 We are very excited to have you here, and we welcome you to the Land Dialogue webinar series. These dialogues are organized in partnership with the Ford Foundation, the Land Portal Foundation, the tenure facility, and we have a special organization from Tinta, the Invisible Thread, and in this specific webinar from Waila. Thank you all so much for joining us. My name is Lina. I'm an activist and an impact and distribution strategist working with, if not us, then who? This is the first Land Dialogue discussion for this year. And today we will be having a 60 minute session. Do not worry, we have set aside plenty of time for a Q&A, but we will also be keeping a lookout for interesting questions that you may have and fit them into the discussion if that is possible. So please leave them in the Q&A of the webinar. The idea behind this series is that we can raise awareness around land rights of indigenous peoples and local communities. These rights are fundamental to achieve national, international climate goals, but also goals around governance, food security, human rights, climate mitigation, etc. There will be four Land Dialogues this year and each of them will cover a different topic. Now before I tell you about today's topic, I'm going to go into some of the guidelines for this session. So first of all, the webinar will be in multiple languages since we have speakers from different regions. And so we have simultaneous translations that you can join to Spanish, French, Portuguese and Bahasa Indonesia. If you want to access the translations, all you have to do is click on the interpretation icon which you have in the little globe on the down part of your Zoom. Then like I said earlier, this webinar will last around 60 minutes and we have set aside some minutes for the Q&A, which you can leave in the box, not in the chat box, but in the Q&A please. But we do want you to use the chat box to introduce yourselves, let us know who you are and what organization you come from. We also want to invite you to feel free to tweet about the sessions using the hashtag Land Dialogues and you can also follow the live tweeting that we will be doing from both the Twitter accounts of LandPortal and the Tenure Facility. And finally, this session is being recorded in all the languages and we will be sharing it later. So now to get into the topic at hand, as you know today's session is leading the way how indigenous youth combat climate change through land rights. Now, as many of you already know, young indigenous peoples and from local communities face massive challenges growing up in a world with climate change impeding a lot of their cultural heritage and ways of life. Now in response, a lot of them are acting out and they are becoming new leaders in climate activism within their communities and in the world. We are championing and using land rights as one of the key measures to combat environmental degradation and to preserve their traditional lifestyles. So today we will be exploring a lot of that dynamic relationship that comes between ten year climate resilience and of course we will be doing that through a lens of indigenous peoples and local community youth. We have four amazing speakers today and I will introduce them now in alphabetical order. So first, we have Aisha Salihou. She's 20 years, 25 years old and she comes from the Borotos indigenous community in Cameroon. She has a master's degree in private law and is a part of the Regional Youth Council of North Cameroon and a fellow of the ILC as well as a civil society activist. Coming from a pastoralist background, she advocates from youth and women land rights in the north of Cameroon and she also contributes to fighting against climate change through restoration project and agroforestic practices through the empowerment of youth and women in her community. Alongside Aisha, we will have Carlos Lozano Suarez. He's 24 years old and is right now the secretary of the youth with the Pueblos Indígenas, Quichua, Chasuta, Amazonia, the Piquecha. He is an architect and studied environmental urbanism with a scholarship at the Universidad Científica del Sur. He was also a philax scholarship holder and has a diploma for capacity building and creation of sustainable projects at the Universidad del Rey Juan Carlos de Madrid. We also have joining us today, Venetio Ossin. Venetio was born in Banjuwangi, Indonesia. In 2020, he became a paralegal for the Indigenous Peoples' Defense of the Association of the Archipelago, PP Man, and he was activist and enumerator and contributor to the Java Region Indigenous Peoples Data Collection Program by the Ministry of Education and Culture. Him and his friends initiated the establishment of the Ossin Pesinauan Indigenous School and he is one of the facilitators there. Since 2022, he's also the Java Region Indigenous Education Facilitator and the coordinator of the Youth Council for Vipan. And finally, we're going to be having Rosemary Marbella-Recinos. She's originally from Macanche Flores in Petenguatemala. She's a 25-year-old leader and active member of the Muralla-Leon Association, a part of ACOFOP. She participated in the Mesoamerican Leadership School, which is a part of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests, and she's now part of the Trainers Network. She also liaisons with the Gender Network and is part of the Board of Directors as Vice President. Now the way this session is going to work is that I will be asking a couple of questions to our speakers to guide the conversation. Now this is ideally a discussion, so hopefully our panelists can respond based on what each other are saying and