Where

We Work

Legado works with Indigenous communities and partner organizations on three continents to collectively build Thriving Futures. In each partnership, local communities define what legacy means for their people and place and carry that vision forward for generations to come. See how Thriving Futures comes to life below.

In addition to our direct partnerships, Legado is preparing for our next chapter: Thriving Futures Everywhere. This open-source version of our 360° Thriving methodology will be available for communities and organizations worldwide to use and adapt by 2029.

Follow along at: thrivingfutureseverywhere.org

Mozambique

Activating the Power of Legacy in the Sky Island of Mount Namuli in Mozambique

In 2014, Legado brought together local community advocates, world-renowned scientists, Mozambican conservation leaders, and an international climbing team to begin working with Mount Namuli’s Lomwe communities in securing a Thriving Future for Namuli and the people who depend on it. As our inaugural program, our work with local Mozambican community members and partner organizations has shaped our philosophy of legacy and our transformative approach to development.

Today, the communities of Mount Namuli are building on this shared 12-year legacy under the leadership of the Associação Monte Namuli, which has resulted in community leadership of their Legacy Plan and resulting action on priorities related to native plan restoration, improving access to healthcare, building financial resilience, land tenure and title, and more.

Roshni Lodhia/Legado

Sample Priorities:

Strengthen financial resilience and livelihoods by expanding savings groups to help reduce our dependence on forest exploitation.

Increase land restoration by cultivating a diverse range of indigenous species vital to the recovery of degraded landscapes and long-term ecosystem health.

Support community health by uplifting our community health workers and improving their workplaces.

Learn more:

Reforesting Mount Namuli

(opens in a new tab)

Community-Led Solutions in Action

(opens in a new tab)

Partners:

Northern Kenya

Creating Thriving Futures with the Ngilai Community Conservancy

In 2020, Legado began working with local Samburu community members in Ngilai as they articulated the legacy they want to see for their community and landscape.

Working in collaboration with Legado and the Ngilai Community Wildlife Conservancy, people from the Nigilai Community created the Nkishon Supat e Ngilai project, which translates from Samburu to "Ngilai’s Thriving Future.” As part of this project, local community members created the Nkishon Supat e Ngilai Legacy Plan—the first ever community plan for Ngilai and a milestone for the Samburu peoples.

Today, community members, local leaders, and regional partners are working alongside Legado to put the priorities in their plan into action—collaboratively building their Thriving Future every day.

Roshni Lodhia/Legado

Sample Priorities:

Increase Access to Health Care While Respecting Samburu Medicine.

Improve Our Rangelands by removing invasive species and healing gullies to reduce erosion.

Make Water Access Equitable Across Our Conservancy.

Partners:

Learn more:

Meet the Gully Mamas

(opens in a new tab)

Take an Immersive Journey through Kenya

(opens in a new tab)

“Living Like Tortoises”: Elder Leadekei’s Story

(opens in a new tab)

Bridging Modern and Traditional Birth Care

(opens in a new tab)

Peru

Advancing Thriving Futures in the Amazon Rainforest

In 2022, Legado launched a partnership to bring together local communities in the Megantoni-Machiguenga Landscape in southeastern Peru: one of the world’s most critical regions for biocultural conservation.

Legado launched Futuros Vivos in partnership with Peru’s National Service of Natural Protected Areas' (SERNANP) Machiguenga Communal Reserve team. In April 2023, the collaboration grew to include the broader Megantoni-Machiguenga Landscape with the partnership of SERNANP’s Megantoni National Sanctuary (MNS).

In 2024, Legado worked with multiple partners to begin supporting legacies. We started in Saniriato, a rural community with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents, and in early 2025, the residents of Saniriato completed the first version of their Intercultural Communal Legacy Plan. More recently, we have begun using Thriving Futures with the community of Sababantiari, which celebrated the completion of its Legacy Plan in 2026.

Roshni Lodhia/Legado

Sample Priorities:

Improve our water supply by expanding the potable water service network and conserving forests to protect water supply.

Promote the learning and the transmission of values and ancestral knowledge at home.

Improve training in agricultural practices to obtain quality products without the use of chemicals for sale, such as cacao, coffee, and annatto.

Partners:

Learn more:

Launching a Legacy Plan in Saniriato

(opens in a new tab)

Celebrating 360° Thriving Change in Peru

(opens in a new tab)

Southwest Kenya

Uplifting Local Stewardship in Kenya’s Nyekweri Ecosystem

In 2024, Legado launched a partnership with The Pangolin Project to support Indigenous stewardship of the larger Nyekweri ecosystem in Narok County in Southwest Kenya. The Nyekweri ecosystem and the adjacent Maasai Mara Reserve area are a refuge for wildlife that have been stewarded by the Maasai people and other Indigenous groups for centuries.

Legado supported The Pangolin Project—which protects a key species for local Indigenous Peoples and for maintaining the ecosystem’s biodiversity—to use Thriving Futures in partnership with 20,000 Maasai landowners. These Indigenous stewards created a holistic Landscape Management Plan that preserves the biodiversity of the forest and rangelands and furthers their well-being.

Roshni Lodhia/Legado/TPP

Learn more:

Take an immersive journey through Kenya

(opens in a new tab)

Partners:

Indonesia

Growing Thriving Futures in the Ancient Forests of Indonesian Borneo

In 2024, Legado began a partnership to integrate Thriving Futures into Planet Indonesia’s work supporting Indigenous Peoples in the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan, located on the island of Borneo. Planet Indonesia works alongside Indigenous Dayak communities in Melawi District, nested in the two million-hectare Arabella Schwanner landscape, home to Borneo’s largest remaining orangutan population.

Planet Indonesia and Legado initially worked together alongside two villages in Melawi to support community members to articulate their legacies related to land rights, poverty reduction, and other holistic priorities. Legado’s 360° Thriving approach is now embedded in Planet Indonesia’s Core Model, which they will use to work with more local communities to articulate the priorities they want to pursue for their own Thriving Futures—from clean water access to sustainable natural resource management—for the long term.

Planet Indonesia

Learn more:

Legacy Planning Launches in Indonesia

(opens in a new tab)

Partners:

South Africa

Shaping the Future of Community-Led Carbon Finance

In 2026, Legado launched a global-first partnership with social enterprise Meat Naturally Africa to revolutionize how carbon financing works with and for local communities.

Across the eastern provinces of South Africa, degraded rangelands affect the health and thriving of people, livestock, and the planet. More than $130 million in carbon finance will flow directly to communities over the next decade with the intention to help restore biodiversity, improve climate resilience, and uplift community well-being. However, the challenge now is ensuring income is spent on priorities articulated and led by the local peoples who live on and steward the land—creating a global model for community-led carbon investment in the process.

Thriving Futures gives communities the tools and governance to decide how carbon revenues are invested in their long-term priorities. Together with Meat Naturally and carbon project developer TASC, Legado is engaging 10,000 farmers across 180 communities in Thriving Futures, and anticipates expanding to 15,000 farmers by 2028. The first community convenings took place in late 2026 in the community of GobhoGobho in KwaZulu-Natal, with the first Legacy Plan anticipated in early 2027.

Meat Naturally

Sample Priorities:

Strengthen financial resilience and livelihoods by expanding savings groups to help reduce our dependence on forest exploitation.

Increase land restoration by cultivating a diverse range of indigenous species vital to the recovery of degraded landscapes and long-term ecosystem health.

Support community health by uplifting our community health workers and improving their workplaces.

Learn more:

Reforesting Mount Namuli

(opens in a new tab)

Community-Led Solutions in Action

(opens in a new tab)