Empowering the Indigenous Peoples Community towards Enhanced Stewardship of Its Resources

​Bantay Kita through the Making All Voice Count (MAVC) implemented a project to improve indigenous peoples’ (IP) capacity to utilize their rights to manage resources in the ancestral domain (AD).
 
The project assisted the CAMMPACAMM Manobo Tribal Community of Rosario, Agusan del Sur to update its Ancestral Domain Sustainable Development and Protection Plan (ADSDPP) and formulate a Community Royalty Development Plan (CRDP). The  ADSDPP is a 5-year compendium of all IP plans within an Ancestral Domain. In the creation of a CRDP, the ADSDPP must be considered. The CRDP serves as a roadmap for allocation and investment of royalties. The Manobo Tribal Council of Rosario acknowledged the need for a development plan that would chart how the tribe’s future generations would benefit from royalties received from extractive investments in their ancestral domain. It was evident that they recognized the inter-generational right over resources.
 
In order to update the ADSDPP and prepare a CRDP, the IP group mapped out their area to locate on-going investments and identify areas for development within their AD. The mapping was facilitated by the local government through the introduction of innovative community-based mapping techniques.
 
Bantay Kita hopes to replicate this project with other indigenous communities who are facing similar of resource management challenges within their ancestral domain. Knowledge products produced in through the project are available online and will be disseminated, where needed, to indigenous communities affected by mining operations around the Philippines.
 
The project was made possible through partnerships with local non-government organizations led by the Foundation for the Development of Agusanons Inc (FDAI), the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples and the local government spearheaded by the provincial Government of Agusan del Sur.

View the knowledge products of this project:

• Video: History of IPs Minoritization in the Philippines
• Primer: Managing the Ancestral Domain
• Poster: Continuing Minoritization of IPs and the Enactment of IPRA