Ms. Asami Segundo belongs to the Kalanguya-Ikalahan indigenous cultural community whose ancestral domain is located in the Northern Philippines. She was born and raised in one of the ancestral domain’s mountain villages and studied in an indigenous school named Kalahan Academy where her leadership skills as an Ikalahan youth leader was honed. She then took up Bachelor of Science of Forestry with a specialization in Social Forestry from the University of the Philippines Los Banos. As a forestry professional, she served other indigenous communities in Nueva Vizcaya by training indigenous peoples organizations in forest management and community development. She also worked as a regional technical assistant for the USAID B+WISER Program, training forest rangers and data managers in their transition to the digitalization of the Philippine’s forest protection system. She is currently the focal person on carbon financing of the Kalahan Educational Foundation (KEF), their ancestral domain management organization. Their cultural community, through KEF, has been proactive in their possible participation in the carbon market since 1994. She also serves as the technical expert on spatial data gathering, map processing & analysis for the USAID-INSPIRE-PAFID Project. She is connected to the International Land Coalition by providing technical assistance in three-dimensional mapping and resource inventory for defense of IP territorial rights and declaration of community-led conservation areas.
Asami Segundo
