What we do
LifeMosaic is a registered charity (Charity Number SC040573) whose mission is to support indigenous peoples in exercising their right to obtain information before large-scale developments occur on their territories, and to decide freely – without coercion – whether they want to accept or refuse these developments. We do this by producing and co-ordinating the distribution of educational materials based on testimonies from communities where similar developments have already happened. We use film as a major tool since many communities come from an oral tradition and prefer audio-visual resources.

The educational materials cover impacts of developments, community organisation and community-led alternatives. Grass-roots distribution approaches ensure that they reach thousands of communities and inform critical conversations and land-use decisions.
LifeMosaic also develops and distributes educational materials for use in international advocacy bringing voices from the grassroots to decision-makers.

The issues
Indigenous peoples are the stewards of much of the world’s biological, cultural and linguistic diversity. Many of the worlds natural resources are found on lands where indigenous peoples have lived for centuries – the rainforests of Papua, Borneo and Sumatra; the Amazon and Congo basins. Large-scale developments such as logging, dams, mines, fossil fuel extraction, and plantations often deny indigenous communities their lands, livelihoods and basic rights and destroy the ecosystems on which they depend. In many places indigenous peoples are marginalised and there is little accountability for governments and corporate interests that perpetrate abuses against them. They have little or no power or political voice and information about the impacts of these developments is often unavailable.

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