Peruvian indigenous communities have shown themselves to be exceptional environmental and conservation leaders. Their leaders have worked for a decade to ensure a government commitment to conserve 54 million hectares of forest, as a part of the REDD+ program.
Of late, land has increasingly been figuring into the development sector, for both positive and negative reasons.
Deciding whether or not to allow an investor to use community lands and natural resources is one of the most important decisions a community can make. Namati and the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) have published two new guides to help communities prepare for interactions with investors and, if they so wish, negotiate fair, equitable contracts. These guides are the first of their kind.
2018 could be transformative for the indigenous and community land rights movement, with unprecedented opportunities for scaling up rights recognition around the world.
Ask a land rights defender if there is a human right to land, and she will likely say “Yes, without a doubt.” For people around the world, land is a source of food, shelter, and livelihoods; it’s an economic asset, a crucial safety net, a link with culture and social identity, even a living relative or ancestor. Given their importance, land rights are surely human rights.
October 2017: In 2012, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) endorsed Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure, forests, and fisheries (VGGT, or the Voluntary Guidelines) to, inter alia, promote food security and sustainable development by improving secure access to land, fisheries, and forests.
By Madhu Sarin, Fellow of the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI)
Q: What is required to strengthen women’s land and community forest rights in practice in India?
Scientists present their findings on forest tenure and land use at a major conference in Peru
Peru - Latin American countries have made progress in granting land rights to communities in recent years. Nevertheless, policies often fail to consider the diversity of those communities and the different ways they use their land.
The recent World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, held this past March in Washington D.C., provided a unique opportunity to reflect on collective land tenure reforms not only from a research point of view, but also from that of governments.
By Julia Christian, Forest Governance Campaigner for FERN
Michoacán’s indigenous communities’ greatest resource is their forests. And they defend them with their lives.
