An important element of the work is training indigenous organisations and communities. We have developed a flexible, participatory training methodology, tailored to the priorities and capacities of the group, which takes up the key rights issues identified by indigenous communities and examines them from a legal perspective over the course of a series of workshops. The training enables participants to understand relevant domestic and international laws and the procedures and consequences of using these laws. It forms part of a long-term approach to capacity building of indigenous organisations and communities which includes training of trainers and regional paralegals, and production of plain language guides to relevant laws, policies and international human rights instruments.

Africa Legal and Human Rights Programme
Throughout Central Africa forest peoples experience persistent discrimination and human rights violations including ethnic discrimination, state-sanctioned expropriation of lands and resources by logging, mining, agri-business and conservation projects, and physical violence including forced labour, abduction, torture, rape, murder, massacres and, in Democratic Republic of Congo, probably even cannibalism. While the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples in international law are now recognised in the laws and policies of South American and some Asian countries, on the African continent the indigenous peoples' movement is still at an embryonic stage.

Our Africa Legal and Human Rights Programme, funded by the European Community and the Sigrid Rausing Trust, aims to introduce a new dimension into the human rights debate in Africa, by building the capacity of indigenous organisations to claim and defend their rights. This programme supports all our other projects in Africa too. By providing information, training and legal advice to indigenous peoples we help them identify the key issues needing legal support, and develop strategies for claiming the rights appropriate to their local and national context.

Guiana Shield Legal and Human Rights Programme
(Suriname, Guyana, Venezuela and French Guiana)
Our work in this area, supported mainly by the IUCN-NL and the Sigrid Rausing Trust, is currently focusing on strategic domestic litigation, research and design of national legal strategies, and promotion of legal reform. In Suriname, in response to requests by our partners, we are prosecuting legal claims to seek recognition and restitution of tribal lands and to require that the State establish laws and procedures that will benefit all indigenous and tribal peoples in Suriname. Additional legal activities are being directed towards protecting indigenous lands from resource exploitation and environmental degradation.

For full documentation of our legal and human rights work, see Publications and reports in the Forest Peoples Programme section of this site.