Advancing community rights in Malaysia’s biodiversity, climate change and physical planning policies

General

Although indigenous customary land rights are recognised in Malaysia, the state often limits them as a form of user rights and unilaterally determines their boundaries, without the issuance of documents. Thus, logging and land development operations often encroach upon such territories, which include forests. Meanwhile, fisher communities are threatened by unsustainable fishing practices and land reclamation, which destroy coastal and marine ecosystems. The IKI Small Grants project develops policy and legal reform proposals that integrate the protection of community rights into the protection of these ecosystems, which can counteract the violations of both community and environmental rights, in support of national biodiversity and climate change policies. The project targets ten indigenous and six fisher communities and conducts information campaigns to encourage local and national decision-makers to support these proposed reforms on community rights and natural resource management.