Annual Report Navigator
Legado 2022
Co-Creating Thriving
Futures That Matter
I have spent my career building connections with local and Indigenous communities and supporting them to be in the lead on their solutions to thrive. From 2005 to 2022 that work took place primarily in the Andes Amazon— a place to which I am so honored to lead Legado for our newest partnership with the Indigenous communities circling the Machiguenga Communal Reserve in Peru.
What drew me to Legado was the tenacity, energy, and humility of the team. The team is driven by their personal legacies to co-create with Indigenous and local community partners and is constantly learning from our allies’ locally-led systems for sustained collective action. At every level, Legado takes an interconnected approach that is scalable and adaptable to many geographies.
Each step of the way, Legado lives and breathes co-creation —with our indigenous and local community partners, with our organizational partners, with our team. For Legado, for me, co-creation is about meeting people human to human and supporting a diverse group of people to align together. We do this in people’s home villages, in their central convening locations and get to them by boat, motorbike— you name it. To work with community members, partner organizations, government agencies— everyone to be on the same page of the vision which is written, first and foremost, by local and Indigenous communities. It’s an honor to share with you what this looked like in 2022. Thank you for your support as we create lasting relationships to help sustain our world.
Dr. Tita Alvira
Global Director of Thriving Futures
Our Impact
93%
54
50%
5
75%
47,400
Legado & the Power of Legacy
The Power of Thriving Futures
At Legado, we work alongside local and Indigenous communities in centers of key global biodiversity to ensure they have the tools, resources, and partnerships they need to design and implement solutions of their choosing that benefit both their communities and their landscapes—an outcome we call Thriving Futures.
The goal is to build a locally-led system for sustained collective action that fosters adaptability and resilience for meeting current and future challenges.
Explore the slide deck below for a deep dive into how our Thriving Futures approach works.
We are working to ensure that by 2030 we are co-creating Thriving Futures with local and Indigenous communities in more than a dozen high value landscapes around the world.
Here is Where we Are Co-Creating
Thriving Futures Today
In each of our program areas, we partner with a local organization(s) to co-create Thriving Futures with the local and indigenous communities with whom they collaborate. See the highlights from our partnerships below.
In 2014, we brought together local community activists, world-renowned scientists, Mozambican conservation leaders, and an international climbing team to collectively support Namuli’s Lomwe communities in securing a thriving future for Namuli and the people who depend on it. It was here that Legado’s work to activate the power of legacy was born.
Today, the Legado:Namuli team works with 8 communities and 24,000 people on the mountain to realize the legacies they have defined. Our partners in this work are Namuli Wiwanana (which translates from Lomwe to “Namuli, together”), a growing Mozambican organization that champions a community-first approach to conservation and development and Nitidae, an organization who supports agricultural and non-timber value-chains.
Mount Namuli is the ancestral home to the Lomwe people. It is also designated as a Level 1 Priority Key Biodiversity Area by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, an Important Bird Area, an Important Plant Area, and an Alliance for Zero Extinction site. The mountain also serves as the headwaters for the two largest rivers in the region, supplying water to hundreds of thousands of people. It is also the ancestral home to the Lomwe people.
The Namuli communities and their vision for their future shaped what Legado does today, both on Namuli and in our partnerships in Kenya and Peru. As such, 2022 was a year to collaborate with our Namuli community partners to determine what Legado Thriving Future programming they want to pursue next. Our Namuli partnership is both an in-process example of what community-led Thriving Futures look like and a partnership that is using new Thriving Future tools to continue to articulate next steps.
Please visit the Legado:Namuli page for more details on the overall program.
Legado:Namuli’s Thriving Future Timeline
January: Land Tenure with Women in the Lead
In 2021, the major milestone of titling 100% of community land was achieved, and in early 2022, Namuli communities formally delivered the outstanding land title certificates to communities and individual households to conclude this initiative. Land tenure is critical for granting local communities the authority to freely use the land as they see fit. Given the Lomwe people's matrilineal inheritance, it also benefited women in a significant way. Of the 4,841 titles that were formalized for individuals, 69% of these were issued in a woman’s name. This work was led by our consortium partner Nitidae and is the critical groundwork to support communities to both create a Community Conservation Area and to advance their other Thriving Future goals.
Read more about Namuli Communities Landmark Titles Over Ancestral Land
Feb-March: Mobilizing Legacys to Protect From Fire
Strategic planning with Namuli’s Natural Resource Management Committees and our partner Nitidae as we work together toward key priorities for Namuli communities, including mitigating the impacts of wildfires that devastate the land from late August to October each year and tree planting campaigns in coordination with community nurseries.
April- June: DEVELOPING CLEAR PATHWAYS
“To develop our communities we need to come together to dream and make a plan with clear goals to achieve those dreams”
Creating space for reflection and learning to further develop Legado’s legacy program was especially important this year as we planned for a new phase of our work to determine what portion of Legado’s Thriving Future programming Namuli communities wanted to pursue next.
