RRI’s Forest Tenure data tracks forest area via 4 tenure categories, which are based on the rightsholder and strength of their rights under national law. This employs a bundle of rights approach that links RRI’s qualitative and quantitative data. The database also tracks the statutory distribution of Forest Tenure from 2002 to 2017.

Use the key to see which data is available for each of the 18 examined countries in Asia.

Key Findings About Women’s Rights to Community Forests in Asia

Several Asian countries analyzed in 2024 actively diminished community women’s forest rights through regressive legal reforms, and protections for collective Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) rights remain the weakest of the three analyzed regions.

As of 2024, Asia leads among the regions analyzed in the proportion of adequate protections for women across 4 of the 5 CBTR-specific indicators (Membership, Voting, Inheritance, and Dispute Resolution), with the greatest degree of proportional growth for adequate protections for Membership and Dispute Resolution of any region between 2016 and 2024.

However, Asia is not the leader in relation to the overarching rights of women. Asia remains the only region analyzed where all countries do not adequately recognize women’s Constitutional Equal Protection by ensuring gender-based discrimination is either prohibited or gender equality is specifically guaranteed. Indonesia is the only country out of the 35 assessed that does not adequately recognize Constitutional Equal Protection; its constitution only contains a non-discrimination provision that does not specify gender.