Rainforest Concern

Project Archive

SURINAME: Mapping traditional Wayana lands

In 2005, with the backing of Rainforest Concern and WWF, the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) completed a series of ethnographic maps for the traditional lands of the Wayana indigenous people of southernmost Suriname, in full collaboration with both the tribe and the Surinamese government. Covering approximately 4.5 million acres, the maps will be used by the indigenous peoples for legal, educational and conservation purposes. Using the maps as a basis, work is currently underway to develop a community-based land management and conservation plan.

Please click here for a pdf newsletter article on the project (2007). 

 

UGANDA: AssisTIng THE Batwa people

The Batwa, more commonly known by the misnomer 'Pygmies', were originally forest-dwelling hunter-gatherers, practising a highly sustainable, traditional way of life in the high mountainous forest areas of the Great Lakes region in Central Africa.

Not taken into account in the development of national conservation initiatives, the Batwa were gradually evicted from their ancestral lands and have since found themselves in a highly marginalised situation living on the fringes of dominant society. 

Rainforest Concern donated $25,000 to The United Organisation for Batwa Development in Uganda (UOBDU, set up to lobby for the rights of the Batwa and help alleviate their suffering) to help the Batwa purchase approximately 50 acres of private, forested land bordering Bwindi National Park, in the Kanungu District of southwest Uganda. The land transaction was completed in May 2006 and UOBDU is now in the process of establishing a Batwa Trust to hold this land collectively and in perpetuity for the Batwa.

Please click here for a pdf newsletter article on the project (2007).

 

SRI LANKA: Rainforest Rescue International and Rainforest Concern partnership

Rainforest Rescue International was set up in 2002, after 5 years of collaboration with Rainforest Concern, to initiate a programme to conserve, protect and rebuild the rainforests of Sri Lanka by creating a buffer zone and corridor project around the 2 largest remaining rainforest patches of Sri Lanka, the Sinharaja and Kanneliya Forest Reserves. Since then, it has set up an indigenous tree nursery, built an Education Centre for school children, purchased 6.4 acres of land adjacent to Kanneliya for the proposed hiniduma Forest Reserve, begun a programme of reforestation for this land, and much more.

Please click here for a pdf newsletter article on the project (2006).