Focus on the Frontline

Focus on the Frontline was a multi-country project, working with those forest communities on the frontline of environmental destruction that took place between 2018 and 2020. The communities we worked with in this project are the guardians of the forest, the world's biodiversity and the best defence we have against deforestation and resultant climate change.  

This project was funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) through the Norwegian International Climate and Forest Initiative’s Funding Scheme. 

The main geographical areas of work for this project were: 

• Colombia
• Peru
• Guyana
• Indonesia 

Project outcomes 

Indigenous and forest dependent peoples are better able to monitor and defend their forests and territories  

To do this, we supported communities to collate their own evidence so that they could use it in land claims and formal complaints and grievances against violations by agro-commodity companies and state agencies. As part of the project, communities were then able to submit claims where their lands were impacted by forest risk supply chains, as well as accessing the complaints processes of UN Human Rights bodies and other international grievance mechanisms.  

These pioneering approaches to supply chain monitoring and community forest governance were piloted and documented.  

Mechanisms established or strengthened in order to protect human rights defenders and provide legal assistance to communities. 

This area of work focused on training communities on human rights, supply chains and corporate accountability. From this training, communities were then able to submit demands for formal redress actions for harms to human rights defenders.  

In key areas, we provided rapid response legal support for cases of illegal deforestation, land grabs and rights abuse caused by agribusiness.  

Strengthened environmental, social and governance systems in targeted countries 

Through targeted analysis and research, we identified gaps in due diligence policies for palm oil and other high-risk supply chains, and provided recommendations to improve them. This also included documenting good practice in the palm oil sector, to provide a baseline for other companies to follow. We also supported partners to meet with private sector actors to discuss rights violations on the ground and how company policy can avoid and remedy this.  

Commodity certification schemes have better frameworks to uphold environmental standards, prevent deforestation and protect human rights  

In this area of work, we exposed cases of poor practice in certification complaint mechanisms, as well as cases of shadow operations in the palm oil and timber sector. We also worked to improve policy, through technical submissions and supporting communities to take part in dialogues within multi-stakeholder fora on deforestation-free supply chains.