After a lifetime of human rights advocacy on behalf of indigenous peoples, Joji Cariño, Senior Policy Advisor at the Forest Peoples Programme, has just been awarded the Frankfurt Conservation Award 2025 by the Bruno H. Schubert-Foundation.
Joji comes from a prominent family of Igorot indigenous activists from the Central Cordillera of the Philippines. As a teenager she was swept up by the mobilisation of her people in opposition to the Chico Dams project being pushed through by the Filipino dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, and funded by the World Bank. Indigenous opposition to the dams during this period of Martial Law was met with militarisation and hundreds of arrests. Joji witnessed the brutal crackdown against the protesting Igorot by the security services and was deeply affected by the assassination of prominent indigenous leader, Macli-ing Dulag, who was the chief convenor of the peace pacts between the Kalinga and Bontoc peoples opposing the dams, which would have flooded large parts of their homelands.