2021 Annual Report

For decades upon decades, we humans have chipped away at the Amazon, confident that it will always be there to serve our endless consumption. But where it is broken—disconnected by roads, poisoned by mining, cleared for ranching—it loses its resilience. Instead of growing back, the forest becomes savannah. As the global community scrambles to protect the Amazon rainforest, ACT knows that indigenous environmental stewardship, which includes establishing and expanding indigenous territory, is the most effective way to maintain the connectivity and ecological integrity of what remains of the Amazon. Toward that end, in Suriname, ACT has been the primary NGO working at the grassroots level withindigenous communities, and at the institutional level with government entities, to finally secure collective land rights for the country’s indigenous citizens. If passed, this legislation would lay the groundwork to establish protected indigenous reserves and recognize indigenous-led environmental management, benefitting the country’s 20,000+ indigenous people and driving the conservation of the county’s 93% forest cover. In Colombia, in 2021, five existing indigenous reserves were expanded and one reserve created thanks to ACT’s direct involvement. These collective land designations now protect Inga, Embera Chamí, Embera Katio, Kogui, and Arhuaco ancestral territory in perpetuity. The newly recognized territories also add to the 2.3 million previous acres of indigenous reserve land that ACT was instrumental in establishing—now covering an area slightly larger than Puerto Rico. In our nascent program in Brazil, we are supporting our indigenous partners in their efforts to uphold self-determination over their existing land rights. Currently, the multi-ethnic Xingu Indigenous Park is under attack on all sides from landgrabbers and industrial monoculture agriculture as this island of rainforest continues to shrink. We are providing technical instruction and material support to the Wauja and Ikpeng people of this region so that they can carry out active monitoring on the perimeters of their land to prevent further deforestation. In recent years, we have witnessed growing interest in and support for indigenous-led environmental management and biocultural conservation. This has validated our work and been especially rewarding as we see more conservation entities coming around to a holistic approach to conservation. Thanks to this growing consciousness, there is still much hope for the Amazon. And ACT will stay the course: enduring and equitable transformations require a long-term commitment to our community partners and their prioritized ecosystems. We are so grateful for our generous supporters at all levels who allow these commitments to be carried out into the future and to benefit generations of indigenous peoples to come.

We work with many different partner communities on diverse projects to protect tropical rainforests, support cultural revitalization, and expand indigenous self-determination. Together we co-create methods that center each community’s unique priorities, challenges, and worldview. This dynamic approach produces holistic impacts that often resist distillation into quantitative metrics. However, the following figures quantify a sampling of ACT’s mutli-dimensional impact.

• 11 community ranger and guard posts constructed
• 205,104 acres protected as indigenous co-managed natural parks, plant sanctuaries, civil society nature reserves, and national cultural monuments
• 2,338,209 acres of indigenous reserve expansions and constitutions
• 26 new indigenous reserves
• 14 expanded indigenous reserves
• Improved land tenure for 63,718 indigenous people - benefitting 14 ethnic groups
• 3,195 acres purchased and returned to indigenous ownership
• 9,996,991 acres under improved sustainable management, led by 28 communities

In our office and field work, the year 2021 began with the hope of a return to an approximation of the old normal. Though vaccination became gradually available to all staff, and with it the possibility of getting back on track with parts of the work halted by the pandemic, ACT identified severe and lingering impacts in our partner communities, as well as an unpredictable global economy that put into question all of ACT’s financial projections.

The trust ACT has built with our partner communities and our closest supporters over the last 25 years enabled us to redirect existing resources to address the health tragedy posed by the pandemic; we highlight this because even local health entities were unable to deployresources to very remote areas as quickly and effectively as ACT. Furthermore, we continued to help our partner communities secure enormous tracts of ancestral land, constituting a long-term safeguard. On the financial side, a wide range of both newer and legacy funding institutions have come to recognize that conservation hand-in-hand with indigenous peoples is fundamental to protecting the world’s forests, and have identified ACT as a standard-bearer in such work, sustaining support from our traditional funders and contributors while also attracting new and significantly larger multiyear gifts.

The significant increase in revenue reflected in our financials constitutes investment in the organization’s future, thus to be applied to the implementation of ACT’s 2022-2025 strategic plan. These resources support the organization’s aspirations of measured growth as well as the reinforcing of our operational capacity over the next few years. On the expense side, we continue to be conservative in our financial management, ensuring that 84% of funds are invested in programs.

We are humbled by the overwhelming generosity of individuals, foundations and progressive entities that perceive ACT’s work as a strong contributor in addressing the urgent need to conserve the Amazon and strengthen the communities that support its protection. This confidence in turn becomes our motivation.

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First Grand Chief of the Trio People

The late chieftain Asjongo Alalapadu took his family name from his native village of Alalapadu, situated near Suriname’s southern border with Brazil. In 1977, under the leadership of the villager Pesaive, accompanied by Asjongo, a migration of Alalapadu inhabitants founded the Trio village of Kwamalasamutu along Suriname’s Sipaliwini River. The state government subsequently appointed Pesaive chief captain and Asjongo captain. The settlement attracted many displaced non-Trio indigenous people from Guyana and Brazil, and well as recently contacted groups, such as the Akoerios. Today, members of twelve indigenous groups live in Kwamalasamutu, the largest indigenous village in Suriname.

In the beginning, due to Kwamalasamutu’s remoteness, there was little contact with Suriname’s populous coastal area; to this day, reaching Kwamalasamutu requires a two-hour hour flight from the capital city of Paramaribo. Moreover, because the villagers only spoke indigenous languages, there was a significant language barrier. Later, English-speaking missionaries learned Trio and set up a school. In Kwamalasamutu, Asjongo was one of the first to learn to read and write in the Trio language. He was then able to document all formal discussions regarding the governance of his village.

In 1997, following Pesaive’s passing, Asjongo was traditionally installed in Kwamalasamutu as chief captain, and in that same year, Suriname’s government appointed him Grand Chief of the Trio people. Asjongo Alalapadu will go down in history as Suriname’s first indigenous grand chief. Asjongo, who died at an advanced age, served for more than forty years on the village board of Kwamalasamutu. He trained his successor, his grandson Jimmy Ronald Toeroemang, who was traditionally installed in September 2021 as Grand Chief of the Trio. May Asjongo beremembered for his good works as he proceeds in peace to the eternal hunting grounds.

1941 - 2021

One of the leading minds behind conservation biology and biodiversity protections, he was a seminal figure in bringing the world’s attention to the rainforest and influencing environmental policies. He meant an incalculable amount to the Amazon over his remarkable career of more than 50 years. For ACT, he was a dear friend, incomparable mentor, and long-time board member. We feel immense gratitude to have shared in his scientific brilliance and deep appreciation for life on this planet for so many years. We will miss him greatly and grieve his loss alongside his family and the conservation community. May all those he educated and inspired carry his legacy forward to protect our beautiful and biodiverse natural world.