Following more than three years of investigation into the armed conflict in Colombia, the Truth Commission, which was created by the signing of the peace agreement between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2016, published the first chapter of its final report on June 28, 2022. This blog post looks at some of its key findings and testimonies.
Rights and Resources Initiative expresses its solidarity with the leaders of the Indigenous rights movement in Ecuador who are being criminalized for exercising their legitimate right to mobilize and defend their human rights.
A new study led by biologists at University of Amsterdam shows that the minimum land area requiring urgent conservation attention to safeguard Earth’s biodiversity is 64 million square km, equalling 44% of the planet’s terrestrial area.
Over 1,900 Native communities impacted by extractive and infrastructure projects during the pandemic
Platform reveals the multidimensional impact of extractive and infrastructure projects in six Latin American countries during the first two years of the pandemic. Peru and Colombia are the countries with the most affected communities.
On February 9, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights heard oral arguments in a case against the State of Guatemala that could set a precedent for Indigenous communities across Latin America, strengthening their quest for collective rights to their ancestral lands and the right to control their natural resources.
As the role played by Indigenous Peoples and local communities in safeguarding the planet gains long-due recognition by global climate and conservation initiatives, their representatives and allies have launched a new mechanism to finance locally-led efforts with full respect for the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
Lack of secure land rights has long been a key driver of war and conflict in Colombia. Since the formation of the new republic, the country’s land ownership has accumulated in the hands of a small number of elite families, leaving thousands of rural populations without access to land.
The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC) and the Campaign for Nature (C4N) receive grant from Bezos Earth Fund to jointly scale up the recognition of tenure rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples in the Tropical Andes and Congo Basin.
A new report by the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), a global partnership for successfully reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and the World Bank’s fund for Enhancing Access to Benefits while Lowering Emissions (EnABLE), outlines tangible ways global communities can make inroads in the effort to mitigate climate change through strengthening Indigenous sovereignty.
At UNFCCC COP 26, new research shows Indigenous Peoples and local communities hold at least 958 million hectares of land in countries spanning most of the world’s endangered tropical forests – yet have legal rights to less than half of their lands. Community-held lands sequester over 250 billion metric tonnes of carbon, and lack of secure rights threatens to release much of this carbon into the atmosphere through deforestation.
Secure rights to land are fundamental to enable Indigenous Peoples, and in particular, Indigenous women, to continue their effective stewardship of forests.
Blood in the jungle, we demand justice.
Não há empoderamento político sem empoderamento econômico. Esse foi o princípio por trás de uma estratégia de 2019 da Coalizão da América Latina da RRI [Iniciativa de Direitos e Recursos] para analisar sistemas econômicos com base nos próprios conceitos de desenvolvimento das comunidades dentro de seus sistemas de propriedade comum.
There is no political empowerment without economic empowerment. That was the principle behind a 2019 strategy by RRI’s Latin America coalition to analyze economic systems based on communities' own concepts of development within their collective tenure systems.
The Amazon’s peoples and representative organizations, threatened by the ongoing pandemic, are calling upon supporters across the world to join their fight to protect the Amazonian territories from this crisis. The virtual gathering, "The Jungle Screams: Voices of the Amazon," will analyze and build proposals to fight Covid-19, climate change, patriarchy, gender-based violence, and political systems that hijack democracy. This event is open to participation.
A new study from RRI documents the multidimensional impacts and multiplier effects of collective rights violations by extractive industries and infrastructure development in Latin America. The study tracks 102 cases involving Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendants, and local communities.
Regional community representatives call on the UN and governments to give local communities due recognition by defining who they are.
Indigenous people in Ecuador say their territorial rights are being systematically violated, according to a top United Nations official. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, is urging the Ecuadoran government to form a “truly plurinational and multicultural society” in accordance with its constitution and international law.
On the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, RRI’s Latin America Program Director reflects on the human rights challenges facing indigenous, Afro-descendant, and peasant communities—and how they and their allies are joining forces to take on these challenges together.
A recent Rights and Resources report provides strong evidence on the importance of recognizing and protecting indigenous rights towards mitigating forest-based emissions and curbing global warming. As a Ph.D. student coordinating the third round of data collection of CIFOR’s Global Comparative Study on REDD+ in Ucayali, Peru, I was pleased to find an on the ground example of why this is important and how tenure security can help achieve the objective of REDD+.
The world is turning its eyes toward Colombia as the new president, Iván Duque, takes office. Rights groups and peace activists are calling on the government to ensure that both the peace process and the country’s social leaders are protected.
Se firmaron dos convenios, uno entre el PCN y la Agencia Nacional de Tierras, y el otro entre el PCN y el Fondo de Tenencia…
The 15th Free Land Camp (Terra Livre, or ATL for its Portuguese acronym) brought 3,000 Indigenous Peoples and their allies together from all regions of the country at a massive encampment in Brasilia to call for justice for indigenous communities. Participants used the gathering—one of the largest ever—to create and present a unified political agenda before the Brazilian government.
A new analysis of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Mai-Ndombe province finds REDD+ investments in the region are moving forward without clear recognition of the land rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. The findings come at a crucial time, as a decision on future investment by the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility is imminent.