The Indigenous Land Rights Fund (ILRF) provides a forum for indigenous communities to gain secure tenure to their ancestral land.



Without secure title to their land, indigenous communities are not able to live as they have for generations, nor can they have any meaningful voice in the countries in which they live. Without land title, they can be displaced at any time. Their traditional ecology, ceremonies, language, and spiritual traditions are compromised - as is, inevitably, the ecology of the region - for traditional culture is deeply intertwined with local ecology, and one cannot be disrupted without a knock-on effect upon the other.



Time and again, when these communities are displaced forcibly or against their will, the inevitable result is despair, alcoholism, violence, and community breakdown. This fund will do more than protect just land: it will also protect indigenous communities' proprietary rights to medicinal and nutritional herbs, flowers, and plants, as well as to the management of wildlife and game and give them a platform from which to assert their rights to share in any mineral wealth exploited on their land. Moreover, it will help them keep access to any natural and land resources required for religious and healing ceremonies that are an integral daily part of most traditional cultures.