2025 was a deeply challenging year for our sector, testing our coalition in unprecedented ways. But despite this, our coalition members claimed some major wins through their remarkable courage and resilience.
Local communities across Latin America, Africa, and Asia made key advances in increasing their effective representation in global climate negotiations and policies at the recently concluded 30th UN Climate Change Conference.
The president and legal representative of the Integral Forestry Association of Cruce a La Colorada (AFICC) in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala, shares the vicissitude she had to face as a leader, mother, and head of household.
At the recently concluded COP30, the central role of tropical forests and the Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and local communities that protect them was firmly in the spotlight. Despite ongoing challenges, the climate summit delivered tangible, measurable gains for communities and local forest stewards, ranging from landmark land recognitions to new funding initiatives and international collaborations.
For the first time in over 30 years of global discussions on the climate agenda, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Caribbean (UNFCCC) has referenced Peoples of African descent in core negotiation documents released at the conclusion of the meeting, including texts on Just Transition, Gender Action, and the Global Goal on Adaptation.
During COP30 in Belém, the governments of Brazil and Colombia, together with the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), officially announced the launch of the Acceleration Plan for Solutions for Afro-descendant Peoples (PAS Afrodescendiente) 2026–2030, the first regional initiative dedicated to accelerating the answers to the historical gaps in territorial recognition, environmental governance, and financing for Afro-descendant Peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean.
At COP30, RRI announced the next phase of its global coalition strategy, "From Rights to Livelihoods: Advancing Collective Economies for People and Planet," with the launch of a new Collective Livelihoods and Enterprise Network. The initiative represents a major step in linking land rights, sustainable livelihoods, and conservation through community-led economies.
As the global community prepares for UNFCCC COP30, hosted for the first time in the Amazon region of Brazil, the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) and its coalition of over 200 partners, collaborators, and allies have been sending a clear and powerful message for months: Earth’s #DefendersLeadTheWay on climate action.
Novo relatório mostra progresso inconsistente em nível nacional em relação aos direitos de posse de terras para Povos Indígenas, Povos Afrodescendentes e comunidades locais
New report shows inconsistent domestic progress on tenure rights for Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities
There are 13,318 villages in Tanzania, and of them, only 34% have a Village Land Use Plan (VLUP). A VLUP is a crucial prerequisite for obtaining a Certificate of Customary Right of Occupancy—the equivalent of securing land tenure. This can be especially important for women, who are often marginalized in land inheritance, lack access to credit services, and have little voice in disputes. Since 2021, the Ukijani project has helped issue more than 1,700 Certificates in villages throughout the country.
South Sudan, one of Africa’s most diverse countries and the world’s youngest Nation, is at a critical juncture. Despite being home to over 60 major ethnic groups, the country lacks a comprehensive land policy, leaving communities vulnerable to land grabs, exclusion, and conflict.
Have you ever wondered why people experiencing poverty in rural areas of the Global South tend to have insecure land tenure? If you have, you may have rightly concluded that the greed of powerful actors and colonialism are an important part of the story. But this barely begins to describe the forces that have strengthened and weakened tenure security across time for those with little voice and power.
Building on the State of Funding report published in April 2024, this blog post shares important updates on finance for Indigenous Peoples', Afro-descendant Peoples', and local communities' tenure and forest guardianship and examples of how direct funding is already driving important progress in tropical forests and other key ecosystems.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) has found PT Inecda Plantations, a subsidiary of Korea-based Samsung C&T Group and a certified member, in breach of its sustainability standards on the Indigenous Talang Parit territory in Indonesia.
A 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.
The Masyarakat Adat Dalem Tamblingan have lived in and around the Alas Mertajati Forest and Lake Tamblingan areas in Bali since at least the 9th century AD. Now, the community is fighting back and appealing to the government to legally recognize nearly 7,000 hectares of its customary territory.
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.
For the first time, Madagascar's traditional communities, the FOKONOLONA, are being considered in the construction of the country's land reform. Find out how this breakthrough was made possible.
Despite constant threats from extractive activities and drug trafficking, community councils of Afro-descendant Peoples from Buenaventura and Northern Cauca have successfully conserved the forest. This is their extraordinary story.
RRI collaborators are celebrating two big victories for Indonesia’s agrarian reform movement this October. The Consortium for Agrarian Reform’s years-long advocacy with peasant and smallholder farmers has led to redistribution of two agrarian reform priority locations by the Indonesian Government, transferring their control to peasant and their union who have long reclaiming and managing these lands.
More than 300 representatives of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, governments, donors, and NGOs from 47 African countries gathered last month in Namibia to collectively develop a strategy for community-led and people-centered conservation in Africa.
According to a new report by RRI, existing national laws have the potential to recognize Indigenous Peoples’, Afro-descendant Peoples’, and local communities’ rights to own or control more than 260 million hectares (Mha) of land across the world—an area twice the size of Peru.
In Nepal, the local government of Gorkha District’s Tsum Nubri Rural Municipality recently adopted a new law to formally recognize and preserve the local community’s Shagya tradition of nonviolence.