build up on that answer. My only request is that our answers are kept between two and three minutes. And to the audience, once again, please use the Q&A box. So I'm going to start with our first question and let's get it off with Carlos. So Carlos, based on your experiences, can you tell us what are the challenges that Indigenous peoples and local community youth face within your community, within the region, in preserving cultural heritage, considering the rapidly changing world, climate change, and urbanization challenges? Nina, can we just make sure that Carlos is in the Spanish channel? Thank you, Carlos. I asked you the first question, so you can tell us from your experience what are the challenges that youth face in their communities, in preserving cultural heritage, considering issues such as climate change and urbanization. Thank you very much. Hello everyone. I'm Carlos Lozano-Suares. I'm Indigenous Director and also an environmental activist. Well, what we really face within my people, speaking from my context, is that we have suffered a violent deculturization. One day the church arrived, for example, with migrants and forced us to leave our customs, for example, our knowledge with medicinal plants, our interaction with the spirits of the forest, that forced us to leave our forms of life. So this has made us suffer a deculturization. And from then on, it is that part of our actions as young activists. Why? Because we are looking to generate these spaces that, in the end, are educational to be able to recover our ancestral knowledge. So, to do all this activism is not only part of being able to teach these knowledge, to be able to transmit these knowledge intergenerately, but also to build spaces. For example, we are cultural in which the whole community can intervene and we can transmit these knowledge here. So, apart from that, what we can also rescue is that this coexistence, this way of life, is actually sustainable. In other words, our own way of life as Indigenous communities is sustainable. Because, for example, we, in our constructions, use, I don't know, sandpaper, shovel, wood, sticks, land. And in about 20, 30 years, these certifications are going to return to the land. However, in conventional constructions, in large cities, cement, concrete, it is totally polluting, it has no sustainability. So, that's why we, as young people, are oriented, we are actioning in order to be able to recover these knowledge, this way of life, which, in the end, is sustainable and that's what we all have to do. That's what I can share. That is different with that and what's going on with your community in Cameroon. Aisha, can you hear us? Oh, yeah, I'm there. Thanks, Aisha. Can you share with us some of the challenges from your community? Thank you, Mrs. Lina, and I'm very, very sorry for my let go. It was not my fault. I was having technical issues, so it was not easy. Okay. I'm called Aisha and welcome to all of all of us. I'm called Aisha from Cameroon and I'm here to share the challenges youths face in preserving their cultural heritage. One of the challenges is the challenge of access to land and the secureization of this land. In Cameroon, youths don't have access to land and the procedure is too long. It's too long for them to have access to land and, for example, for the indigenous communities, the women for them to have access to land, they have to pass through a man which is either their father, their husband, or their father. This is one of the challenges we face here. The second challenge is addiction challenge. For example, we have the Ogier community in Kenya. They were explored, how did I put it? This community are forced to get out from the forest by the government, but they did not like find a solution to their problem. So this challenge is very common, I think, in all the countries, in all the African countries, I want to say. And the other challenge we face is the challenge of marginalization and the access to decision-making. We all know youths have difficulties to have access to land and for that they are very marginalized and are not implicated in decision-making. This is a challenge to youths, especially for Cameroon. We equally have financial difficulties. There is one of the challenges that is finance. Youths usually have projects. They have research that they want to implement, but because of lack of finance and lack of sustainability from the government and so on. So these youths have to let down their approaches because of no finance. And I think for the challenges, it's okay for them. That was what I wanted to share with you. Thank you so, so much, Aisha. This is very enlightening. Now I would like to pass the floor to Venerio. How about you? Are you facing similar challenges in Indonesia, Venerio? And I will give a second for our translators. In Indonesia, there are many companies that are made by the government or companies. In Indonesia, there are companies like Tambang, Pakebunan, Klapa Sawit. And there are government programs that are made by the government like Food Estate. This causes the development of the land in the region to be changed, as well as many flora and fauna that experience the spread of the number, even the Punah. This causes the land to be damaged in some places. This causes the land that was previously used by the government, where there is a temple inside it. For example, in Indonesia there is a green revolution, which causes the land to be damaged or damaged, including the use of plants and chemical drugs. This affects us because we, the young generation, only know the name. Then there is the urbanization trend, where