Secure land rights are essential to achieving many of the Sustainable Development Goals, including gender equality, conflict mitigation, climate change adaptation and mitigation, poverty alleviation, economic development, food security, and the protection of our ecosystems. Land rights are particularly essential to the well-being and livelihoods of up to 2.5 billion Indigenous Peoples and local communities globally, who manage over 50 percent of the world’s lands yet only legally own 10 percent.
Founded in 2005, the Rights and Resources Initiative, or RRI, is a global Coalition dedicated to advancing the land and resource rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and women within these groups through research, advocacy, and collaboration.
RRI’s diverse Coalition is one of the largest indigenous rights and human rights networks in the world, encompassing more than 200 organizations across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
RRI’s research on indigenous and community land rights is widely read and cited in the land, forestry, and environmental policy sectors, and has been covered in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The New Yorker, Associated Press, BBC, Reuters, Le Monde, Voice of America, and more.
RRI is headquartered in Washington, DC and Montreal, Canada, with additional staff based in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Major funders of RRI include the Ford Foundation, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, and the UK Department for International Development.
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Press Release
The Indian Supreme Court decision in February to remove millions of forest-dwelling people in five months will not only have devastating human rights implications but also hurt the global struggle to save forests and mitigate climate change, according to numerous experts. Even though implementation of the decision has been placed on hold until July, the homes of millions remains under threat.
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 a new study released today, researchers say they have identified significant flaws in ambitious forest preservation projects underway in a densely-forested region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where a decision on future investment by the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) is imminent. The DRC province of Mai-Ndombe has been a testing ground for international climate schemes designed to halt forest destruction while benefiting indigenous and other local peoples who depend on forests for their food and incomes, with US$90 million already dispersed or committed for climate finance in the province.
Released at major land rights event in Stockholm, new research reveals that respecting rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities—not forcing them off their lands—slashes…
Media Campaigns
Researchers today released a report showing that Indigenous Peoples and local communities worldwide manage massive amounts of carbon in the trees and soil of their…
Con su sombrero de ala ancha, Carlos Pérez Sebastián, nuestro guía de campo durante la semana, afirmó: “La silvicultura comunitaria es una gran alternativa para el desarrollo, pues mejora los espacios verdes, el oxígeno, el agua y la biodiversidad. Al practicar la silvicultura comunitaria, estamos garantizando un mejor futuro para nuestros hijos y nietos”. Carlos explicaba esto al pie de una ladera que un ejido (grupo forestal comunitario) había restaurado con especies autóctonas en Cruz de Oco
In 2006, India’s parliament passed the Forest Rights Act, or FRA — a groundbreaking legislation that recognizes the rights of forest dwellers to protect and manage forest resources. Over 10 years after the legislation has passed, only 3 percent of the land on which forest dwellers could potentially claim community forest rights has been secured, according to the Rights and Resources Initiative.
Nepal’s forests are rich with forest products, yet many forest dependent communities are still living in poverty and face a myriad of challenges—including lack of jobs and income. What lessons could be drawn from Mexico's "ejidos" system, which has enabled communities to benefit economically from forests?
Press Coverage
The GLF summit presented the first draft of a ‘gold standard’ on rights, which will define the principles of secure and proper rights to be applied by public, private and non-profit actors in the implementation of policies, business and initiatives in global landscape. “We wish to establish that the respect of our rights is non-negotiable,” said Joan Carlin of the Indigenous Peoples Major Group for Sustainable Development (IPMG), which leads the initiative together with the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI).
The Doi Tung Development Project, run by the Mae Fah Luang Foundation under Thai royal patronage, is held up by the United Nations as a model for ending narcotic drug cultivation and improving the lives of indigenous communities. Yet in other parts of the country, indigenous people continue to live in poverty and face challenges in accessing land, livelihoods and citizenship, according to tribal rights groups.
Washington DC-based Rights and Resources Initiative has done a wonderful job of collating dozens of studies that show that indigenous people and other forest-dependent groups have been effective stewards of forests and biodiversity in hundreds of sites throughout the world.
Indigenous peoples and local communities legally own only about 15 percent of forests worldwide, according to a 2018 analysis by the Rights and Resources Initiative, a global land rights coalition.