Environment (2011 Q2)
Environment
Featured beneficiary in the ENVIRONMENT category for second quarter 2011:
PACHAMAMA ALLIANCE

PACHAMAMA ALLIANCEThe Pachamama Alliance was born in response to a request from the Achuar, an indigenous people in the Amazon region of Ecuador who made the courageous decision to seek a partnership with the industrialized world to protect the rainforest and their traditional way of life. Out of this unique partnership, it has become evident that indigenous wisdom and insight offer enormous value in addressing the complex issues that we face in our modern world.

The Pachamama Alliance, in partnership with Fundación Pachamama, empowers indigenous people of the western Amazon basin to defend their territories and cultures. We partner with groups whose territories span the border regions of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and Colombia. This extends over tens of millions of acres of one of the most pristine and biodiverse ecosystems on Earth, a source of biological and medicinal wealth for all humanity, and home to people still deeply connected to their traditional ways of life.

  • We provide legal services and make available training and consulting on indigenous peoples' collective and legal rights under local, national and international law;
  • We research and implement economic alternatives to oil drilling, mining and logging, including ecotourism and improved agriculture practices;
  • We provide training in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) so that our indigenous partners can map their territories and secure communal title to their lands'
  • We empower indigenous women and their communities through training to ensure safe birthing practices and improved maternal, newborn and community health;
  • We are building a global alliance of experts to bring forth the universal adoption and implementation of Rights of Nature, a legal concept we successfully championed for inclusion in Ecuador's new Constitution in 2008—making Ecuador the first country in history to do so.
  • Through our Awakening the Dreamer Initiative, we endeavor to wake the modern world from the trance we are living in, to identify the unexamined assumptions that create and maintain the trance, and begin to appreciate the extraordinary possibilities emerging at this time in history.
LEARN MORE ABOUT PACHAMAMA ALLIANCE
Website: pachamama.org
Annual expenses: $3.5 million
Charity Navigator review:: Pachamama Alliance
ABOUT THE SELECTION PROCESS

Foundation Beyond Belief highlights ten charitable organizations per quarter. Among other considerations, beneficiaries are chosen for efficiency, effectiveness, moderate size (annual budget under $10 million), compatibility with humanist focus on mutual care of this world and this life, and geographic diversity. All categories feature secular organizations with the exception of "Challenge the Gap," which gives members the option of supporting one progressive, non-proselytizing religious organization each quarter.

Active members can help us choose future beneficiaries by researching and nominating charities and by discussing, debating, and advocating for the causes of their choice through our social network and discussion forums. Final decisions are made by the Board, but collective member input is among the most important considerations.
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