Peter Bosip
Papua New Guinea communities hold customary rights to their forests, yet illegal logging and mining operations routinely seize land. Communities lack the legal knowledge and support to defend their rights, leaving millions of hectares vulnerable to destruction.
The Idea
Barefoot Lawyers
Organization
Organization
Centre for Environmental Law & Community Rights (CELCOR) Inc
The Mission
Healthy intact ecosystems in Papua New Guinea.
How It Works
CELCOR trains community members as "barefoot lawyers"—paralegals equipped with legal knowledge, phones, and ongoing supervision from qualified attorneys. These barefoot lawyers educate communities about their customary land rights, mobilize resistance against illegal logging and mining operations, and escalate cases to lawyers when threats emerge.
The Dream
NGOs across Papua New Guinea and similar contexts train and support barefoot lawyers who protect customary forests, paid by philanthropy and big aid backing community-led legal defense.
Why We Picked Peter
Peter Bosip has led CELCOR for over a decade, bringing environmental science training and five years at Conservation International to Papua New Guinea's land rights battles. Since founding CELCOR in 2000, they've trained 300 people across 30 communities, protected 5 million hectares, and stopped five logging operations plus the country's first deep-sea mining attempt. The big test is proving the barefoot lawyer pilot can scale beyond community legal education to systematic land defense across PNG's threatened forests.
