Kenono Foundation
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Kenono Foundation is an Indigenous organisation that conserves forests and develops alternative livelihoods for forest-dependent communities in the Northeastern states of India.
Lasting conservation is achieved when communities become custodians and beneficiaries of the land, forest, and water they live with.
Kenono Foundation is founded and led by members of the Rengma Naga community, and centres our communities and heritage to conserve our natural resources.
Our work rests on strong Naga Indigenous institutions and governance. The forest, along with all of its treasures, is integral to the Naga identity, and, vice versa, the Naga identity is integral to maintaining the sanctity of our forests.
Kenono does deep place-based work at the intersection of sustainable development and natural resource management, ensuring long-term harmony of people and forests.
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Restoring forest and building resilience across the ridges.
Kenono’s place in the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot.
Trees in the Sendenyu wetland, near our Biodiversity Education Experience CentreRural livelihoods and collective entrepreneurship.
Strengthening the village institutions that govern land and forest.
Community-owned carbon projects that pay for restoration.
Our developmental model and theory of change depends on a flywheel of restoration that creates community-owned enterprises, which in turn fund our conservation. This flywheel is essential for our work to remain sustainable and self-sufficient.
Nagaland lies within the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot, home to 2.37 million square kilometres of tropical Asia east of the Brahmaputra, with unique and endangered flora and fauna. It is among the most threatened of the world’s 36 hotspots. Kenono’s work directly strengthens the biodiversity of this region, through our work with Community Conserved Areas and Biodiversity Management Committees.
Kenono means come together, and support each other.
Kenono Foundation was founded in 2022 by Ruchinilo Kemp and Haiwalo Apon, and promoted by Zunpha Multipurpose Cooperative Society Ltd., at the call of the Rengma Naga tribe.
Today, the Foundation works in five Community Conserved Area (CCA) landscapes covering about 12,000 hectares and 128 villages, from Tseminyu across five districts of Nagaland and into Karbi Anglong in Assam.
Kenono’s team encompasses members of the Rengma Naga tribe, with backgrounds in forestry, ecology, development, and education, committed to the long-term restoration and preservation of the landscape. From our programme development and strategy to our field operations, we hire completely locally.
Preserving the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of the community.
Kenono records the conservation knowledge of the Rengma Naga in the words of the elders, women, men, and young people who hold it, and builds the capacity to carry it forward: internships across every programme, fellowships inside the Zunpha cooperative, and hands-on training in conservation for the next generation of stewards.
Reports, studies, plans, and stories from the Foundation’s work across Nagaland.