Getting Started: How to Learn About Communities Near Your Business Activities
We would like to thank our advisor Dr. Michael Kotutwa Johnson for his contribution to this article and his guidance to our firm.
When a nature risk assessment identifies Indigenous Peoples or local communities near your business activities, it marks the beginning of one of the most important relationships your company can build.
As part of a nature risk assessment, the Dunya Analytics platform assesses business activity locations for importance to communities. It highlights proximity to the lands of Indigenous Peoples and local communities (‘Communities’), to critical natural assets on which people depend, and in the USA, to disadvantaged populations that have been or may be vulnerable to environmental impacts.
Communities identified in a nature risk assessment should be considered potential affected Communities and relevant stakeholders for disclosure requirements and corporate responsibility. But even more importantly, as companies look for opportunities for nature investment, the traditional knowledge held by Communities is the key to a sustainable, nature-positive future. Ecological restoration projects that are co-designed from the start with Communities are more successful. Where the opportunity exists, Communities’ knowledge should be incorporated in nature restoration and stewardship projects.
This guide is meant to provide some introductory resources for companies that have identified the presence of Communities in proximity to their operations or supply chain and are seeking guidance on next steps. These resources are a starting point for companies to educate themselves before initiating engagement.
Before any outreach begins, companies should approach this work with humility. Desktop research can tell you a great deal about a community's history, land tenure, and demographic context, but it cannot tell you how that community wants to be engaged, who they recognize as legitimate to speak on their behalf, or what matters most to them right now. Research should inform your company's preparation and respect for the community. The goal of research is to reduce the burden on communities to explain their own context from scratch, so that the conversation can start from a place of genuine listening. This is the foundation for trust-based relationships.
As companies move farther along on their nature journeys to the point where they are ready to implement nature projects, they should frame their plans in a way that co-creates solutions, integrates traditional knowledge, and builds in benefit sharing from the start.
Foundational Resources
The SBTN’s Stakeholder engagement and science-based targets for nature and the TNFD’s Guidance on Engagement with Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities and affected stakeholders each provide detailed recommendations to shape an organizational approach to engagement with Communities defined by authentic engagement, trust-based relationships, and sustained allyship.
Additionally, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) establish the global standard for corporate human rights due diligence, including the responsibility to identify, prevent, and remedy adverse impacts on affected communities.
Free, Prior, and Informed Consent
All engagement with Communities should be conducted in accordance with the principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), the internationally recognized right of communities to provide or withhold consent regarding activities that may affect their lands, resources, or cultural heritage.
For an introduction to the principle, the Institute for Human Rights and Business provides a concise overview: What Is Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)?
For organizations prepared to design a formal consultation process, the Food and Agriculture Organization's FPIC: A Manual for Project Practitioners sets out a six-step methodology developed in coordination with major international humanitarian and development organizations, and is applied well beyond its original agricultural context.
Demographic Research
Conducting desktop research about Communities before initiating engagement is a way of respecting their time. Companies that arrive informed reduce the burden on Communities to explain their own history, land status, and circumstances. Note that this research should inform your preparation, but not substitute for what you will learn directly from a community once a relationship begins. Here are some resources for gathering information about the demographic profile and land tenure status of Communities.
| Database | Geographic Coverage | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Native Land Digital | Global | https://native-land.ca/ |
| LandMark | Global | https://landmarkmap.org/map |
| Indigenous Population Statistics Index | Taiwan | https://data.gov.tw/en/datasets/18650 |
| Native Land Information Center | United States of America | https://nativeland.info/ |
Note that publicly available information about a Community does not mean a company is free to use it however it wants. Communities retain authority over their own history, land status, and cultural context, and how a company uses that information should reflect that authority. This means using research to prepare respectfully rather than to assert expertise about a community's own circumstances, being cautious about drawing conclusions from incomplete or outdated public records, and recognizing that a Community's own account of itself should always take precedence over what a database says about them.
This reflects the spirit of the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, and Ethics), even where the information falls outside formal data governance contexts.
