By Imma Subirats, Senior Knowledge and Information Management Officer at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect” (The Land Portal Video).

By Marie Becher and Jill Powis, Peace Brigades International

More land and environmental activists are being killed than ever before. We can't forget their work when planning for the future.

By:  Katie Reytar, Peter Veit and Nicholas Tagliarino - August 09, 2016

 

By Oumar Sylla, Director of the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN)

On behalf of UN-Habitat, particularly the Land and the Global Land Tool Network Unit, which also serves as the GLTN Secretariat, I was pleased to present some key messages at the third Preparatory Committee Meeting of Habitat III.

By George McCarthy, President and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

By Joe Studwell & Chris Jochnick 

After World War II, land reform programs in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan redistributed vast swaths of land to poor tenant farmers and agricultural laborers. The efforts helped end extreme poverty and hunger — changing the course of these countries’ histories. Land reform was referred to as the “secret sauce” that sparked sustained and broad-based economic growth.

By Jenna DiPaolo Colley, Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI)

 

Secure, legally-recognized land and forest rights for Indigenous Peoples and local communities are vital to mitigating climate change, securing sustainable development, preventing conflict, and reducing poverty. It is also a core human right for up to 2.5 billion people who customarily hold and use land around the world.  

 

This is a contribution to our ongoing debate 'Open Data and Land Governance: Increased accountability and transparency as a means to overcoming poverty?'. Join in and ad your voice to the discussion!

By Kaitlin Cordes, Head of Land and Agriculture at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Any discussion on climate change and sustainable investment in natural resources must grapple with land—a complicated yet crucial component of the search for equitable climate change solutions. In the context of resource investments, land is deeply entwined with both climate change impacts and climate change actions. At the risk of oversimplifying a complex and nuanced topic, here are three key takeaways on the interactions between resource investments, land use, land rights, and climate change.

By Ian Scoones, Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, and the Director of the ESRC STEPS Centre at Sussex

By Michael Taylor, Director of the International Land Coalition (ILC)