A recent study released by Washington-based research coalition Rights and Resources Initiative showed that indigenous peoples and local communities across the globe owned at least 418 million hectares, 15.2 percent of the forestland in the regions.
A recent study released by Washington-based research coalition Rights and Resources Initiative showed that indigenous peoples and local communities across the globe owned at least 418 million hectares, 15.2 percent of the forestland in the regions.
Granting forest dwellers legal rights to their traditional lands helps fight deforestation and climate change, but the vast majority of the world’s forests remain under government control with limited access for communities, researchers said. Only about 14 percent of forests, or about 527 million hectares, were legally owned or designated for local communities in 58 countries surveyed by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group.
The NGO Rights and Resources International (RRI) estimates that indigenous peoples have legally recognized rights to just 10 percent of the world’s land, though they control as much as 65 percent through customary, community-based tenure systems. Anne-Sophie Gindroz, RRI’s facilitator for South East Asia, said that the law isn’t only failing indigenous communities when it comes to awarding them title to their traditional lands.
Two new studies released on the eve of the Global Climate Action Summit illustrate the powerful links between securing indigenous and community land rights and protecting the forests that are vital to mitigating climate change. As climate researchers, advocates, and leaders gather in California this week to discuss priorities and goals at the Global Climate Action Summit, they must recognize the urgent need to secure the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities as a key climate solution.
Land managed by indigenous people holds vastly more carbon than previously thought, according to a report that calls for an urgent strengthening of their land rights to avoid its release into the atmosphere. But while communities have succeeded in securing governmental recognition of their forest rights for 15 per cent of forests globally, the pace of recognition since 2008 has decreased, according to the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), the organisation behind a second report.
The study, led by Rights and Resources International (RRI), found that indigenous peoples are far better stewards of the land than their countries’ governments.
While communities have succeeded in securing governmental recognition of their forest rights for 15 per cent of forests globally, the pace of recognition since 2008 has decreased, according to the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), the organisation behind a second report.
New analysis reveals that Indigenous Peoples and local communities manage 300,000 million metric tons of carbon in their trees and soil—33 times energy emissions from…
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and rural women have long struggled to have their customary rights to their lands and forests formally recognized—but a breakthrough in one province shows that this could be changing at a pivotal moment.
Thai campaigners have criticized a pilot program that allows villagers to live in the forest as long as they care for the environment, arguing that it does not give land tenure security.
Los gobiernos y las empresas utilizan cada vez más la persecución legal para retratar a los activistas indígenas como criminales y terroristas, poniéndolos en mayor…