many young people who are forced to go to the city, leave their village, leave their community, to go to school or to work. When they leave their village, they get the knowledge that we usually call knowledge. Where the knowledge is taught to leave their village. While the urbanization, the young generation, they have the responsibility to teach, to protect their land. That can be said to be two problems that are faced with the knowledge and natural conditions that have changed. Thank you. Thank you so much, Vanirio. Actually, you have given us the floor to go with the next question. Sadly, one of our panelists, Marbella, is having a little bit of trouble with her connection. For now, I'm going to go with the next question for all three of you. You were talking a little bit about how these challenges motivate the use in your community. Vanirio, could you share some examples of successful initiatives where young people in your communities have gained traction and worked around climate resilience, tenure systems, land rights. If you have some examples that are local to your community, that would be great. Yes, let's start with you, Carlos. We can start with you and then go to Vanirio. That's perfect. I was confused by the dynamics of the questions. That's why I'm sorry, Vanirio. Let's continue with the actions that we have taken as young people in the territory. For this problem of de-culturation, we have carried out many activities as young people. For example, cultural fairs, productive fairs where we have seen the work and the ways of life that we have. We also, thanks to Aisha who shared the issue of the territory, the indigenous peoples here in Peru have several difficulties to be able to access the land title of our territories. In our case, we have come to such great conflicts that, for example, migrants have come to kill some of our leaders. For example, the last one to kill was Quinto Inuma, who was the leader of our base. We came to think that if we follow a process and lead it as young people, maybe that won't kill us. That's why we are promoting, since our arrival, technical media with government and NGOs with international entities to be able to proceed and continue with these issues. We have advanced a lot. Let's say that five or six years ago we were at zero, and now we have advanced at least 50% in the process of title of the Quichuas territories of San Martín. This has been a very important achievement in which many young people have integrated because it is not only the work of young leaders, but many young people. We are the ones who are most visible in our grandparents, our saviors, for example, who do not know how to use the cell phone, and we are the ones who do this work of visibilizing in social networks, in press notes, in radio, in all parts, all the conflicts that we suffer, and all that we are advancing to be able to receive international and international support. So that is the work we are doing as young people. And apart from that, I also wanted to highlight one more, which is participation in international spaces. I have recently participated in a period of sessions of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, in which we have been able to ask from the OEA that they have requested protection measures for the Santa Rosillo community, which is the community of the Quintinuma community that was murdered. So we have been able to participate in these spaces to be able to generate changes and be able to ask justice for environmental defenders in Peru. So they have been very important achievements in which we have been able to participate as young people, as indigenous young people in Peru. That would be thanks. Carlos, thank you so much for sharing that. It actually seems as though you are making very significant progress in that landscape that sadly is not favorable to land rights or to human rights of the communities. And since some of the challenges you were sharing were similar, now let's hear from Venerio on his thoughts about the initiatives that the youth is taking there in Indonesia. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Venerio, thank you so much for that very full answer. And from legal battles that Carlos was telling us about to reforesting or protecting traditional knowledge through schools, passing all the way through technology and using smartphones, it seems that the innovative initiatives of the youth have a huge range. So I would like to now pass it on to Aisha to hear about how that is presenting in her community and her region. Okay. Thank you, Lina. The question was the initiative by youths, right? Okay. Thank you Carlos. Thank you, Venerio and thank you, Lina. I have three initiatives of youths and women that I would like to share with you guys. Okay. The first initiative is the one implemented in Cameroon. That was a source of knowledge that was implemented in Cameroon. That was a successful initiative that I witnessed and it's called the project of agroecology by the organization called Biscouda. So this initiative is just like empowering the women. So the project is just for women, youths, young girls and women. So the objective is to fight against climate change and to empower the women and the females for them to be economically independent. So that is the objective. And by the end of this project, 70 women were taught how to do gardening and 80 women were taught how to do production. And the project was really successful and now it's like widening itself to all the regions of Cameroon. So the second project I would like to share here is the 10 millions of youth versus 10 million of land to fight