3 Indigenous Mindanao communities

2 Bills

in the 20th Congress

30M+

Filipino students reached via Klima Kurriculum Act mandate

18 Months Project Implementation

30 million students from the most climate-vulnerable country on earth will finally learn climate solutions from their own ancestors. A multimedia archive embedded into curriculum and policy. Systems change at scale.

KLIMA KOLLECTION
AN INDIGENOUS CLIMATE ADAPTATION ARCHIVE OF THE PHILIPPINE ARCHIPELAGO

Mountain, lake, and sea. Three Indigenous Mindanao communities. One replicable model.

The most climate-vulnerable country on earth has been practicing climate adaptation for centuries. Klima Kollection is the first multimedia archive to document how three Indigenous Mindanao communities (the Bagobo Tagabawa of Mt. Apo, the Maranaw of Lake Lanao, and the Sama-Bajau of Tawi-Tawi) are practicing climate adaptation through ancestral knowledge.

The project is led from Mindanao by Mindanaoans. Every story becomes source material for Klima Kurriculum (the first national climate curriculum in Philippine history, partnered with Khan Academy Philippines), required content for Klima 101 under the Klima Kurriculum Act, and evidence for the Internally Displaced Persons Bill of Rights.

Indigenous knowledge, documented at its source, codified into curriculum and law.

The Klima Kollection Framework
A replicable model for community-owned Indigenous climate documentary work

The Framework solves the IP-extraction problem that has historically limited Indigenous knowledge documentation. It is structured as a B-Corp-style standard with two surfaces: an open-source methodology that any climate-vulnerable country can adopt, and a Klima-Certified license tier that funds Foundation operations through training, certification, and federation membership fees.

FPIC-anchored consent

Under Philippine RA 8371 and NCIP Administrative Order No. 3 (2012).

Community co-authorship

On every essay, photograph, and footage segment.

Three-stage review rights

At transcript, draft, and final-proof checkpoints, with binding withdrawal authority.

Perpetual community ownership

Of all source material. Klima holds non-exclusive publication license only.

50% royalty share

To source communities through the Klima Kollection Community Fund.

Statutory pathway

To national curriculum integration via the Klima Kurriculum Act (Section 14d, Section 25).

Three Communities. Three Ecologies.

Bagobo Tagabawa

Mt. Apo, Davao del Sur

The Bagobo Tagabawa have stewarded the old-growth forests of Mt. Apo through ancestral domain governance for over a thousand years. Coffee cultivation, ceremonial calendar, and reforestation in ancestral domain are the documentary anchors.

Community lead: Bai Jerlina Owok, Chieftain of Barangay Binaton, Digos City. Partnership through PeaceBuilders Community Inc. and Coffee for Peace.

Maranaw

Lake Lanao, Lanao del Sur

The Maranaw hold centuries of water knowledge tied to Lake Lanao, the second-largest and oldest lake in the Philippines. Water-reading practices, post-Marawi knowledge transmission, and lake seasonal patterns are the documentary anchors.

Community lead: Shri Tahanie B. Macaumbao, Founder of Unawa Philippines, WWF-NYC Member, Maranaw heritage.

Sama-Bajau

Tawi-Tawi and Sulu Archipelago

The Sama-Bajau navigate sea currents climate scientists are only now beginning to model. Sea-current navigation, fishing knowledge, and the seasonal cycles of the Sulu Sea are the documentary anchors.

Sulu Sea Community Lead: Renz Nathaniel Luyao (WWF Philippines National Youth Council, UNICEF Youth Foresight Fellow, 10th Our Ocean Conference Busan speaker).

The Team

Yale-trained across journalism, law, and biology.
Inside the National Geographic Explorer network.
COP26 Featured Poet.
Generation Earthshot

Razel Suansing — Project Leader

Co-Founder and CEO of Klima. Chief Political Affairs Officer in the 20th Philippine Congress and principal drafter of the Klima Kurriculum Act and the Internally Displaced Persons Bill of Rights. Mindanaoan, Sultan Kudarat. Yale University Journalism Scholar, Charles W. Clarke Prize in Comparative Politics. Incoming MSt at Cambridge. MIT Asia-Pacific Sustainability Leadership Fellow.

Christian S. Templonuevo — Lead Documentary Photographer

Mindanao-rooted documentary photographer based in Koronadal, South Cotabato, one hour from Sultan Kudarat. Bachelor of Multimedia Arts. Past visual work for the Philippine Department of Tourism and Viory News. Specializes in community, culture, and everyday life across Southern Philippines.

Yvanna Vien Tica — Lead Writer and Editor

Filipina-American writer published in POETRY, TriQuarterly, Shenandoah, and Prairie Schooner. Recognized by the Hippocrates Young Poet Prize, the Ledbury Poetry Festival Competition, and COP26. Yale (B.A. expected 2026); incoming MFA at Indiana University Bloomington.

Renz Nathaniel Luyao — Sulu Sea Community Lead and Ocean Conservation Anchor

Producer-photographer and youth ocean policy practitioner from the Zamboanga Peninsula. National Youth Council member at WWF Philippines. UNICEF Youth Foresight Fellow. Youth Leadership Council member at EarthEcho International. Featured speaker at the 10th Our Ocean Conference (Busan, 2025). East Asian Seas Futures Award. Graduate of Philippine Science High School Zamboanga.

Kaylin Mahal Smith — Project Manager and Klima Co-Lead

Yale University, B.A. in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. Parker Huang Fellow. Field work with Bataan Garden of Wisdom School and Project Tinatangi in the Philippines. Research published in the Journal of Asian Health.

Aidan Williams — External Production Advisor

Producer at Ngoteya Wild, the award-winning Tanzanian wildlife and conservation production house co-founded by National Geographic Explorer Hans Cosmas Ngoteya. Yale University, B.A. in Film and Media Studies. Earlier industry experience at Blumhouse Productions.

Our Team's Work

"I am watching the ocean drown us in a fit of love."

"The Ocean Makes Creatures of Us," COP26, 2021, Yvanna Tica

"When President George W. Bush declared a war on terrorism, headlines about Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle East populated the news cycle. The War on Terror evokes images of military troops operating in dry, hot deserts or mountainous terrain. Yet, across the Pacific Ocean, there was another front of the War on Terror: Southeast Asia. These clashes would last five months and lead to a humanitarian crisis resulting in 353,000 internally displaced persons."

"A Child of the Forgotten War on Terror," Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2022

because the peaks spear the sky like nails biting into familiar mangoes; because I had not spoken Tagalog in weeks; because my mother had texted me a picture of the first red berries of our aratilis tree..."

"Bildungsroman," Zócalo Poetry Prize Honorable Mention, 2024

"My K-complexes refuse to let me believe this is all imaginary, that a nation rejecting its blood is innocent of its sickness. I almost tell him I've hunted the mountains for respite. The roads etched into their sides like scars."

"At a Wake, I Confront," Grand Prize, 1455 Teen Poetry Contest

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Indigenous Mindanao communities ​