RAN Community Action Grants
The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) works to preserve forests, protect the climate, and uphold human rights by challenging corporate power and systemic injustice. In addition to support from the Cultures of Resistance Network, director iara lee arranged an outside grant in 2022, which supported 20 indigenous organizations through Rainforest Action Network’s Community Action Grants program. RAN Community Action Grants provide crucial, rapid funding for people fighting in their own communities including indigenous peoples working to protect rainforest lands from coal mining, illegal logging, pollution and other devastating environmental harms. The 17 organizations that have been supported include:
Brazil
Articulação Nacional das Mulheres Indígenas Guerreiras da Ancestralidade (ANMIGA): The National Articulation of Indigenous Women Warriors of Ancestrality (ANMIGA) is an articulation of Indigenous Women from all biomes of Brazil, which works together towards the rights and life of indigenous peoples.
Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil (APIB): The Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) organizes an annual, national mobilization to raise awareness of the state of indigenous rights in Brazil.
Associação Xavante Warã: The Xavante Warã Association is a non-profit that aims to support the self-sustainability of the Xavante people, through the conservation of the Cerrado Biome.
Repórter Brasil: The Repórter Brasil works to identify and publicize situations that violate labor rights and cause socio-environmental damage in Brazil, with a view to mobilizing social, political and economic leaders to build a more just, egalitarian and democratic society that respects human rights.
Colombia
Cabildo Siona de Buenavista: Cabildo Siona de Buenavista is an organization of the Siona communities of the Putumayo region of the Colombian Amazon which works to conserve their territories and maintain their ancestral culture, while resisting extractive industries.
Ecuador
Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador (CONAIE): The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (Spanish: Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador) or, more commonly, CONAIE, is Ecuador’s largest indigenous rights organization. CONAIE’s political agenda includes the strengthening of a positive Indigenous identity, recuperation of land rights, environmental sustainability, opposition to neoliberalism and rejection of U.S. military involvement in South America.
Coordinadora de Organizaciones Indígenas de la Cuenca Amazónica (COICA): COICA is an indigenous organization that represents 511 Indigenous Peoples across 9 Amazonian countries, including 66 Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Initial Contact (PIACI).
Fundación Alianza Ceibo: Fundación Alianza is an organization made up of four indigenous groups from the north of the Amazon: Siona, A’i Kofan, Siekopai and Waorani, that works on behalf of the people and the rainforests.
Organización Waorani de Pastaza (aka CONCONAWEP Federación Waorani): CONCONAWEP Federación Waorani is a small organization of the Waorani people in Pastaza, Ecuador focused on the care of the rights of the Waorani indigenous nationality of Pastaza.
Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana (CONFENIAE): CONFENIAE is a regional indigenous organization that represents nearly 1,500 communities, belonging to the Amazonian nationalities, Kichwa, Shuar, Achuar, Waorani, Sapara, Andwa, Shiwiar, Cofan, Siona, Siekopai and Kijus.
Pueblo Originario Kichwa de Sarayaku: Pueblo Originario Kichwa de Sarayaku is an organizatoin of the Kichwa People of Sarayaku who are located in the Pastaza province of the Amazon in Ecuador, spread across approximately 135 thousand hectares.
Comunidad Kofán de Sinangoe: Comunidad Kofán de Sinangoe is an organization of the Indigenous Sinangoe Kofán people, who are fighting to hold onto their land in the Western Amazon against gold miners.
Pueblo Shuar Arutam (PSHA): Pueblo Shuar Arutam is an organization of the Shuar Arutam People (PSHA) who are located in the Cordillera del Condor, in the southeastern part of Ecuador, and the province of Morona Santiago.
Hakhu Fundación Amazonia: Hakhu Fundación Amazonia is an organization dedicated to promoting sustainable development projects in league with small Indigenous communities within the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Mujeres Amazónicas (Women Defenders of the Amazon): Mujeres Amazónicas are an Indigenous women’s environmental rights group in Ecuador who have been protesting for many years against the pillaging of their lands by oil, mining and logging companies.
Peru
Federación de Nacionalidades Achuar del Perú (FENAP): The Federación de Nacionalidades Achuar del Per is an organization of Achuar People, which refers to indigenous people belonging to the Jivaroan family such as the Shuar, Shiwiar, Awajunt and Wampis (Peru), who are settled on the banks of the Pastaza and Huasaga rivers and on the borders between Ecuador and Peru.
Nación Siekopai Perú: Nación Siekopai Perú is an organization of the great Siekopai nation (also called Secoya), which is working to reunify their ancestral territory, protect their lands from invasion and free their environment from contamination.
For more information about RAN Community Action Grants, visit their website here.