against this desertification. This project is implemented by Gila and it's a successful initiative where 20 African countries are implemented in this project and the first phase is now taking on in Benin, for example. The objective of this project is to permit youths to have access to land like to advocate for youths' land rights equally like to do restoration by planting trees to fight against climate change and equally to be resilient to climate change and all the rest. Equally like to help the youths to orient to guide the youths like to do agriculture and so as to fight against climate change and for their distance and for their empowerment. The last project I would like to share here is the project of ADHD of AFL 100. The objective of this project is to help the local communities to like to plant trees and to securize their lands. So this is to like equally to empower them and to create a sort of employment to the youths. On the T-projects that I just mentioned here they are having the same objective of empowering the youths and women and the local communities and equally to create like a sustainable development to the youths and to the indigenous communities. And the basic the common objective of both projects is like fighting against climate change for a sustainable development of the countries. So that was just what I wanted to share. Thank you so much Aisha and you actually answered in your conversation here one of the questions that we had in the Q&A talking about initiatives for land tenure for the youth. So that's also interesting to see an answer to what is going on here in our chat box. Now I'm going to go to the next question and ask you to please answer this one as briefly as possible since we have limited time. Considering your leadership in climate activism I would like to know what you would like to see happen in order to build a better climate future for your generation and the next ones. And in this case I'm going to start with Aisha since you were just sharing. What is it that you would like to see for the future? Okay I will try to be very brief. I have some three to four points to share regarding this question. The first thing is like financial issues. We all know that youth are trying to do advocacy on land right. So if possible what I would like is to like the partners the technical and financial partners the other organizations should try to have financially the youths in implementing their project. This is one of the distance solutions. The other one is basic education. For me as a climate activist I would like the climate change knowledge and the restoration and all the rest should be taught in school. So this is one that it should be taught in school so that when the children will be going they will just apply ideas that they have land rights and they have to protect it by doing this by doing that. The other one is like to defend inclusion of youths female youths and women and equally people living with disability. So for us youths like to go ahead in all what we are doing we need to defend these rights. The other one is to promote equal rights equal human, equal rights that is equal rights that is equal rights and the last point is to promote like good practices. We all know that the solutions come we all know that indigenous people are the one having the solutions to their problem that is to climate change to everything but they don't know. So we like have to teach them all this type of things so that they themselves can try to fight against their problem to try to solve their problem on their own way so that others should not come and interfere. That is what I wanted to show. Thank you so much Aisha. Let's hear from Carlos now on what you would like to see for the future. Thank you Carlos that is a very powerful statement on the role of government in climate action. Now how about you Benerio what do you think could make your interest in a better future? Thank you so much Benerio and actually both you and Carlos have also answered to one of the questions that we had on the chat which talked about how governments can support the use in climate action. You have both made amazing points about both the need for recognition the support and even just letting communities do the work in themselves. Now I wanted to give out a moment to introduce Marbelia who has been able to join us after some connectivity issues and sadly Marbelia has missed some of the conversations so I'm just going to give her a few minutes to tell us about the challenges that the youth faces in her community and the solutions that they have to face the climate crisis. So Marbelia welcome. Thank you so much for joining us and if you can share that with us in a few minutes then I can go with all of you to the last question. Good morning, I would like to be here with you. My point of view is that the biggest challenge that we have in our communities is education talking about a low education by the government talking academically. So because of that lack of education there is no employment for the youth because if we want to prepare academically we have to travel and that requires a cost and we can't say let's work and study because to work we need a certain degree of academic level too. So the challenge we have is that we have to emigrate to other countries emigrate to other countries and abandon the lands. Abandoning the lands, leaving them in someone's hands who doesn't have the love we have for the land so we only see the economic benefit we see the cultural benefit because they come with the mentality that to make tourism you have to have buildings you have to have a very large