Ayo youth and student leaders work together with union and political leaders of the community to hold two training workshops on the importance of reforestation and environmental conservation, and on forestry techniques and sustainable development for each of three Ayo Ayo communities in the province of Aroma, Bolivia. Following the workshops, nine-thousand trees will be planted by the families of the communities, reforesting three hectares of land with six native tree varieties. A community organizing program that assists the U'wa in in their efforts to fight the present and future attempts at destructive oil exploration and development on their ancestral lands. These funds assisted the Yaqui in establishing boundaries of their lands. This grant helped the Federation organize a national march with the participation of Indigenous and non-Indigenous organizations and communities to demand nullification of the 1850 Decree and application of the 107 Convention of the OIT from the Supreme Court that guarantees the collective property of the lands traditionally occupied by Indigenous communities.
Local biodiversity is enhanced through the re-introduction of Indigenous plants and trees.
This project will rescue and revive native agricultural practices and technologies, promote the recuperation of authentic and endangered species, improve the agricultural production, and take advantage of the diversification of the traditional agricultural resources with the aim of providing agricultural and nutritional security. In addition to making grants, Abya Yala Fund provides Indigenous communities and organizations with information on sources of funding and technical support. Training will include many areas related to environmental management, organizational development , and models of alternative indigenous development such as administration, communications technology, proposal writing, project management, resource management, traditional indigenous knowledge, and indigenous rights. The meetings will emphasize training to develop leadership and organizational capacity at the local level and increasing the ability of indigenous communities to find and effectively use project funding. Indigenous communities and organizations from Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador and Bolivia, which have implemented their own self-development models, were invited to the meeting to share their experiences, discuss what models of community development have worked and ideas about future action.