A new report by the Forest Declaration Assessment says that fulfilling the Paris Agreement won’t be possible without acknowledging and supporting the crucial role of Indigenous peoples and other local communities’ (IPLCs) in protecting lands.
About 90% of IPLC lands are carbon sinks, say the report authors, Climate Focus and the World Resources Institute (WRI), which analyzed the IPLC lands in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru.
Each hectare of IPLC land sequesters an average of 30 metric tons of carbon every year, about twice as much as lands outside IPLC protection. This equates to about 30% of the four nation’s Paris Agreement targets.
Countries should facilitate the titling of all IPLC lands, ensure consent to development projects, commit to protecting environmental defenders and make sure IPLCs are included in U.N. targets, says the report.

A new report by the Forest Declaration Assessment says that fulfilling the Paris Agreement won’t be possible without acknowledging and supporting the crucial role of Indigenous peoples and local communities’ (IPLCs) restored and protected lands.

Titled “Sink or swim”, the authors of the report, Climate Focus and the World Resources Institute (WRI), focus on the potential of IPLC lands in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru to mitigate climate change. The report then peers into whether this potential is reflected in the respective countries’ climate-related policies and nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to meeting the Paris Agreement’s targets.

The release of the report comes days before the U.N. is set to release an assessment on climate mitigation with recommendations on how best to reduce carbon emissions and keep global temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels.

In the four Latin American countries, research also revealed that each hectare (2.5 acres) of IPLC lands sequesters an average of 30 metric tons (33 tons) of carbon every year, about twice as much as lands outside IPLC protection. This equates to about 30% of the four countries’ Paris Agreement targets for 2030.

Without these contributions, states the report, other key economic sectors would have to pick up the slack to achieve the emission reduction targets promised. For example, Brazil and Colombia would have to retire 80% percent of their vehicle fleets to account for the loss of sequestration services their IPLC forests provide.
Land rights on the international stage
The latest IPCC climate report released in February mentioned IPLC land rights 58 times, showcasing a shift in the way land rights are viewed as a climate change mitigation and adaptation solution.

Indigenous land rights have also taken center stage at negotiations on the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity’s post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework which concluded in Geneva on Tuesday. Indigenous caucus members and negotiators acknowledged that conserving biodiversity and reversing the species extinction crisis also entails securing IPLC land rights on a large scale.
Indigenous territories are estimated to contain 36% of the world’s remaining intact forest landscapes and 80% of the Earth’s remaining biodiversity.