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H-05

Protect and preserve Indigenous cultural land and heritage

Indigenous peoples hold secure rights to their lands, and their cultures and languages live on.

5 organizations tracked  ·  0 vetted

The goal in brief

GoalIndigenous peoples hold secure rights to their lands, and their cultures and languages live on.

Indigenous people worldwide1
476 million
of Earth’s land Indigenous peoples manage2
25%+
of languages at risk of disappearing3
40%

Why it matters

Some 476 million Indigenous people manage or hold rights to over a quarter of the world’s land, overlapping about 40% of its protected areas and ecologically intact landscapes.12 Yet they make up 18.2% of the world’s extreme poor, and about 40% of the world’s languages, most of them Indigenous, are at risk of disappearing, taking knowledge and traditions with them.13

How we’ll know it’s done

Finish line
Every Indigenous people’s lands, territories and resources legally recognized and protected, as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples calls on states to do.4
What counts
Title that holds up in practice, with Indigenous peoples in control of their land, languages and sacred sites.
How it’s checked
Maps of Indigenous lands with legal title, and surveys of which languages are still passed on to children.
Our part
We’ll fund this once our vetting team vets an organization working on it.

What follows

  • Forests, savannas and wetlands kept intact under Indigenous stewardship.E-02Protect and regenerate key ecosystems
  • Habitat for threatened species on lands that overlap many protected areas.W-01Protect endangered and critical species
  • Carbon kept in the ground and in trees, since Indigenous-held lands tend to see less deforestation.E-08Establish global climate equilibrium
  • Secure land and livelihoods for communities far more likely to live in extreme poverty.H-02End poverty

How it can be solved

The approaches to this goal, and how many of the organizations taking each one we’ve vetted.

  • Land rights and defense

    Indigenous peoples securing, governing and defending their territories.

    3 organizations

  • Culture and knowledge

    Sharing Indigenous knowledge and culture on Indigenous terms.

    2 organizations

Who’s working on it

We only call a solution proven, measurable and scalable once our vetting team has vetted it. Everything else here, the team is tracking.

Vetted0 organizationsReviewed by our vetting team, and passed all three tests.

  • Proven

    It has worked, with results to show.

  • Measurable

    Its impact can be counted.

  • Scalable

    It can grow toward the size of the goal.

None on this goal yet. When our vetting team vets an organization working on it, it appears here with its vetting report.

Not vetted5 organizationsTracked by our vetting team. Not vetted yet, so we make no claims about them.

Listing an organization isn’t an endorsement. Not vetted means just that: our vetting team is tracking it, and we make no claims about it yet. Last reviewed October 2026.

Know a solution we’re missing?

Submit a solution that tackles a goal on Humanity’s Checklist.

  1. Tell us about it in a short form.
  2. Our Solutionary Team reviews every submission.
  3. If it looks like a fit, we’ll start vetting the project.
Submit a project (opens in a new tab)

Sources

  1. 1. World Bank, “Indigenous Peoples,” World Bank (2026) (opens in a new tab)
  2. 2. Garnett et al., “A spatial overview of the global importance of Indigenous lands for conservation,” Nature Sustainability (2018) (opens in a new tab)
  3. 3. UN DESA, “More than words: International year kicks off to protect indigenous languages,” United Nations (2019) (opens in a new tab)
  4. 4. UN General Assembly, “United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” Article 26, United Nations (2007) (opens in a new tab)