Consortium of Landscape Alliance for Nature Stewardship (CLANS)
Stronger Communities.
Resilient Landscapes.
CLANS is a community-led regional alliance working to protect and strengthen the landscapes, livelihoods, and governance systems of Northeast India.
Our story
CLANS began taking shape in May 2025, as a growing group of community institutions, NGOs, and partners across Northeast India came together around a shared belief: that resilient landscapes start with empowered local stewards. Since then, the alliance has been building trust, shared vision, and the foundations for a region-wide platform for stewardship.
CLANS Story
CLANS began taking shape in May 2025, as a growing group of community institutions, NGOs, and partners across Northeast India came together around a shared belief: that resilient landscapes start with empowered local stewards. Since then, the alliance has been building trust, shared vision, and the foundations for a region-wide platform for stewardship.
Why CLANS?
A green region, already cared for by its communities.
The Northeast is one of India's most forested and biodiverse regions. For generations, its forests, rivers and land have been looked after by local communities under their own customary systems. Today that stewardship is under growing pressure.
67% forest cover in Northeast India
Far above India's national average of around 25%
Community-held
Governed under customary rights, close to the people who depend on it.
Legally recognised
Schedule V and Article 371A give this stewardship legal standing.
Under pressure
Mixed forests are being cleared for single-crop plantations, weakening food security and culture.
Foundation of CLANS
We are anchored in the beliefs that advocate for:
Enabling recognition of local ethnic communities as primary stewards of forests,
biodiversity and climate systems
Building on long‐standing community stewardship by shifting from external project
templates to locally led village‐landscape systems rooted in local institutions
Aligning production and income‐focused development interventions with broader
approaches that strengthen sustainable wellbeing, resilience, and adaptation
Sensitivity to community harmony and peacebuilding, guided by the Do No Harm
(DNH) principle
CORE PRINCIPLES
Subsidiarity & Local
Governance
Decision-making starts
with the stage and local
institution.
Trust-Based,
Flexible Finance
Direct, long-term, nonpipeline
funding for
communities.
Equity, Inclusion &
Justice
Active leadership of
women, youth and
community members.
Knowledge Plurality & Ownership:
Indigenous knowledge
elevated alongside
science and research
Peace & Conflict
Sensitivity
Staying away from those
things inter-ethnic
harmony
Commons Landscape
Approach
Analyzing forestry and
community life as a
unified whole
Strengthening
Existing Local Institutions
Fostering community
councils, clan systems
and kinship groups
Community Wellbeing & Resilience
Integrating livelihoods with holistic wellbeing and climate resilience
Multi-Stakeholder Partnership
Collaboration across communities, NGOs, academia, funders, and government.
Subscribing to and promoting WE before ME philosophy
Cooperation, reciprocity, shared responsibility, and collective wellbeing over individual gain
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