--- title: how to fund indigenous land rights that last canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/how-to-fund-indigenous-land-rights-that-last markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/how-to-fund-indigenous-land-rights-that-last.md subtitle: "pay off the land first, then fund the people who keep it. consent is the gate, and the unit is hectares brought to entrust" category: nature-finance --- # how to fund indigenous land rights that last *pay off the land first, then fund the people who keep it. consent is the gate, and the unit is hectares brought to entrust* To fund Indigenous land rights that last, fund two things in order. First, the costs that make a community's hold on its land secure: a purchase the community chooses, surveys, legal work, old debts and competing claims. Then a stewardship stream that the community's own group controls. The community decides at every step, and legal recognition stays an act of the state. This is for a program officer with a tenure portfolio, a tribal or community land office deciding what to ask for, and anyone weighing where tenure money goes once a grant ends. ## what land rights funding pays for today **Land rights**, or **tenure**, are a people's recognized right to hold, use and govern their land: who can live on it, farm it, refuse a concession on it and pass it on. Funding for them usually pays for mapping territories, legal cases, recognition processes and the organizations that carry that work for years. That work is real. A policy brief from the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) puts it plainly: "land rights reconfigure power relations and are a key prerequisite for environmental justice." It also notes that communities without titles "have often been criminalised and evicted" when protected areas were set up around them. Funders have heard this. Under the pledge made at COP26 in 2021, funders delivered US$1.86 billion in 2021–2024, according to Mongabay. Ahead of COP30 in Belém the pledge was renewed as the Forest and Land Tenure Pledge: US$1.8 billion for 2026–2030, endorsed by 39 funders, with a mandate for more direct, flexible and long-term funding, as described in the Ford Foundation's update. ## why tenure funding often does not last Two things get left unfunded, even when the grants arrive. **The land itself.** A title can sit under a debt, a concession, a boundary dispute or a purchase that was never paid off. Recognition on paper does not clear any of those. Land that can still be foreclosed, leased out from under a community or claimed by someone else is not yet secure. **Money that outlasts the grant.** Mongabay reported that about 7.6% of 2024 pledge funding went directly to Indigenous and local community organizations. IDOS cites research finding that less than 1 percent of international forest, climate and biodiversity funding reaches Indigenous peoples and local communities at all. Most money still passes through intermediaries, and nearly all of it ends when the funding cycle does. The keeping of a forest does not end on that schedule. ## how to fund land tenure that lasts [*Ensurance*](https://ensurance.app/?from=guide) is one way to pay for both gaps in order: the land first, then the people who keep it. The steps below work whether or not you ever use it. ### step 1: start with consent No land is acquired, mapped or titled over a community's objection. Free, prior and informed consent is the floor wherever Indigenous peoples are involved. The community names who receives the money, who holds the land and what it wants funded. A community that already holds title decides whether to use any of this at all. Consent is the gate, not a box checked at the end. ### step 2: secure the land first The first stage is **ensured**, which means paying off the land. Ensured money pays for the community or its chosen holder to acquire land it wants to keep or recover, retire the debts on it and clear competing claims. Where recognition is pending, it pays the costs around it: surveys, legal work and the debts and claims that block a title. | where the community stands | what the funding pays | |---|---| | already titled | retiring debts and clearing claims, only if the community asks | | land recoverable by purchase | the purchase, by the community or its chosen holder | | recognition pending | surveys, legal costs, debts and claims; recognition itself is the state's act | A certificate does not create a legal right. Recognizing a collective title, such as Colombia's Peasant Reserve Zones, is something only a state can do. The funding pays for what stands in the way. ### step 3: hold it free of debt, rent and claim The second stage is **entrust**: the land held free of debt, rent and claim, for good. Entrust is land with no debt left to foreclose. [Permanent protection has to survive us](/guide/permanent-protection-has-to-survive-us?from=guide) covers how that holding works. ### step 4: fund what the land carries The land holds forest, water, soil, fire resilience and habitat. That is what the funding keeps, and it is how a funder reports what the money protected: the parcel first, then its species and flows, then the people who keep them. ### step 5: route a stream to the group the community governs Once the land's cost is gone, every dollar that arrives can go to care. A certificate's proceeds and splits can already route money to a group account that the community controls. Automatic payments to every holder are designed, not live. How the group shares its stream, whether equally, by household or into community work, is the group's decision. Nobody outside sets a per-person amount. The community decides who gets paid. The land decides how long. [What stewardship funding is designed to pay](/guide/what-stewardship-funding-is-designed-to-pay?from=guide) has the detail. ## who else should pay A tenure funder should not carry this alone. The people who already pay when a place fails are the natural co-payors: the utility downstream that treats dirtier water, the insurer that pays out after fire, the supply chain that loses a source and the town that rebuilds. Today they pay after the damage. Paying before, instead of after, funds the people who prevent the damage. A public conservation basic income program can be a co-payor too, alongside the community's own land law and social protection, not in