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.
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.
Growing recognition of the key roles of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities in resource governance has led to many international commitments, but taking actions to advance human rights-based approaches to climate and conversation remains a challenge. This policy brief explores the structural constraints to rights-based action and shares a framework to help implement these commitments.
This year's Climate Week theme, "We Can. We Will", focused on the urgent need for action, provided the backdrop for 25 leaders from Indigenous Peoples, NGOs, Civil Society and donors to discuss what they can do to ensure that the rights and priorities of communities are at the center of global area-based conservation efforts. This report brings together the most important aspects of this dialogue.
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.
Eighteen young leaders from 10 Latin American countries call on governments,donors, and grassroots organizations to include youth in decision-making that impacts their territorial rights, and to strengthen their understanding of biodiversity management and conservation efforts.
From June 26–30, 2023, public forest agency leaders within the MegaFlorestais network from some of the world's most forested countries met in Lake Tahoe, California for the first time since before the Covid-19 pandemic. They gathered to learn about ongoing forest management programs, share trends in forest policy, strengthen relationships, expand collective knowledge, and promote strategic innovation.
More than 200 participants from 20 countries sign a Declaration inviting government actors, policymakers, international donors, the private sector, civil society, and allies to promote the implementation of the Forum's Roadmap by strengthening and promoting the engagement of Indigenous and local community women and girls in Central Africa in biodiversity conservation and climate resilience.
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.
This report gives a snapshot of just some of our coalition’s pivotal successes that give us hope and vigor, particularly as we embark upon our new 5-year Strategic Program.
The engagement of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities must be driven by their self-determination and potential as main actors in a multifunctional transformation process. This process must be grafted on climate change mitigation and adaptation, nature and biodiversity conservation, landscape restoration, radical food systems change, the empowerment of women and youth, as well as land and resources conflict management.
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.
Pastoralists are well adapted to harsh environments and have deep knowledge about their natural resources. They have also suffered from drought, famine, political interference, physical insecurity, armed aggression, increasing impoverishment, and marginalization. Despite these obstacles, pastoralists have long managed their lands for various purposes including livestock mobility, which depends on large commonly owned landscapes, knowledge of ecosystem productivity, and on the ability to negotiate access to resources.
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.
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.
RRI’s Collaborators from the Africa region have implemented a wide range of projects with the central goal of securing Indigenous Peoples (IPs)’ and local communities (LC)s’ tenure as a baseline for other pro-community engagements. RRI is highlighting some of the best practices from these projects to strengthen our Coalition members’ advocacy and other work, now and in the future.
The global urgency to both document and secure Indigenous Peoples’, local communities’, and Afro-descendants’ customary rights cannot be overestimated. Research shows that legally recognized community…
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.