infrastructure which degrades our conservation. They don't have the same love we have and we have to make the decision that many cases are emigrated and we are in some projects that we take as an initiative to start generating jobs we start with projects I have a group that has apiculture projects so we start with 17,000 cash except for the currency of my country so we are working on that project because in the long term the goal of us is to generate jobs so we don't have to go to other places to look for opportunities like emigrants but to be on the land, to preserve the land because it's a friendly project with the environment because we also work on wood and non-wood but the wood we do it sustainably and the non-wood in the case of my organization we work with the branches it's a fruit of the tree the fruit falls so we don't damage the plant and we make coffee substitutes we make flour to make refreshments we make cookies, we make bread and much more products we generate jobs but not as much as we wanted but we are starting from that point Marbella thank you so so much we're glad you could join us in the end and to get your very valuable perspective on economies and land rights and the importance of livelihoods in this conversation now with very little time left I'm going to ask you a final question before going to our Q&A and I will ask you to please answer it in one minute or less so the question is what guide you into this kind of work what keeps you there maybe talk to us a little bit about what inspires you to keep going I will give the floor first in this case to Benedio to tell us about his inspirations they are not the same they are not the same they are the same like the state so what is the basis why am I still in this movement I want a big desire for this public they can do something they can do what they want what they want and what happens to them that's it thank you Benedio what a powerful and inspiring reason so Benedio above it all how about you Aisha what is it that inspires you to keep going okay thank you Lina I will try to be as brief as possible okay what inspires me really is the fact that I'm from a pastoralist community meaning most of my grandparents and my parents never had the opportunity to go to school and I had the chance to go to school to further my studies into the higher levels where I studied law and while they were like telling me like they were flashbacking the stories I heard that my community out of ignorance the traditional leaders were taking their lands and using them out of ignorance because they never went to school they don't know anything about land rights so as I'm like growing up that things really pains me a lot that how can people just go and like taking your lands and so because you don't have power and you don't have nothing to say so as I obtain my first level this thing I just controlled my studies and I did law where I try now to like defend so as to defend my community and to try to protect them from those that are trying to remove their rights sorry are you hearing okay yeah I was like I did know so as to protect my community to fight for them since they cannot fight for themselves what really inspires me is the passion I have for protecting the environment and the community in which I work in which I'm from so that is the issues to it Thank you Aisha for that magical ingredient of passion you are sharing with us what about you Marbella what is it that inspires you to keep going in this path Hola de nuevo pues lo que hace que continue acá pues quizás no solo el recuerdo de de niña de ver tanto bosque en mi alrededor y ahora se ve vacío lo que tenemos se dice que yo soy de petense porque es en donde está la reserva en donde más bosque hay entonces yo todavía que siga respirando este aire puro que nosotros respiramos que tenga un recuerdo de que se está conservando y que le nazca el amor por conservar también porque nuestra generación va a pasar y va a quedar la de ellos entonces tienen que seguir luchando para que esto no se acabe acá entonces y teniendo el apoyo de distintas organizaciones para todo emprendimiento o toda actividad para conservar entonces sería sería algo que nosotros estuviéramos desperdiciando si no lo hiciéramos entonces tanto como el amor que le tengo a la conservación también el amor que le tengo a las generaciones que vienen creciendo eso me hace estar acá todavía thank you so much Marbella what a powerful story of intergenerational struggle and we will close this question with Carlos what is it that inspires you to keep fighting Carlos quiero comentarles que yo desciendo de un pueblo indígena asestralmente hemos sido guerreros siempre entonces con cada bricha con cada asesinato de líderes con cada estigma con cada conflicto nosotros en realidad nos volvemos más fuerte nos llena de coraje seguir avanzando no ha sido fácil para nosotros poder enfrentar todos esos problemas ha sido muy muy complicado ver como nuestros padres han tenido que sufrir y enfrentar cada una de las igualdades pero justamente eso es lo que a nosotros nos ha vuelto fuerte y nos ha llenado de coraje para continuar con las luchas y es por eso que ahora estamos más fuertes que nunca y vamos a seguir preparándonos para continuar con todos nuestros proyectos eso puede decir gracias Carlos thank you to you and to your warrior community for all the work you do now I'm very grateful to all of you for your answers a little bit of time for questions from the audience we have been collecting them here and I know that you already answered some of them. I'm going to bring together a couple of questions that we got in both English