Download our 2023 Annual Report

Download our Financial Statements 2023

2023 was an immensely productive year for FPP and our partners, serving to some extent as an antidote to heightening concerns over planetary crises, geopolitical divisions, national populist pushbacks against progressive agendas, and the precarious status of international rule of law.

Our Transformative Pathways project made great strides, including through innovative development of community-led cultural and biodiversity monitoring systems. The struggle to secure recognition of indigenous and forest peoples’ land rights included strong community-led pushbacks against severe threats from corporate land grab and exclusionary conservation practices.This resulted in notable advances across the regions we work in, including as a result of legal actions brought in national courts and international fora, and the strategic use of global policy spaces related to climate, biodiversity and corporate accountability. In Indonesia for example, Asia Development Bank funding for a high-risk road and infrastructure project in Kalimantan was cancelled. This road would have cut through some of the last remaining intact forest in Indonesian Borneo and the territories of the numerous Dayak groups who have yet to have their lands recognised and secured.

As 2023 drew to a close, major new challenges were emerging that demand sustained advocacy. These include rights-denying amendments to the Forestry Law in Peru impacting all Amazonian indigenous peoples, a wave of evictions in the name of conservation impacting the Mau Ogiek in Kenya, the rapid rise in projects to market forest carbon in violation of indigenous and forest peoples’ rights in Guyana, Peru, Colombia and Liberia, and the potential threats from the quest for transition minerals on indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation in Indonesia.

One of FPP’s core strategic approaches as a solidarity organisation is the quality of relationships we foster with the peoples, communities and civil society partners we work closely with, often deepened over the course of decades. This mirrors the relational approach that is central to the cultures of the indigenous peoples and many of the forest peoples we work with – both in terms of their relationships with place and with people.

Deep and power-equalising relationships are a joy, because they manifest in meaningful engagement that transcends conventional professional engagement by deconstructing power disparities. However, they can also result in almost unbearable pain too, when we tragically lose friends and allies in the course of the work. In 2023 this was exemplified by the murder of Quinto Inuma Alvarado, a much admired and prominent Kichwa leader from the Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu community, in the San Martin region of the Peruvian Amazon. Quinto was a tireless defender of the human rights and territory of his community. This killing, which Quinto himself had repeatedly demanded State action to prevent, highlights the vulnerability of indigenous leaders who face constant threats in the region and across the globe. Sadly, we could list many other names of indigenous leaders killed, criminalised or injured for defending their peoples, cultures and forest territories over recent years. Their sacrifice strengthens our resolve to accompany their peoples and communities as they strive for justice.

Lastly, while it is also wonderful to foster and sustain FPP’s relational approach internally, as part of our own organisational culture, in 2023 we mourned the loss of much-loved FPP colleague Abigail Hearn, who died suddenly after a very short illness leaving behind her husband and young daughter.

We dedicate this Annual Report to the memory of Quinto and Abi.

Tom Lomax, Director

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