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Supported by the Pawanka Fund, this project documents, revitalises and restores currency to Lega Indigenous knowledge of biodiversity restoration, while supporting 120 smallholder farmers organised into cooperatives in Ngambwa, Kasaga and Kiliungu.

There is a library without walls in Mwenga: the knowledge held by Lega elders about climate, soils, seeds, forest and the rituals that accompany them. That library closes a little with every death. The project led by PIFEVA with support from the Pawanka Fund set out first to transcribe its pages before they faded — and then to turn them into a productive tool.

Strand 1: collect, analyse, return

Historical climate data, climate-related cultural events, traditional weather forecasting systems and ancestral survival strategies were collected and consolidated. They now feed directly into biodiversity restoration work and farming practice across the territory.

Lega Indigenous and contemporary knowledge on climate change, its impacts and the respective roles of men and women in restoring and managing biodiversity was identified, analysed, promoted and respected. Cultural knowledge relating to Lega initiates, rainmakers, traditional spiritual leaders and local historians received the same treatment, contributing to the revitalisation of Lega identity.

A video and a digital photographic record documenting climate change impacts and Indigenous biodiversity management practices were produced. These materials now support advocacy on behalf of Lega Indigenous communities.

Strand 2: 120 producers, three groups, one cooperative

120 smallholder farmers — 60 young people and 60 Indigenous women — were organised into three groups of 40 members in Ngambwa, Kasaga and Kiliungu, then trained in climate change adaptation. Their Indigenous cultivation techniques were consolidated through the production of new knowledge combining tradition with modern agronomy.

Climate-adapted good practices were identified, tested and disseminated for rice, cassava, sweet potato, carrot, cabbage, beans and a range of local leafy vegetable seeds — mbogabuchungu, lengalenga, matembela and bishusha. Output has risen and is improving the socio-economic conditions of Indigenous families.

Giving value to Indigenous foods

Edible caterpillars, wild mushrooms, traditional groundnut paste (kindakinda), rice, cassava, sweet potato and traditional vegetable seeds have been promoted and sold in local markets and at the Indigenous agricultural fairs in Ngambwa. This is where the loop closes: documented knowledge becomes practice, practice becomes harvest, and harvest becomes the income that makes transmission possible.

Funded by the AYNI Indigenous Women's Fund of the International Indigenous Women's Forum (FIMI), this project amplifies the voices of Lega Indigenous women facing a double exclusion: the loss of their farmland to artisanal gold mining, and a ban on entering the mining sites themselves.

In Mwenga, Lega Indigenous women are dispossessed of their farmland on a daily basis, with that land unjustly redistributed to artisanal gold diggers. Across most of the territory's mining sites, they are also routinely barred from extraction areas, on the basis of cultural restrictions and beliefs holding that an Indigenous woman's presence harms the availability of minerals.

The result is a double penalty: deprived of their fields and excluded from the activity that replaced them, these women lose the core of their livelihood — their farming and forest activities.

Amplifying voices, influencing decisions

The project set out to break the silence, draw attention and influence decision-making and enforcement by the competent local authorities against the discrimination of Indigenous women and the dispossession of their land. The strategy is twofold: first strengthen the capacity of the women concerned to argue their own case, then mobilise those who hold decision-making power.

Results achieved

120 Indigenous women leaders and 60 high-potential young women had their capacities strengthened and are steadily improving their leadership in order to amplify Lega women's voices within their communities. In parallel, 30 customary and political-administrative authorities and local leaders, along with 12,030 members of local communities, were mobilised and sensitised, and are progressively committing to act against discrimination and the dispossession of traditional lands for mining.

An issue that goes beyond land

Lega Indigenous women hold valuable knowledge and cultural practices for restoring biodiversity through traditional mechanisms. Their livelihood systems, activities, knowledge and ways of life remain essential to tackling climate disruption effectively — particularly in combating deforestation and forest degradation, conserving and sustainably managing forest biodiversity, and adapting farming practices.

To push them off the land is therefore to remove a decisive part of the territory's climate adaptation capacity. That is the message PIFEVA carries to local, national and international authorities.

THE PROJECT IN NUMBERS

120 Indigenous women leaders trained

60 young women with leadership potential supported

30 customary and political-administrative authorities mobilised

12,030 ocal community members sensitised