Thanks to the generosity of artist Ann Colley, who has donated her artwork, Las Lianas is selling note cards featuring watercolors of birds of the American tropics. Click on the picture to learn more.

Las Lianas partners with indigenous peoples working for collective rights, environmental protection, sustainable development, and cultural autonomy.

Program Glimpses

The Indigenous Aquaculture Initiative provides scientific and technical assistance, and material support, to over three hundred indigenous Amazonian families developing small-scale fish farming as a sustainable food supply. We work only with native fish, and promote community-based participatory research, use of local resources, and neighbor-to-neighbor and village-to-village training.

The Ancestral Lands program partners with the Shuar, Shiwiar, Achuar and Zápara in efforts to win legal recognition as self-identified indigenous nationalities and gain title to and unify their ancestral lands. To date, all four nationalities, plus over 60 constituent communities, have gained legal status; nearly 1000 square miles of territory have been or are about to be titled, and the internal grass-roots processes for reorganizing land ownership are underway.

Our program on Indigenous Legal Systems supports efforts to preserve and utilize these traditional systems for resolving conflicts and administering justice. The recognition of indigenous justice systems provided in Ecuador’s recently adopted constitution was partially informed by documentation of the effectiveness of these systems, carried out by the Kichwa organization ECUARUNARI with assistance from Las Lianas.

The Extractive Industries program supports Indigenous Peoples' efforts to prevent or reduce the impacts that oil and mining activities have on their lands and communities. From helping small isolated communities assert their rights in the face of industry pressure, and documenting rights violations in the Amazon region, we are now working at a national level, helping indigenous peoples demand consultation as laws and policies are made, rather than reacting later to the effects of their implementation.