Philippines

Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, Inc.-Kasama sa Kalikasan/ Friends of the Earth Philippines was founded by three young law student activists in 1987, around the time of the EDSA People Power movement. LRC’s areas of work and campaigns have included indigenous peoples‘ rights, rights to land and natural resources of indigenous peoples and upland rural poor directly dependent on the land and natural resources, human rights, natural resources in general, including water, forest, energy, climate change. LRC was instrumental in the crafting and defence of the constitutionality of the Indigenous Peoples‘ Rights Act of 1997. It was the legal counsel for marginalised and poor communities, and campaigned for the repeal of the Mining Act of 1995.

Recent national campaigns include the push for an Alternative Minerals Management Bill, and petitions questioning the Mining Act of 1995 again for its unjust, inequitable, and unconstitutional provisions on government and people’s share of the proceeds. LRC became a member of FoEI in the early 1990s.