Documents

What Future for Reform?

Who owns the world’s forests, and who decides on their governance? The answers to these questions are still deeply contested. To many Indigenous Peoples and local communities who have lived in and around forests for generations, the forests belong to them, under locally defined systems of customary tenure. In most countries, however, governments have claimed ownership of much of the forest estate through historical processes of expropriation, and those claims have been formalized in statutory laws. While governments are increasingly recognizing local ownership and control of forests, forest tenure arrangements remain in dispute or unclear in many places, including low, middle, and high income countries. (Rights and Resources Initiative, 2014)

The Palangka Raya Declaration on Deforestation and the Rights of Forest Peoples

"We, forest peoples, are being pushed to the limits of our endurance just to survive. Checking deforestation requires respect for our basic rights, which are the rights of all peoples and all human beings. Deforestation is unleashed when our rights are not protected and our lands and forests are taken over by industrial interests without our consent. The evidence is compelling that when our peoples’ rights are secured then deforestation can be halted and even reversed. We call for a change in policy to put rights and justice at the centre of deforestation efforts. The world cannot afford further delays." (The Palangka Raya Declaration, 2014)

Status of Forest Carbon Rights and Implications for Communities, the Carbon Trade, and REDD+

The Rights and Resources Initiative have released its latest research on the challenges of establishing carbon rights and its implications on Indigenous Peoples and local communities. The Status of Forest Carbon Rights and Implications for Communities, the Carbon Trade, and REDD+ Investments, reveals that there are very few legal protections and safeguards regarding forest communities' rights to trade carbon. (RRI, 2014)

Weaving a New Web of Life

Philippine indigenous peoples lead the way in an innovative partnership to strengthen their self-reliance and promote their heritage in a changing world - a case study by Yasmin A. Arquiza (ILO-INDISCO, 2001)

Indigenous peoples’ rights to lands, territories, and resources

The new study by ILC confirms what we knew: indigenous peoples entertain special relationships with their lands, territories and resources, as these are central to their world view, their cultures, livelihoods, spirituality, identity, and their continued existence as distinct peoples. The author of the present study, Birgitte Feiring, is a renowned anthropologist who has worked on indigenous peoples’ rights and development for more than 25 years in several agencies worldwide, including as the ILO Chief Technical Adviser on Convention No. 169 and as an adviser to bilateral and multilateral agencies and to indigenous peoples themselves. (International Land Coalition, 2013)