This report examines the current state of play as countries prepare for the operationalization of Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement, offering a systematic analysis of the recognition of the carbon rights held by Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples in 33 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America as of August 2024.
This study provides an up-to-date assessment of the status of Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local community women’s forest tenure rights across 35 key forest countries in the Global South. In doing so, it aims to inform and encourage gender-transformative actions by governments and other stakeholders impacting community forests, lands and other resources.
From August 19–22, 2024, public forest agency leaders within the MegaFlorestais network from some of the world's most forested countries met in the state of Pará in northcentral Brazil. They gathered to learn about ongoing forest management programs, progress and challenges of elevating the role of community-led conservation, preventing forest loss, and promoting restoration and reforestation around the world.
This policy brief summarizes findings from a study undertaken by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) and McGill University to systematically analyze the carbon rights held by Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples in 33 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
In response to the dearth of data on funding for women and the need to support international advocacy promoting direct funding to Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local community women’s groups and organizations, the Rights and Resources Initiative initiated a bottom-up research effort to build a baseline for measuring funding levels reaching community women on the ground and assess the extent to which existing grants and funding mechanisms are considered fit-for-purpose.
This report aims to influence the localization agenda and improve bilateral policies and practices to ensure that more direct, fit-for-purpose support reaches Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples and their supporting organizations to secure tenure rights and conserve key ecosystems and biodiversity.
Rights and Resources Initiative and Rainforest Foundation Norway are thrilled to announce the launch of the Path to Scale dashboard, a new open-source online tool that gives easy access to donor funding data for Indigenous Peoples’, Afro-descendant Peoples’, and local communities’ tenure and forest guardianship.
On 17 September 2023, over 70 rightsholder representatives and their allies joined together for a global dialogue on how climate finance can or should support their vision for the future in a world impacted by climate change. Held under Chatham House Rules, the dialogue sought to go beyond known gaps and challenges to address the critical needs of rightsholders and begin defining pathways that can support a more just, equitable, inclusive, sustainable, and climate-resilient future for all.
Co-authored with 15 organizations from across Asia—spanning youth groups, Indigenous networks, and ally organizations—this new report collates and brings to the fore the experiences and leadership of youth activists from across the continent into a call to action.
This edition is in Bahasa Indonesia; full English report is coming soon! Co-authored by 16 organizations from across Asia—spanning youth groups, Indigenous networks, and ally organizations—this new report collates and brings to the fore the experiences and leadership of youth activists from across the continent into a call to action.
This report presents the most comprehensive and up-to-date picture of global progress towards the legal recognition of community-based land tenure, and offers a baseline against which the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework 2030 Targets can be monitored.
This document shares emerging ideas, principles, and good practices to socialize the concept of community monitoring among companies and investors in land-based sectors, as well as outline steps they can take to meaningfully engage with Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples to monitor and respond to the potential environmental and human rights impacts of their operations, supply chains, or investments.
Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples must be recognized and supported as key actors and leaders in combatting climate change and conserving the Earth’s natural diversity to have any hope of reaching global climate and biodiversity goals. This paper provides an initial overview of emerging experience with “fit for purpose” approaches to channel resources at scale to collective rightsholders and their supporting organizations to conserve and manage forests and rural landscapes.
Over the course of 2022, one hundred leaders of grassroots networks in 22 countries—men, women, and youth among Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples—were interviewed about their hopes, dreams, and fears for the future.
This report argues that to effectively and equitably mitigate climate change and biodiversity loss, new conservation modalities are needed to end exclusionary approaches, embrace human rights-based strategies, and advance the recognition of the land, forest, water, and territorial rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities who customarily own over half of the world’s lands.
This research provides a timely reminder of the global significance of community-held lands and territories; their importance for the protection, restoration, and sustainable use of tropical forestlands across the world; and the critical gaps in the international development architecture that have so far undermined progress towards the legal recognition of such lands and territories.
After more than a decade of engaging with Indigenous Peoples and local communities through REDD+ readiness and implementation efforts, participant countries of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) have gained insights into what is needed to strengthen communal and collective land forest tenure. This comprehensive report provides an assessment of countries affiliated with the FCPF's Carbon Fund and lays out cross-cutting challenges as well as opportunities to advance Indigenous Peoples' and local communities' land rights.
A growing body of evidence suggests that recognition of the collective tenure rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendants is a powerful and cost-effective strategy for addressing the climate and biodiversity crises. In spite of this, international funding for rights recognition pales in comparison to donor mobilization around alternative solutions to these crises.
This brief discusses legislative developments during COVID-19 in India, Indonesia, and the Philippines that undermine sustainable human-environment interactions and broader enjoyment of Indigenous and community rights over their customary territories.
This report presents an innovative, international comparative assessment on the extent to which various national-level legal frameworks recognize the freshwater tenure rights of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendants, and local communities, as well as the specific rights of women to use and govern community waters.
In India, conflicts over land can have deep and far-reaching implications for the well-being, development, and identities of communities. A land conflict can be defined as any instance in which two or more parties contest the use of, access to, or control over land and its associated resources. Land conflicts permeate rural and urban areas across all Indian states. Resolving land conflicts in India's developing economy is essential to reducing inequality and the inequities that an isolated focus on growth can exacerbate. Land Conflict Watch (LCW) has investigated the reasons for, and the impact of, land conflicts across the country over the last three years.
Companies may face operational, legal, and financial risks when operating or investing in locations where land rights are disputed or where tenure rights are not understood and respected. Perhaps more importantly, community access and rights to livelihoods and economic security may be negatively impacted by such investments. This paper illustrates how selected companies are implementing commitments to international best practices on land rights. Given that the companies referenced in this paper are in the process of developing and improving ways to address land tenure rights, the cases ought to be viewed as examples of emerging company experiences, which can contribute to establishing best practices.
If properly leveraged, natural climate solutions can contribute over 37% of cost-effective CO2 mitigation by 2030. Evidence shows Indigenous Peoples and local communities are key to achieving such outcomes. This report presents the most comprehensive assessment to date of carbon storage in documented community lands worldwide.
At a Crossroads: Consequential Trends in Recognition of Community-Based Forest Tenure from 2002-2017
This analysis reports on trends in global forest tenure from 2002-2017. It is the fourth in a series of analyses monitoring the legal recognition of forest tenure around the world.