“The learnings on legacy, vision, and goals, are something I will never forget. To develop our communities we need to come together to dream and make a plan with clear goals to achieve those dreams. Legado facilitates meetings with communities that are the foundation for this. And it is a good thing to include not only the communities but other leaders in different sectors in our district so we can move forward together. I’m optimistic!”
— Jeremias Calado, School Director and Head Chief of Mucunha-sede, Mozambique
July: Community-First Community Planning
Sept-Nov: Understanding The Impact of 6 Years of Legacy Building
“One of the most important things I did this year was take part in an impact assessment exploring Legado’s legacy activities over the past years with the Namuli communities. Our team visited with groups of community members and with families in their homes, and learned about people’s visions and goals, hearing about the unique ways in which each of them cares for the health of the environment and the development of their community. This allowed me to witness first hand the positive impact of our legacy work on their lives. I feel energized for the next phases of community planning together with communities!”
— Kassia Macassa, TFM/Legado Assistant Coordinator & Deputy Program Lead, Mozambique
Oct-Dec: Community Convenings to map each village’s unique assets and challenges.
NOV-ONWARDS: HOW NAMULI SHAPES THE FUTURE: CO-CREATION OF LEGACY PLANS
“A Legacy Plan is a tool of great importance for a community. The process of building such a plan is something that makes people identify what they want, what they do best, as well as their challenges and how to come together to overcome them using the resources and talents that exist within the community. Namuli has shaped my life, and the Namuli communities are proud to be children of Mount Namuli. This planning process is also about them claiming their right to have an active and decisive role in their own development.”
— Gálio Felizardo Zecas, TFM/Legado Community Thriving Futures Coordinator, Mozambique
In 2021, we partnered with the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) to bring our legacy approach to communities in Northern Kenya and augment NRT's community engagement process. We aim to use our model to jumpstart community collaboration and action to create a path toward Thriving Futures™ across 43 conservancies in the region.
We began our work with the Ngilai Community Conservancy, home to over 11,000 Samburu people who are an indigenous, semi-nomadic tribe, as well as to the Mathews Range, a biodiverse sky island and one of the region's last remaining tracts of forest. Ngilai’s expansive rangelands are critical to the Samburu’s pastoralist way of life and the forest provides essential ecological services to its residents and tens of thousands more people in the surrounding landscape. Ngilai is also home to some of East Africa’s most iconic wildlife.
Please visit the Legado:Ngilai page for more details on the overall program.
Legado:Ngilai’s Thriving Future Timeline
January: Commitment to Partnership
February: INCLUSIVELY IDENTIFYING PRIORITIES
March: Community Initiatives
August: NGILAI’s FIRST LEGACY PLAN
October: A THRIVING FUTURE COMES TO LIFE
Oct: Committed to implementing remaining priorities
“I am committed to continue supporting my community in implementing the remaining priorities”
"I am happy and impressed with our progress for 2022, especially to see Ngilai community members making commitments and working together to implement priorities. In Lolkuniyani, 35 community members, mostly women, committed themselves to build the maternal shelter. For next year, I am looking forward to our new work in Westgate , after the community members welcomed and showed great interest in our work during our initial FPIC meeting. I am also committed to continue supporting my community in implementing the remaining priorities on education and livelihoods." —Andrew Lenanyokie, Thriving Futures Ambassador and Ngilai Community Member
Nov: this is part of my legacy
Dec: A truly inclusive participatory process
“For the last two years, Legado partnered with Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) to support Thriving Futures by using the power of Legacy in Ngilai and Westgate Conservancies in Northern Kenya, Samburu County. I am happy to have been part of this process. What I liked most about Legado’s approach is that it is a truly inclusive participatory process for communities to build their Thriving Futures through action oriented priorities, by activating personal and community legacies which have the power to drive resilient grassroots change. Through this process, almost 2,000 people have been directly engaged in Ngilai and the plan was adopted by the whole 11,000 person community. This process has enabled communities to identify their key priorities of good governance, education, health, and protection of their biodiversity. I look forward to the expansion of this program to cover the rest of the conservancies in this region.”
— Burton Lenanyokie, Director, Northern Rangelands Trust Centre and member of the Ngilai community from Lturoto village, Kenya
Futuros Vivos: Machiguenga is a collaboration between the ECA Maeni (the Indigenous co-management entity of the Machiguenga Communal Reserve), the Machiguenga Communal Reserve team of the National Service of Natural Protected Areas (SERNANP), and Legado. The program is a multi-year partnership to work with Indigenous peoples of the Asháninkas, Matsigenkas, Yine Yami, Quechua, and Kakinte—key stewards of the Andes-Amazon.
The Machiguenga Communal Reserve itself includes the Amazon rainforest at the foot of the Andes, Yungas on the steep mountain slopes with cloud forests, and the high-elevation region in the Andes mountain range and is home to endangered jaguar and spectacled bear as well as six endangered species of macaw and tapir, deer, wooly spider monkey, and other important species. It’s also a central corridor of the Avireri-Vraem Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.
