Despite significant progress by many governments in recognizing forest land rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, a daunting reality on the ground remains cause for concern: there has been a slowdown in the recognition of community rights to forest land in tropical forest countries.

The decline in both the pace of recognition of rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities to forests and the strength of reforms enacted since 2008 are key findings of the new RRI report titled What Future for Reform?, which tracks changes in forest tenure since 2002 across almost 90 percent of the world’s forests. These findings are particularly disheartening given the growing consensus that community ownership is a key factor in the successful protection of forests in many developing countries. It also comes despite high hopes that recent international commitments and initiatives — such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and REDD+ — would catalyze a new wave of recognition and defense of local rights.

However, as we look forward into 2014, we are convinced that this “slowdown” is only a pause on the way to major changes in the status quo led by hundreds of millions of Indigenous Peoples and local communities around the world. Globally, government leaders and institutions, as well as investors and companies with stakes in land and other natural resources, are under increasing pressure to include and consult these groups, and recognize their claims.

In support of this movement, RRI, the International Land Coalition, and Oxfam — three of the world’s leading networks working on forest and land rights — have joined together to call for the inclusion of community land rights in the UN Post-2015 Development Agenda. Their call is not isolated:  2014 has already seen growing local movements and new commitments from the private sector  to recognize the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities to land and other resources. And as we look ahead, the upcoming World Parks Congress, the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, and the UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP) on Climate Change provide ample opportunity to convince all actors — governments, investors, international conservation and development organizations and others — of the vast benefits secure community land rights can unlock.

Learn more about RRI’s work in all of our priority countries from January – March 2014