As world leaders gather in Poland this week to hold a critical dialogue on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the world’s tropical forests ought to take center stage. The ambitious pledge of the Paris Agreement will be virtually unattainable if the world’s remaining tropical forests are not safeguarded.
Recent research by the Rights and Resources Initiative demonstrated that the DRC’s first REDD+ initiatives in Mai-Ndombe province do not adequately respect the rights of local peoples. What is more, they are actually failing to protect their forests.
Pressures from climate change have worsened poverty, food insecurity, human trafficking, and child marriage, activists argue. For a long time, says Ms. Bandiaky-Badji, people have focused on rural and indigenous women “as victims.”
Land rights is emerging as a big issue in the UN’s REDD+ programme to reduce deforestation, with concern focused on a tract of 9.8 million forested hectares in the Mai-Ndombe province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
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.
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.
Indonesia faces a deforestation crisis: an estimated 55 percent of forests located in concession areas were lost over a period of 15 years (2000-2015), with an estimated total loss of more than 6.7 million hectares within and outside of concession areas. The country has been losing its forests at a rapid rate for decades, and in turn, adat and local communities’ livelihoods are under threat, and the wildlife and plant diversity in their traditional territories is being lost….
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We asked six experts about the biggest opportunities, moments, and potential catalysts for change they see for community land rights in 2018. Here’s what they had to say.
The creation of platforms to acknowledge and address the role of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and rural women may represent a crucial step toward addressing the disparity between the lands Indigenous Peoples and communities protect and depend on and the legal recognition of their rights. These communities will have a formal platform at future climate talks to exchange knowledge, influence policy, and press for recognition of their rights before world leaders.
Arguably the biggest problem facing humanity—climate change—has a surprising solution: legally recognize and enforce the land rights of rural women in customary tenure systems. This November, it is essential that the world’s nations gathering in Bonn for the United Nations’ annual climate change conference (COP23) do not lose sight of this tremendous opportunity.
Alain Frechette of the Rights and Resources Institute said this was the most cost-effective way to reduce emissions. “Community-owned land sequesters more carbon, has lower levels of deforestation, greater biodiversity and supports more people than public or privately owned forest,” he told the gathering of indigenous leaders, supporters and journalists.
Des dirigeants indigènes ont prévenu mardi à Londres que, faute de financement et de mesures supplémentaires pour protéger leurs forêts, la planète n’atteindrait pas les…
Indigenous leaders and forestry experts warned on Tuesday that without more funding and protection for forests and their peoples, the world will fail to meet the ambitious goals set by the Paris Agreement.
In Indonesia, large portions of lands and forests have been allocated for industrial plantations and extractive businesses with little respect for the land rights of the Indigenous Peoples and local communities occupying or claiming these areas, despite a 2013 Constitutional Court Ruling stating that customary forests should be returned to their traditional owners.
Tomorrow, October 4, participants from 65 countries—including representatives from Indigenous Peoples, local communities, women’s groups, governments, NGOs, civil society, multilateral banks, and the private sector—are convening in…
In Brazil, indigenous and Afro-descendant communities face unprecedented threats to their hard-won territorial and constitutional rights.
Como se ve en Mongabay el 26 de Abril, 2017 Doña Neria, del campamento El Chiclero, está contenta. Es la primera vez que un grupo…
Community advocates in Brazil, Guatemala, Kenya, Taiwan, and 21 other countries call on governments, private sector to recognise that secure land rights are vital to the global struggle against climate change
Amid last year’s political shocks and challenges to the primacy of human rights, one consistent and inspiring global trend emerges: the growing recognition that the land rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities are key to ensuring peace and prosperity.
This November, two pieces of good news have come from Brazilian communities that are working with the sustainable management of their forests.
A new report authored by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC), and World Resources Institute (WRI) shows that at least…
A new RRI analysis reveals that secure tenure for Indigenous Peoples and local communities—a key climate change mitigation strategy—is notably absent from the Paris Agreement…
Honolulu (AFP) – Some of the world’s leading conservation groups are violating the rights of indigenous people by backing projects that oust them from their…
HONOLULU — Conservation organizations dedicated to protecting the world’s biodiversity hot spots often fail to take into account why the forests are still standing. Often,…