who are taking a large-scale mining company to task for one of the country's worst mining-related disasters. 

 

Click here to know more about their stories. 

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As a think tank, LRC crafts policies on the indigenous peoples' rights and environment nexus. LRC helped draft the landmark Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act (IPRA) and the Alternative Minerals Management Bill. For a number of years, LRC published the Philippine Journal of Natural Resources, examining jurisprudence, legislation, and policies related to the conservation of the environment and the tenurial and resource rights of indigenous communities. 

 

Presently, LRC publishes Kabilin: Philippine Journal of Natural Resources. Kabilin is a Bisaya word that means legacy, heritage, and patrimony. Kabilin takes a close look at tensions in, notions of, and practices related to natural resources. In Kabilin, as in other LRC publications, we strive to include a gender justice perspective.

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Click here to access our publications. 

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LRC works with others to push for legislation and government policies that will have an impact on the quality of life of indigenous peoples and resource-dependent communities, including women. 

 

It is the convener of the SOS Yamang Bayan Network, a multi-sectoral alliance of indigenous peoples, NGOs, people's organizations, faith-based groups, students, youth, and artists pushing for the Alternative Minerals Management Bill. Click here to sign our petition for the AMMB. 

 

It is part of Loyukan, a network of organizations that successfully pushed for the inclusion of indigenous peoples' rights in the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL). Currently, the network supports the lobbying efforts of indigenous communities for the passage of an enabling law that will concretize the provisions on IP rights in the BOL. 

 

LRC is also one of the conveners of the Green Bills Network, an alliance of organizations pushing for the Philippine Greenprint - environmental legislation on forest resources, land use planning, indigenous conserved community areas, and alternative minerals management. Click here to tweet policymakers to pass the Philippine Greenprint.  

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On the international level, LRC supports work for the passage of the legally binding treaty on business and human rights. 

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Believing in the threat of a good example, LRC has been supporting the sulagad agro-ecological and food sovereignty system of the Teduray and Lambangian, including a Sulagad Women's Center being led by fintaylan (Teduray women leaders). Community-based agro-ecological practices serve as local models for alternatives to dominant paradigms. 

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