Strengthening Governance and Land Tenure Rights as a Response to Climate Change

Indigenous peoples, local communities and family farmers play a critical role in stewarding and safeguarding the world’s lands and forests. Lands and forests managed by indigenous peoples and local communities have lower deforestation rates, a higher carbon storage potential and a higher biodiversity than other lands, including protected areas. The Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES 2019) and the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land found that strengthening the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities is a critical solution to the climate and environmental crisis. Indigenous peoples and local communities manage over half of global lands but have legal rights to only 10 percent. And, when they stand up for their rights to protect the environment, forests and biodiversity they face criminalization and violence. On the contrary, where their rights are protected, indigenous peoples and local communities provide alternative economic models without trade-offs between the environment and development. Their traditional knowledge and holistic view of nature enables them to feed the world, to protect forests and carbon sinks, and to maintain global biodiversity.

Against this background the Land Forum 2020 aims to deepen the understanding of the linkages between access to land, the role of traditional, local knowledge and ecosystem integrity as a climate change solution and to explore ways on how to further strengthen land rights, land governance systems and traditional, local knowledge to tackle the environmental and climate crisis.

Further information and registration