Amazon Frontlines
Defending indigenous rights to land and life in the Amazon rainforest
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
The Amazon rainforest is approaching a devastating ecological tipping point. It is also racing towards a less well-known, yet equally devastating, cultural tipping point. The acceleration of forest loss from oil roads, mono-crops and mining is jeopardizing indigenous peoples’ way of life and their ability to survive off the abundance of the land, creating new economic needs that often force youth to abandon traditional practices and find work in the very industries that are threatening their forests. This vicious feedback loop not only puts at risk immediate indigenous stewardships efforts, but also jeopardizes a knowledge system and way of life that has contributed to the protection of the Amazon for centuries.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Territorial Defense
We work side by side with indigenous communities to defend their ancestral territories through real-time monitoring through community land patrols, strategic litigation and land titling, rights training, and participatory territorial mapping.
Where we work
External reviews
Photos
Videos
Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of policies formally established
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Indigenous peoples
Related Program
Territorial Defense
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
Establishing legal precedent for indigenous right to Free Prior and Informed Consent and right to Self-Determination
Number of community events or trainings held and attendance
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Indigenous peoples
Related Program
Territorial Defense
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
Community workshops and trainings: rights, land patrols, microenterprises, solar panel technicians, water system maintenance, youth filmmaker, etc.
Number of conservation areas with evidence that illegal activities causing key threats have declined or stabilized
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Indigenous peoples
Related Program
Territorial Defense
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of new donors
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Indigenous peoples
Type of Metric
Other - describing something else
Direction of Success
Increasing
Context Notes
New major ($1,000+) donors
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
We have developed a holistic model to build power with indigenous peoples to protect their ancestral homelands in the Amazon rainforest and halt climate change through carbon sequestration. Our model consists of the following:
A. We empower indigenous peoples to exercise their legal rights to protect their ecosystems as guardians of the rainforest through cutting-edge land monitoring, governance infrastructure, strategic litigation and global campaigning.
B. We invest in the core capacity of indigenous leaders, communities, and organizations by providing opportunities for hands-on leadership, project management, and scholarships for higher education, as well as creating networks and resources for multi-nation movement building.
C. We provide technology and solutions for indigenous peoples to sustain their ecological and economic livelihoods through forest management, women-led economic enterprise, clean water, and alternative energy.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Our plan is to double-down on a model that’s working and take big steps towards replication within the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Get Control of Their Lands: Initially we will focus heavy-investment on sharpening our toolkit with our current partners, and then move to scale with 6 indigenous nations in Ecuador’s southern Amazon. Steps will include ongoing tech optimization, piloting land-patrol finance mechanisms, completion of territorial maps, securing land titles, and the creation of case studies and skill share opportunities between indigenous nations to determine the most effective way to scale.
Keep Control of Their Lands: We will continue to develop territorial governance capacity for current partners, and will expand our scholarship program for targeted professions. Ongoing litigation strategies will push forward precedent on rights to land-tenure, FPIC and self-determination, while the outcome of our SWOT analysis in the South will inform additional litigation opportunities. In order to drive systemic changes to the law and its application, we will bolster advocacy and campaigning efforts directed at the government.
Thrive in Their Lands: We will continue to invest in our indigenous-led solutions efforts with current partners, while replicating our strategic alliance and core-capacity building model in the southern Amazon, constructing our second frontlines’ organizing center that will serve as a hands-on youth leadership school, an incubator and an organizing hub where initiatives are designed and developed. We will co-develop a seed-funding facility for indigenous-led initiatives as wide-ranging as solar canoes, women’s economic guilds, traditional-healing centers, and journalism schools in the jungle.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
The Amazon Frontlines team is made up of human rights lawyers, environmental activists, forestry specialists, healers, hunters, environmental health scientists, filmmakers, journalists, anthropologists, and farmers, almost all of whom live and work in the Amazon.
Our on-the-ground, listen-first approach has earned us trust and respect from indigenous nations across Ecuador, and informed our model of partnership and our strategies. It has made us who we are: an interdisciplinary team that leverages our expertise and global networks to build locally-driven solutions to some of the Amazon’s toughest problems.
We started by tackling the issue of industrial-scale oil contamination of Amazonian waterways. Instead of helicoptering in to deliver a solution, we built the solution from scratch with indigenous communities. The result is 1164 rainwater harvesting systems providing clean water access to over 10,000 indigenous people across 70 villages of Ecuador’s Amazon. What's more, by building the solution to the water crisis together, by nurturing youth leadership, and by building core-capacity, we were able to forge an unprecedented alliance between four indigenous nations now cooperating towards the protection of their lands and cultures.
We have experience fostering indigenous leadership and getting results on mission-critical issues for the protection of the Amazon rainforest. We have tackled the vulnerabilities of geographic isolation by installing solar-energy systems in 15 roadless communities. We have turned rights violations into historic legal precedent for land-tenure. We have addressed cultural loss by creating spaces for traditional ceremony and digital-storytelling. We have confronted networks of loggers, poachers, and miners by combining millenary forest knowledge with cutting-edge technology.
Over the last 8 years we’ve developed results-oriented approaches hand-in-hand with the forest’s most experienced guardians, and then brought them to scale.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Our on-the-ground success is proving that our model works. Since 2014, with a lean international team and in partnership with indigenous communities, this is what our impact looks like.
Rise of a first-of-its-kind alliance between the Kofán, Siona, Secoya and Waorani nations.
Trained over 200 indigenous guards that actively patrol 1,160,000 acres of land.
Over 1,000,000 acres of rainforest homelands mapped by 50 indigenous mappers
880,000 acres of ancestral territories in process of land-titling within Ecuador, Colombia and Peru, with a pathway opened to title 1,250,000 more in Ecuador alone.
79,000 acres of rainforest protected in Kofán community through landmark court verdict nullifying 52 gold-mining concessions.
Women a landmark ruling before Ecuador's Constitutional Court guaranteeing the Indigenous right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent in Ecuador's constitution. This ruling establishes the rights framework necessary to challenge extractive projects across 28 million acres of rainforest in Ecuador.
Won landmark ruling with the Waorani of Pastaza in Ecuadorian court protecting 500,000 acres of primary rainforest from oil drilling and providing a legal precedent on FPIC for other indigenous nations to protect an additional 7 million acres.
Installed 1,164 rainwater filtration systems in more than 80 villages and 121 solar-energy systems in 15 roadless communities.
Created Frontline Defenders and Frontline Journalist training schools - over 35 active graduates.
Incubated 5 women-led economic cooperatives benefitting over 300 women across 4 indigenous nations.
Launched a first-of-its-kind Indigenous Women's Leadership school, which provided training for 40 women in its first year on vocational skills, business administration and communications.
Hard-hitting indigenous-led digital campaigns resulting in almost 10 million total impressions in 18 months and engaged global support with over 300,000 actions.
Over 500 news stories and videos amplifying indigenous voices and struggles in international outlets such as The New Yorker, Foreign Policy Magazine, The Guardian, Al Jazeera and also national channels.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We act on the feedback we receive
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
It is difficult to get the people we serve to respond to requests for feedback
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Amazon Frontlines
Board of directorsas of 03/11/2022
Ginger Cassady
Rainforest Action Network
Term: 2016 -
Justin Winters
One Earth
Josh Fryday
California Volunteers
Felicity Meu
WeCampus
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
No data
Gender identity
No data
Transgender Identity
No data
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data