Ask a land rights defender if there is a human right to land, and she will likely say “Yes, without a doubt.” For people around the world, land is a source of food, shelter, and livelihoods; it’s an economic asset, a crucial safety net, a link with culture and social identity, even a living relative or ancestor. Given their importance, land rights are surely human rights.
October 2017: In 2012, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) endorsed Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure, forests, and fisheries (VGGT, or the Voluntary Guidelines) to, inter alia, promote food security and sustainable development by improving secure access to land, fisheries, and forests.
By Madhu Sarin, Fellow of the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI)
Q: What is required to strengthen women’s land and community forest rights in practice in India?
Scientists present their findings on forest tenure and land use at a major conference in Peru
Peru - Latin American countries have made progress in granting land rights to communities in recent years. Nevertheless, policies often fail to consider the diversity of those communities and the different ways they use their land.
By Anne Larson, Principal Scientist, CIFOR
The recent World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, held this past March in Washington D.C., provided a unique opportunity to reflect on collective land tenure reforms not only from a research point of view, but also from that of governments.
By Julia Christian, Forest Governance Campaigner for FERN
Michoacán’s indigenous communities’ greatest resource is their forests. And they defend them with their lives.
A Q&A with researcher Anne Larson on the changing conditions of rights and resources in discussion at the World Bank Land and Poverty Conference
