Kenono Foundation
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Kenono Foundation
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Supporting Indigenous governance systems and community-led biodiversity conservation.
Kenono strengthens, supports, and trains Community Conserved Areas (CCAs) to better protect the forests they oversee.
Kenono supports CCAs through documentation, governance strengthening, knowledge exchange, and policy engagement.
In Nagaland, where communities and clans own nearly all forest land, CCAs are the state’s main form of conservation, and one of South Asia’s most extensive Indigenous-led conservation systems.
The village council passes a resolution setting aside part of the village-governed forest land, its boundaries walked and agreed by the clans and households who own it, to be preserved and protected.
A conservation board or forest committee sets the rules, which can include bans on hunting, felling, and destructive fishing; seasonal closures; fines under customary law; and village guards on patrol for enforcement.
CCAs create a management plan and a biodiversity register. They are also recognised in district and state networks, which in turn provide the recognition, knowledge, and support it needs to do lasting work.
Kenono trains village youth to document their CCA and lead forest committees and biodiversity volunteers in community-led monitoring.
Kenono works with village councils, conservation boards, and forest committees on the rules, plans, and finances that keep a CCA working after the project money ends.
Exposure visits, the annual Nagaland CCA Meet and the CCA Forum’s portal let villages learn from each other across districts and state borders.
CCAs have no formal status in state law. Kenono carries the villages’ case to the state and national levels.
Kenono’s flagship conservation project, 2023 to 2027, supported by The Nature Conservancy with Kalpavriksh, LEMSACHENLOK, and Strand Life Sciences as implementing partners.
Monitoring training in the field
Exposure tour to Khonoma and SendenyuKenono is part of the worldwide movement of Indigenous Peoples’ and Community Conserved Territories and Areas (ICCAs), also called Territories of Life.
The institutions that declare and govern each CCA, and the Rengma Village Council Chairman Forum, which resolved to adopt forest biodiversity conservation across every range of Tseminyu District.
The state network of CCAs, with which Kenono works on a landscape approach to conservation and corridors. Kenono built and hosts the Forum’s microsite on the CCA portal.
India’s working group on CCAs. Kenono’s Chief Executive was appointed Chair for the 2025 to 2027 term.
Kenono is a member of the ICCA Consortium and sits on the Steering Committee of the ICCA Registry at the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, carrying community voices from Nagaland into global policy spaces.