Please visit the Futuros Vivos: Machiguenga page for more details on the overall program.
Futuros Vivos:
Machiguenga’s Thriving Future Timeline
October: Machiguenga Program Coordinator Hired
“Legado’s approach is truly necessary to inspire people. Each of us has the inner power to enact change with our actions every day, showing that we all have feelings and legacies regardless of gender, social position, or place we call home. Wherever we are, we can achieve what we set out to do and inspire others as well.
As Program Coordinator for the Futuros Vivos:Machiguenga partnership, I am very enthusiastic about helping many women and men from the communities near the Machiguenga Communal Reserve. They are wise, have great strengths, and this collaboration can help add to their motivation and inspiration so that they can flourish starting today. I am committed to taking it step by step, with love and patience.
I connect a lot with the legacy of the women of the communities because we are strong and many times we ourselves don't even recognize that we do many things for those around us and we can go far if we try. — Ana Fernández, ECA Maeni and Legado Futuros Vivos Machiguenga Program Coordinator, Peru
Nov: In Person Launch of Collaboration
Dec: Building From Community Strengths
2023
Legacy Engagement Begins
ACTIVISM AND COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP
In 2022, we increased Legado's visibility to ensure that our work supporting local and Indigenous communities in building their Thriving Futures continues and grows.
In May, Legado (Dr. Tita Alvira, Majka Burhardt) presented in a webinar about "Sharing successful experiences of local and Indigenous communities’ engagement in conservation" sponsored by the Amazon Sustainable Landscapes Program, Global Wildlife Program, Global Environment Facility, and the World Bank. Click the button view the recording. (start at minute 9).
STAFF AND PARTNERS
Thriving Futures get built by human-to-human exchange and experience. The team that creates these futures first and foremost is the Indigenous and local community members whose futures they are. The team and partners below are who stand behind them co-creating this process each step of the way.
STAFF
- Diana "Tita" Alvira, PhD, Global Director of Thriving Futures | USA
- Majka Burhardt, Founder & Executive Director | USA
- Wendy Chamberlin, Strategic Advisor, Kenya
- Ana Fernandez, Coordinator of ECA Maeni/Legado Futuros Vivos Program | Peru
- Juliet King, Kenya Partnerships Advisor | Kenya
- David Kitt, Director of Impact and Community Solutions (Interim) | Rwanda
- Ana Alicia Lemos, Global Manager of Thriving Futures | USA
- Andrew Sadam Lenanyokie, Community Coordinator Yiasim Ngilai Community Thriving Futures | Kenya
- Kassia Macassa, Assistant Coordinator & Deputy Program Lead for Namuli Wiwanana/Legado | Mozambique
- Monicah Mbiba, PhD, Senior Program Manager | Africa
- Stephanie Mlandich, Impact Lead | USA
- Matt Muns, Impact Coordinator | USA
- Filipa Oitaven, Senior Program Manager | Mozambique
- Leigh Schumann, Communications and Development | Canada
- Gálio Felizardo Zecas, Community Coordinator for Namuli Wiwanana | Mozambique
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
- Seid Aman, Country Director for Imagine1Day | Ethiopia
- Meg Gardiner, Chief Legal Officer for Euclid Transactional | USA
- Dr. Ailis Tweed-Kent, CEO & Founder of Cocoon Biotech | USA
- Eric Lundgren, Vice President of Global Operations at Blumont | USA
- Dan Sarles, Executive Director of Eaglemere Foundation | USA
- Pete Vorbrich, Former Chief Financial Officer for Carval Investors | USA (Chair of the Board)
- Alaka Wali, PhD, Curator of North American Anthropology at the Negaunee Integrated Research Center, Field Museum | USA
PARTNERS
Income
Total: $709,254
Legado programs Expenses
ADDITIONAL PROGRAM EXPENSES PAID BY IMPLEMENTING PARTNERS $118,537
TOTAL LEGADO PROGRAMS BUDGET: $1,082,542
LEGADO MAINTAINED A STRONG FINANCIAL POSITION IN 2022
AND ENDED THE YEAR WITH $286,737 IN NET ASSETS.
Legado is focused on the things I care about — and the things that I think everyone should care about: biodiversity, the health of the planet, and the health of people — particularly those people that are deeply interactive within biodiversity hotspots. It combines all of these things in an elegant, effective way.
We are at an inflection point in human history — what we do today in terms of taking care of the planet, will have consequences for decades to come. You can't not care about that. And so, if you're wondering how you can most effectively address this, Legado is a great place to start. If you want to preserve landscapes and maintain biodiversity, then you need to care deeply about the people that live in those areas because they are the direct stewards of that land. Together, with these stewards leading the way, we can build a stronger, healthier future for all.