Identifying Points of Contact
If your company does not already have an established relationship with the Communities identified in your assessment, the resources below can help you begin identifying who to reach out to. Treat these directories as a starting point for making initial contact, not as a determination of who represents a community. The right approach is to use an initial contact to ask the community who they recognize as the appropriate people to engage with going forward, rather than assuming that a name found in a directory is authorized to speak on the community's behalf.
| Name | Geographic Coverage | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Tribal Leaders Directory | United States of America | https://www.bia.gov/service/tribal-leaders-directory |
| National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) | United States of America | https://www.ncai.org/ |
| Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating Committee (IPACC) | 21 African countries | https://www.ipacc.org.za/ |
| First Nations Major Projects Coalition | Canada | https://fnmpc.ca/ |
| Tribal Liaison Officers and Points of Contact | United States of America | https://www.doi.gov/priorities/tribal-consultation/tribal-liaison-officers |
| Indigenous Peoples Network | Global | https://www.pocassetlandtrust.org/about/indigenous-peoples-network/ |
| European Network on Indigenous Peoples | European Union | https://www.enip.eu/ |
|
Ecumenical Indigenous Peoples Network |
Global | https://www.oikoumene.org/what-we-do/ecumenical-indigenous-peoples-network |
| Asia Indigenous Peoples Network on Extractive Industries and Energy | Asia | https://aipnee.org/ |
| Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP) | Asia | https://aippnet.org/ |
| Indigenous Environmental Network | Global | https://www.ienearth.org/ |
| Indigenous Resource Network | Canada | https://www.indigenousresourcenetwork.ca/ |
Once you've identified a potential point of contact, frame your outreach as a request for guidance rather than a proposal. Ask how the community prefers to be engaged, who else should be involved, and what process they'd want to see before any substantive discussion of your company's plans begins.
Structuring the Engagement Process
To get a sense of the whole process beyond initial engagement, consult the following frameworks:
The Science Based Targets Network's Stakeholder Engagement Guidance provides detailed methodology for identifying legitimate community representatives and principles for designing meaningful engagement.
The Accountability Framework's Operational Guidance on Respecting the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities translates core community rights, including self-determination and FPIC into specific and actionable corporate commitments.
The Harvard Project on Indigenous Governance & Development, in their resource On Improving Tribal-Corporate Relations In The Mining Sector: A White Paper on Strategies for Both Sides of the Table, describes how a company should approach tribal leadership as a government, rather than a stakeholder group. It also describes how for long-term partnerships, documenting institutional learning in terms of what has worked and what has not, and giving someone in the company actual ownership of tribal engagement, is beneficial.
Benefit Sharing
While benefit sharing is part of a later stage in the nature journey, companies should frame their initial thinking around nature investment to include benefit sharing with Communities.
Where engagement with Communities includes traditional knowledge, the Convention on Biological Diversity's framework on Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) provides a basis for structuring equitable arrangements between companies and communities, including monetary and non-monetary forms of benefit. Practical guidance on designing, communicating, and deploying data tools for benefit sharing can be found in the SBTN Stakeholder Engagement Guidance.
Case Studies
Here are a few case studies that highlight positive examples of corporate and Community partnerships:
The Ford Foundation: Advancing Forest Tenure for Indigenous Peoples describes how corporate partnerships can support Communities’ participation and advocacy by creating new mechanisms for channeling funds to Community organizations, supporting protections for land defenders, and more.
Management of Community Forests for the Reduction of Deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon is a carbon markets project showing corporate investments in biodiversity conservation with positive impacts to local communities, including strengthening governance and management of the environment by native communities and creating sustainable inclusive businesses by native communities.
The Rights and Resource Group (RRG) Partnership with Global Indigenous People and Local Community Funds describes a growing set of finance mechanisms aimed at channeling funding, including private sources, directly to Community organizations.
The Opportunity Ahead
Identifying that Communities are near your business activities is a gift. It means your company has an opportunity to draw on traditional knowledge and stewardship developed over generations. The steps that follow, learning a Community's history and land status, identifying who they recognize as legitimate representatives, and structuring engagement around Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, all build toward a relationship that can eventually support genuine nature investment and benefit sharing. How your company approaches this early stage shapes whether trust-based relationships are possible later. The resources in this guide are a starting point for building that understanding.
The mindset that should guide these first steps, humility, patience, and respect for Communities' own authority, is the same mindset that should carry through every later stage of engagement.
