Documents

Who Owns the World’s Land?

A global baseline of formally recognized indigenous and community land rights. In recent years, there has been growing attention and effort towards securing the formal, legal recognition of land rights for Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Communities and Indigenous Peoples are estimated to hold as much as 65 percent of the world’s land area under customary systems, yet many governments formally recognize their rights to only a fraction of those lands. This gap—between what is held by communities and what is recognized by governments—is a major driver of conflict, disrupted investments, environmental degradation, climate change, and cultural extinction. This report seeks to contribute to this field as the first analysis to quantify the amount of land formally recognized by national governments as owned or controlled by Indigenous Peoples and local communities around the world ( RRI 2015).

Our Lifeways, Our Survival

Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP) have created this comic depicting indigenous peoples land use in Asia. It shows that land use is customary-based and is generally regulated by the community to allow equal access to resources. (AIPP, 2015)

Biocultural Community Protocols: A Toolkit for Community Facilitators

This toolkit is for Indigenous peoples, local and mobile communities,and supporting community-based and non-governmental organizations (CBOs and NGOs). It is intended to support communities to secure their rights and responsibilities and strengthen customary ways of life and stewardship of their territories and areas. It is directed primarily towards facilitators from the communities themselves or from supporting organizations with whom they have long-standing and positive relationships. Produced by Natural Justice, their vision is the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity through the self-determination of Indigenous peoples and local communities (Eds. Holly Shrumm & Harry Jonas. www.naturaljustice.org, 2012).

Understanding land grabbing, land rights in the 21st Century

It is critical for farmers and advocates of land rights as well as the general public to understand how and why land grabbing is happening to make a more effective, strategic campaigning to address and stop it. In this special, double edition of Focus Policy Review, this is one of the main themes discussed. As the lead article underscores, “land grabbing...have almost always been framed within the themes of economic investment, human rights, and governance. Underpinning these themes is the issue of power...” because land grabbing is a political issue with economic goals. We need to know the basics about land grabbing—the who, what, where, and how—in order to grasp the complexities of the issue. (source: focusweb.org/)

UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on Free, Prior and Informed Consent Poster

A simplified version on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) on Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) produced by Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP, 2012).