and Portuguese that talk about land tenure. Our audience wants to know what tools you use to guarantee processes of land demarcation and land rights but also how do you work around funding and investment for land tenure? Does any one of you want to begin answering? Aisha go ahead. Okay, thanks to the audience for their kind attention and thanks to their beautiful questions. I will answer the first question regarding to the tools usually we use. One of the tools used by youth is advocacy. Regarding land rights, the first thing youths usually use is advocacy. By advocacy campaigns and awareness campaigns we usually try to like attend the target. Yeah, that is one of the tools I wanted to share and the other tools is communication communication is a big tool if you want to like in land rights you really have to communicate and gather real deal information and so as to like how will I put this? That was perfect. Thank you so much Aisha for those components of advocacy and communications. Does any of our other panelists want to talk about their tools and funding? Go ahead Carlos. What I want to tell you is that the main tool we use is the technical titulation tables. These technical tables of titulation are not the proposal of the state but we have pushed it. But in the end it is a meeting between the state and the indigenous communities to establish guidelines to continue with the titulations. Thank you Carlos. Just so we have time for a little bit more of the questions of the audience I'm going to go to the next one but in case Benelio and Marvella want to answer as well as this one you're welcome to do so. One of the other questions we had was about the community of indigenous communities of indigenous communities of indigenous communities and the other questions we have was about being in certain countries where there's not a lot of interest from the youth taking on climate action where they don't seem to concern about this. From your role as activist how can this trend be reversed? How can more young people in the communities be inspired to take actions like you have? Marvella. Just giving an example, giving an example of what you are doing, not everyone will like the same activity, but we have to adapt to the tastes of other young people. So, if I like a sustainable project like making cookies, which is a sustainable project that we are taking care of and we are generating employment, and it is this conservationist project, then another young person will like the restoration, another person will like a project that can be made of apiculture or different projects, so we don't have to focus on a single project because not everyone will be happy with that project, but we have to find a way to put each one in the place that corresponds to the place where they feel good so that they don't abandon them. Thank you so much, Malveja, for that talk about inspiration and leading by example. Venerio, what about you? Yes. From myself, maybe what I can do is to discuss or anything that can make this young person more aware of the condition in the region. Whether it is through discussion, film, or making a book, so they feel comfortable to take care of their region, their land and their nature. Maybe that's why, for example, in Indonesia, we do documentation. That's to encourage young people to join the project. Thank you. Thank you, Venerio. And I think we have time for one final question. I'm sorry we are not able to answer all of them, but thankfully our panelists have talked about a broad range of topics and covered many things. Now this last question has to do with education systems, which is something that most of you have talked about. Somebody wants to know if the education systems that are forced or prescribed by governments affects the heritage of your communities and what is the feeling that you have of knowledge transfer in this modern age? I know, Venerio, you have been talking a lot about education, so I don't know if you want to take this question or any of our other panelists are welcome to answer. Yes, just in case it wasn't too clear, the question is what is the effect that government prescribed systems have on traditional knowledge and on preservation of cultural heritage? Carlos, you can go ahead and start. Thank you, Carlos. In one minute, Venerio, do you have some thoughts? Yes, I do have some thoughts, but there is a lot of knowledge that can be obtained from nature, such as those of the civil society. How to start it, and then when there is something, it becomes a sign of what? Because nature can be a sign of planning, a sign of sustainability and so on. It needs to be done again. Thank you, Venerio, perfect use of the one minute. Thank you also to all of our speakers. Sadly, we don't have time for more questions, but the amazing news is that more land dialogues are coming, so you will have more chances in the future to connect with the community. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to connect with wonderful speakers and give your questions to them. I want to thank every one of our speakers, give them a virtual round of applause and also thank you so much to our audience for your participation, for your comments, your notes on the chat. I want to thank our hosts, as I said in the beginning, the Ford Foundation, the Land Portal Foundation, the Tenure Facility, Waila and Tinta. Thank you all so much. It has been a true pleasure for me to moderate this event. And to all of you, I hope you have a wonderful morning, afternoon or night, depending on where you are. Goodbye and hope to see you again soon. Thank you, Lina. Thank you to everybody and see you.