These indigenous peoples and upland rural communities who are part of the marginalized sectors are fighting for their right to self-determination, even as they face intensified large-scale mining and logging activities, encroachment and continued harassment. Transnational corporations are leading in the plunder of our natural resources. Now, more than ever, the indigenous peoples and upland rural communities continue to struggle to defend their land and assert their way of life. LRC-KsK/FoE Phils. articulates these needs to empower the communities directly dependent on our natural resources.

 

For more than a decade now, Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center-Kasama sa Kalikasan/Friends of the Earth Philippines (LRC-KsK/FoE Phils.) has assisted partner communities by conducting paralegal trainings and community field visits and briefings, providing documentary research resources, and filing legal cases in courts in the context of the communities’ own campaigns and struggles. LRC-KsK engages the media and maintains linkages with peoples and support organizations from local, national and international spheres in support of the communities’ campaigns.

 

Since 1987, LRC-KsK has also been engaged in the critiquing of laws and policies affecting indigenous peoples and natural resources, evaluating the implementation of state policies on the local level, and published numerous relevant materials concerning indigenous peoples’ rights, resource tenure, natural resource management, forestry, mining, energy and local community actions.