Across southeast Asia, indigenous communities often lack formal legal title to their ancestral lands. As a result, traditional holdings can face expropriation and encroachment by business interests or by the state. Law groups on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines have responded by helping indigenous groups use the power of the law to protect the land they rightfully own. Watch their story.

Photography by Sanjit Das. Video by Suzanne Lee. Commissioned by Open Society Foundation.