October 9, 2023

Cross-learning and youth leaders’ exchange on the Home-coming movement experience

“This blog was originally written in Spanish and automatically translated using artificial intelligence.”

South-Sulawesi, Indonesia — Indigenous peoples and local communities are in the front lines of nature defense, protecting their ancestral territories and practicing sustainable management in tropical forests. Multiple challenges are weakening territorial governance and community life that preserves these sustainable practices, with youth migration constituting one of the biggest challenges, as it prevents the involvement of future generations in land and forest management.

Indigenous and community young people are leaving their ways of life to pursue what are often assumed to be greater opportunities in work and education, but also ‘modern’ or new experiences compared to community life. In most cases, the jobs obtained are low return and precarious, perpetuating poverty and self-exploitation.[1] In the cases when young people are hoping to return home -to apply new experiences and knowledge-, it is common that their voice has yet to be heard in land management structures.

However, to reverse this trend, many indigenous and community youth entrepreneurs in Latin America and Southeast Asia are developing interesting projects that meet objectives simultaneously in food security, diversification of local economies, social cohesion and the protection and restoration of natural resources and ecosystem services. Young people are boosting their creativity to preserve sustainable forestry practices, diversify sustainable production and promote ecotourism initiatives, some of them innovatively supported by technology such as mapping, energy or self-managed communications systems.

Rongkong is one of the communities where young leaders from AMAN developed diversified gardens to ensure food sovereignty and to generate income. Credit: TINTA

To promote learning and connection opportunities, AMAN -The Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago- and TINTA (The Invisible Thread) organized the ‘Homecoming Exchange’ that brought together young leaders from AMAN communities in Indonesia and Mesoamerican grassroots forest organizations, in order to learn from the youth-led local and territorial initiatives in both regions.

Last May 2023, three young women leaders of indigenous and local communities from Mesoamerica visited local initiatives developed by youth entrepreneurs as part of the Homecoming movement (Pulang Kampung – GKP) in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Either under the umbrella of the Mesoamerican School of Leadership (Panama and Guatemala) or as defenders of land and natural resources from mining companies through digital and communication tools (Mexico), the young women representing indigenous and local communities’ youth groups were already involved in local development projects to preserve sustainable land management.

Leaders from the Homecoming Movement exchange information on their territorial projects with young leaders from Mesoamerica at a medicinal garden in Gowa. Credit: TINTA

Cultural exchanges on land management allowed the participants to identify common challenges and exchange lessons to improve their home-initiatives with new perspectives on community education, identity, culture, and traditional knowledge preservation. Being mainly men-led projects, the exchange with the three young women not only impressed their Indonesian counterparts for being actual leaders in their communities, but also gave way to promising collaboration between the regions.

Pulang Kampung: community-based sustainable initiatives that enhance indigenous youth inclusion in Indonesia

A few years ago, indigenous youth in cities started discussing their position regarding the many problems in their home-territories, especially related to land grabbing. Facing the miserable conditions they found in cities and acknowledging their potential to be change-makers, these young groups decided to take the risk of returning home to shift the narrative that social progress through good jobs is only achievable in cities. This started the Homecoming Movement.

The movement essentially calls on indigenous youth to return to their respective communities, developing initiatives to protect, care for and manage their customary territories.

Visit to one of AMAN’s Indigenous School projects in the Gowa region. Credit: TINTA

Since the Covid pandemic hit in 2020, AMAN has been actively supporting more than 82 indigenous youth groups and indigenous schools and music and traditional art centers in various regions to boost their creativity and develop local initiatives either to develop vegetable gardens, livestock, herb gardens, fish ponds, local tea development, eco-tourism, cultural tourism, cultural arts and other initiatives.

During the exchange, we visited three regions in South Sulawesi where AMAN is supporting collective and organic farming. Particularly in Ronkong and Gowa, AMAN reported that food productivity increased during the pandemic, strengthening food security in the community and providing an extra income to the youth leading the project.

“These initiatives are building a counter-narrative, there’s an assumption that jobs only exist in the cities. Youths feel they have to change this narrative and bring farming and jobs into the communities, so that in the communities you can create your own job. And they have proved it!” – Mina Setra, Deputy to the Secretary General on Social-Culture Affairs, Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara (AMAN)

Mina Setra Deputy to the Secretary General on Social-Culture Affairs, Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara (AMAN) participates in the exchange. Credit: TINTA

“I learned that, despite being kilometers away (…) youth are also working as we are, as we work in our region: on the land, rescuing their traditions, their culture, their language, in the same way we do, it is an important fight, not only for us as indigenous Guna peoples, but for the whole world, this is a fight. And it is a great experience to know that on the other side of the continent there are other young people fighting for that to be preserved”. – Kandra Ehrman, Secretary General of the Guna Youth Congress and Facilitator at the Mesoamerican Leadership School. Guna Yala, Panama

Part of the cultural exchange in Toraja, South Sulawesi Island. Credit: TINTA

“As indigenous youth, we must preserve our territory, particularly in Rongkong, where we still conserve our indigenous customs, and this will be the responsibility of each generation, to manage the best practices of our ancestors. What we hope, as indigenous youth and particularly as women, is to participate, it is empowering to see these young women leaders from the other side of the globe”. – Namila Ulfa, Sustainable Farms Project leader. Amboan community, Rongkong, South Sulawesi, Indonesia

Recent reports demonstrate that at least 36% of the intact forest landscapes that remain in the world are managed or owned by indigenous peoples.[2] The forests under their stewardship have lower rates of deforestation than other areas, including national parks, natural preserves, and private sanctuaries.[3] These studies underline the critical importance of indigenous peoples and local communities in protecting tropical forests and helping to stabilize the world’s climate, and therefore the urgency of addressing a problem that impacts indigenous and local community youth, so as to ensure they are able to contribute to achieve global goals.

More than local solutions, these initiatives are helping to achieve many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in local contexts, but supporting IPLCs youth is essential to achieve the targets of the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda at the global level.

At TINTA, we believe that if we promote learning, exchange and coordination among youth leaders, they will become inspired, leveraging the development of resilient, sustainable and self-reliant community practices. We believe that sustainable initiatives led by youth are fundamental to improve resilience and land governance in indigenous lands and local communities.

Notes

[1] Clendenning JN. 2019. Approaching rural young people: Background report for the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry’s Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Strategy. Working Paper 1. Bogor, Indonesia: The CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA).

[2] Fa, J. E., Watson, J. E. M., Leiper, I., Potapov, P., Evans, T. D., Burgess, N. D., … Garnett, S. T. (2020). Importance of Indigenous Peoples’ Lands for the Conservation of Intact Forest Landscapes. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. doi:10.1002/fee.2148

[3] Stevens, C. et al. (2014) Securing Rights, Combating Climate Change: How Strengthening Community Forest Rights Mitigates Climate Change. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.2148; Helen Ding, Peter Veit, Erin Gray, Katie Reytar, Juan-Carlos Altamirano and Allen Blackman (2020) Undermining Rights: Indigenous Lands and Mining in the Amazon. doi: https://doi.org/10.46830/wrirpt.19.00085