place of them. Every unprotected hectare already has another bidder: a mine, a plantation, a road, a carbon project. [Every unprotected acre has a buyer](/guide/every-unprotected-acre-has-a-buyer?from=guide) explains why the land needs an account of its own to compete. ## the offer to a tenure funder If you fund tenure, perhaps as one of the funders behind the Forest and Land Tenure Pledge, your exposure is the gap above: money pledged for land rights that mostly does not reach communities directly, and land that stays at risk after recognition. What we deliver is listed on [our page for foundations](/solutions/foundations?from=guide&topic=secure-the-land): structuring entrust for a place, so the land is held free of debt, rent and claim for good and every later dollar can go to care; helping grantees issue certificates for their own places; and funding the monitoring that shows a board what held. Entrust makes the holding permanent. It does not make the money permanent: the stream lasts as long as payors keep paying, and the page's "perpetual" describes the hold, not a promise of income. The instrument is a **certificate** for a named place. When you buy it, the mint price goes to the recipient the community names, at the moment of purchase. Buy the certificate, not the coin. A coin purchase fills a trading pool and pays no steward. | what you report | what it counts | status | |---|---|---| | hectares brought to entrust | land the community or its chosen holder holds free of debt, rent and claim | the count starts at the first place; no place has reached entrust by this route yet | | stewardship stream | money routed each year to the group the community governs | splits live; automatic payment to every holder designed | | partnership line | one place, one community recipient, one certificate | live as a route | There is no yield, rate or return. This funds land and the people on it, and the line is something your portfolio can report every year. ## what this is not It is not a basic income. Payments go to the group a community governs, not to every resident by eligibility. It is not outsiders buying land: acquisition is always by the community or its chosen holder. It is not legal title. It does not replace Indigenous-led funds such as the Podáali Fund, land law or public programs. It can sit beside them as one more payor. The forest, the river and the grazing land exist whether or not anyone buys a certificate, and so do the people who have kept them. Ensurance is how the land gets secured and the keeping gets funded. It is not the land, and it is not the community. :::johnson **pay off the land first. then fund the keeping.** Hectares brought to entrust with the community's consent, and a stream to the group it governs: a line a tenure funder can report every year. [see the offer for foundations →](/solutions/foundations?from=guide&topic=secure-the-land) ::: ## frequently asked questions ### how to fund indigenous land rights? Fund the costs that make tenure secure first: purchase where the community chooses it, surveys, legal work, debts and claims. Then fund a stewardship stream the community's own group controls. Consent comes before every step. ### how do foundations fund land tenure? Most foundations fund land tenure through grants for mapping, legal work, recognition and organizational support, often through intermediaries. A foundation can also buy a certificate for a named place whose mint price goes straight to the recipient the community names, and report hectares brought to entrust. ### can conservation funding be permanent? The land can be made secure for good: entrust is land with no debt left to foreclose. The money lasts only as long as someone pays. Taking the land's cost out means every later dollar can go to care, and the people who pay when the place fails can keep paying. ### what if the community already holds title? Then it decides whether to use any of this. Funding might only retire a debt or clear a claim, and only if the community asks. ## next steps If you fund tenure, start with one place a community has asked to secure. Bring the community's terms, and we will structure the certificate, the recipient and the reporting line around them. [see the offer for foundations →](/solutions/foundations?from=guide&topic=secure-the-land) [talk about one place →](/contact?from=guide&topic=secure-the-land) ## sources [IDOS Policy Brief 25/2026, Beyond markets: how to achieve just and transformative biodiversity conservation (Hein et al.)](https://www.idos-research.de/en/policy-brief/article/beyond-markets-how-to-achieve-just-and-transformative-biodiversity-conservation/) — land rights as a prerequisite for environmental justice; less than 1 percent of international forest, climate and biodiversity funding reaches Indigenous peoples and local communities (citing McLaren et al. 2025); Peasant Reserve Zones; the Podáali Fund [Ford Foundation, Surpassing our commitment](https://www.fordfoundation.org/news-and-stories/stories/surpassing-our-commitment-final-update-on-our-pledge-for-tenure-rights-and-forest-guardianship-of-indigenous-peoples-and-local-communities/) — the Forest and Land Tenure Pledge: US$1.8 billion for 2026–2030, endorsed by 39 funders, with a mandate for more direct, flexible, long-term funding [Mongabay, Donors renew $1.8 billion pledge for Indigenous land rights (12 Nov 2025)](https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/11/donors-renew-1-8-billion-pledge-for-indigenous-land-rights/) — US$1.86 billion delivered in 2021–2024; about 7.6% of 2024 funding went directly to Indigenous and local community organizations ## the series 1. [what a conservation basic income leaves unfunded](/guide/what-a-conservation-basic-income-leaves-unfunded?from=guide) 2. [community land rights come first](/guide/community-land-rights-come-first?from=guide) 3. [what cash transfers for conservation showed in the peruvian amazon](/guide/what-cash-transfers-for-conservation-showed-in-peru?from=guide) 4. [the alternative to fortress conservation is not a market](/guide/the-alternative-to-fortress-conservation-is-not-a-market?from=guide) 5. [community-led conservation needs an account it controls](/guide/community-led-conservation-needs-an-account-it-controls?from=guide) 6. [how to fund indigenous land rights that last](/guide/how-to-fund-indigenous-land-rights-that-last?from=guide)