Land Matters: How Securing Community Land Rights Can Slow Climate Change and Accelerate the Sustainable Development Goals
Publication year
Resource type
UNCCD Library
Material Type
Web resource
There is a strong and compelling environment and development case to be made for securing indigenous and community lands. Securing collective land rights offers a low-cost, high-reward investment for developing country governments and their partners to meet national development objectives and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Securing community lands is also a cost-effective climate mitigation measure for countries when compared to other carbon capture and storage approaches.
Indigenous people and other rural communities inhabit more than 50 percent of the world's land, across all continents except Antarctica. Their stewardship of Earth's natural resources supports as many as 2.5 billion people with food, water, fuelwood and other life essentials. Less well-known, but also vitally important, is the role of community land in global efforts to avoid runaway climate change and achieve sustainable development. Of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) endorsed by the world's governments, five directly address the role of land in securing humanity's future, and three specifically call for securing community land rights. Sustainable land use, by providing a cost-effective way to sequester carbon dioxide, also offers huge climate benefits. It is no exaggeration that achieving both SDG 13 on climate action and national commitments under the Paris Agreement of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change depends in large part on better land stewardship.
Yet despite this global imperative, communities' land rights are being undercut. Globally, national laws recognize only 10 percent of land as belonging to communities, with another 8 percent designated for their use. Even less is registered and titled to communities. In Africa, Latin America and Asia, many countries neither recognize community land nor adequately protect customary tenure systems handed down through generations. Compounding communities' tenuous hold on their land, companies are increasingly competing with them for territory as global demand soars for foods, fuels, minerals and wood products.
As a result, governments are not only failing to protect people's ancestral land rights, they are missing out on a low-cost, high-reward public policy investment that experts believe benefits us all. This commentary makes the environment and development case for why securing community land rights should become a global priority. It then calls on governments to seize this opportunity by taking three actions. First, establish strong community land rights laws to spur people who live there to invest more in sustainable land management. Second, make it easier for communities to register and document their territory through clear, simplified land-formalization procedures. Third, level the playing field between communities and companies in the competition for land ownership and exploitation. The time is right to secure these lands now, for all our futures.
How Land Rights Are Crucial to Achieving the SDGs
In 2015, the 193 member states of the United Nations committed to deliver a shared blueprint for a prosperous and sustainable future for all by 2030. Three years on, the UN reported that progress on the 17 interconnected SDGs was uneven and the pace insufficient, with not one country on track to meet the deadline. In June 2018, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on governments to "inject a sense of urgency" into their efforts to achieve the SDGs.
One reason for the slow progress is climate change, a global challenge that does not respect national borders. The mounting economic losses and destruction from weather and climate-related disasters have made it harder to bridge the gap on ambitious goals like ending poverty and hunger, reducing inequality and providing clean water. For example, droughts, floods and other disasters cost farmers in developing countries a staggering $96 billion in damaged or lost crop and livestock production between 2005 and 2015. As climate impacts intensify, it is clear that making progress on SDG 13 (climate action) is essential to achieving all 17 goals1. DGs and Land Rights Targets and Indicators
The 17 SDGs have 169 targets, each with one to three indicators to measure progress. Eight targets and 12 indicators under five SDGs (1, 2, 5, 11 and 15) recognize the importance of land to Read the whole article following the link to the source sustainable human development. SDG 1, 2 and 5 specifically address community land rights, as shown ABOVE.
Indigenous people and other rural communities inhabit more than 50 percent of the world's land, across all continents except Antarctica. Their stewardship of Earth's natural resources supports as many as 2.5 billion people with food, water, fuelwood and other life essentials. Less well-known, but also vitally important, is the role of community land in global efforts to avoid runaway climate change and achieve sustainable development. Of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) endorsed by the world's governments, five directly address the role of land in securing humanity's future, and three specifically call for securing community land rights. Sustainable land use, by providing a cost-effective way to sequester carbon dioxide, also offers huge climate benefits. It is no exaggeration that achieving both SDG 13 on climate action and national commitments under the Paris Agreement of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change depends in large part on better land stewardship.
Yet despite this global imperative, communities' land rights are being undercut. Globally, national laws recognize only 10 percent of land as belonging to communities, with another 8 percent designated for their use. Even less is registered and titled to communities. In Africa, Latin America and Asia, many countries neither recognize community land nor adequately protect customary tenure systems handed down through generations. Compounding communities' tenuous hold on their land, companies are increasingly competing with them for territory as global demand soars for foods, fuels, minerals and wood products.
As a result, governments are not only failing to protect people's ancestral land rights, they are missing out on a low-cost, high-reward public policy investment that experts believe benefits us all. This commentary makes the environment and development case for why securing community land rights should become a global priority. It then calls on governments to seize this opportunity by taking three actions. First, establish strong community land rights laws to spur people who live there to invest more in sustainable land management. Second, make it easier for communities to register and document their territory through clear, simplified land-formalization procedures. Third, level the playing field between communities and companies in the competition for land ownership and exploitation. The time is right to secure these lands now, for all our futures.
How Land Rights Are Crucial to Achieving the SDGs
In 2015, the 193 member states of the United Nations committed to deliver a shared blueprint for a prosperous and sustainable future for all by 2030. Three years on, the UN reported that progress on the 17 interconnected SDGs was uneven and the pace insufficient, with not one country on track to meet the deadline. In June 2018, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on governments to "inject a sense of urgency" into their efforts to achieve the SDGs.
One reason for the slow progress is climate change, a global challenge that does not respect national borders. The mounting economic losses and destruction from weather and climate-related disasters have made it harder to bridge the gap on ambitious goals like ending poverty and hunger, reducing inequality and providing clean water. For example, droughts, floods and other disasters cost farmers in developing countries a staggering $96 billion in damaged or lost crop and livestock production between 2005 and 2015. As climate impacts intensify, it is clear that making progress on SDG 13 (climate action) is essential to achieving all 17 goals1. DGs and Land Rights Targets and Indicators
The 17 SDGs have 169 targets, each with one to three indicators to measure progress. Eight targets and 12 indicators under five SDGs (1, 2, 5, 11 and 15) recognize the importance of land to Read the whole article following the link to the source sustainable human development. SDG 1, 2 and 5 specifically address community land rights, as shown ABOVE.
Keywords
land rights
land tenure
SDGs targets
SDG 15