NGO WORK

Forests Are Not Empty Spaces: To Save the Climate, Recognize Our Land Rights

Published

5 years ago

April 23, 2021

MESSAGE FROM AN INDIGENOUS LEADER AT THE BIDEN CLIMATE SUMMIT

*** Global indigenous leadership welcomes the commitment to finance the protection of tropical forests to save the climate, while pointing out that success depends on recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities to their lands ***

WASHINGTON DC / ONLINE (22 April 2021).— The Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, a coalition of organizations representing indigenous and local communities from Brazil, Indonesia and the nations of the Amazon and Mesoamerica, called for the recognition of the ancestral and traditional peoples’ lands, during the Leaders Summit on Climate organized by President Biden.

“It is not a request for charity, nor even for justice: It is our right and also what western science and the data indicate as the only possible course of action to confront this climate crisis,” said Tuntiak Katan, coordinator of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities and Indigenous leader of the Shuar people of Ecuador. Katan was invited to speak at the Summit session on “Nature-Based Solutions” session, led by the US Secretary of the Interior, Debra Ann Haaland.

The time for truth has arrived, Katan said, addressing a global audience gathered for the Summit: “Just as our elders traveled to Geneva in 1923 to claim their right to live according to their own laws, on their own lands, and according to their own cosmovision, we come again before all nations, with open hearts, looking ahead to the future together and building a new era, all of us, the protagonists in implementing the solutions that will determine the future of humanity.”

On behalf of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, Katan welcomed the Biden Administration’s announcements of funding for climate action and the launch of an initiative on Lowering Emission through Accelerated Forest Finance (LEAF). He also invited governments and international institutions to, “learn from past mistakes and avoid depending on the same financing model that has not resulted in the expected outcomes in climate impacts and solutions”, in clear reference to the REDD + initiative, and its single minded focus on the capture of carbon.

Katan noted that the findings of a recent study had reported that Indigenous and other local communities receive less than 1% of climate finance for mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

“That must change, if we really want to avoid climate change,” Katan said. “The forests that are the focus of this Climate Summit are not immense empty spaces:

“We, indigenous peoples and local communities, occupy those forests, and we are ready to contribute our forests to one of the most important challenges of our era: the restoration of the Earth”, he said. “However, real restoration can only happen with legal recognition of our rights to our territories. Without this, it will not be possible to ensure the integrity of ecosystems or climate security.”

In the 18 countries that are home to the organizations represented by the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, Indigenous Peoples and local communities occupy more than 840 million hectares of land, the equivalent of 80% of the area of the United States.

“Out of those 840 million hectares, at least 400 million hectares have no recognized legal rights (1), Katan said. “We need those land rights to be recognized as the first step to ensure the integrity of ecosystems and to live according to our own rights.”.

He urged the US president and other heads of state to consider investing in the $5 cost per hectare of titling the forests claimed by Indigenous Peoples and local communities in tropical forest countries. Funding this proven climate solution, as calculated by experts at the Rights and Resources Initiative and other research groups, would channel at least US$2 billion dollars into securing land rights.

“Numerous scientific studies(link is external) show the key role of indigenous peoples and local communities in protecting forests and other key ecosystems,” Katan said. “Where our rights are recognized there is less deforestation and degradation.”

At a time, “full of darkness, it is also time to wake up”, Katan said. “This is a time when Western science and our traditional wisdom are building bridges.”

For this reason, Katan said, the Indigenous leaders of the organizations represented by the Global Alliance disagree with the concept of “Solutions Based on Nature.” Instead they call on the international community to speak and act with a focus on “Nature and Community-based solutions”.

“The communities are already implementing initiatives for the sustainable management of forests,” Katan said. “We are part of the solution to climate change, and that is why recognition of our rights to land is the first step in any serious effort to tackle the climate crisis.”

He ended with the following message: “Mr. Biden, you have the opportunity and the historic responsibility, along with other world leaders, to make the right political decisions to stop the climate crisis.”

For more information: Lucas Tolentino, +55 61 9254-0990 (WhatsApp), lucas.tolentino@alianzaglobal.me(link sends e-mail)

Notes to editor:

(1) Recent research shows that in the last 10 years, less than 1% of cooperation funds against climate change have been allocated to forest management and recognition of rights (RRI and Woodwell Climate Research Center: preliminary evidence from a study of forthcoming publication).

ABOUT THE GLOBAL ALLIANCE:

The Global Alliance of Territorial Communities represents indigenous peoples and local communities from the Amazon Basin, Brazil, Indonesia and Mesoamerica, grouped in four territorial organizations: the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago (AMAN), the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests (AMPB), the Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) and the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin (COICA).

Original Source: Landportal.org

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NGO WORK

Climate wash: The World Bank’s Fresh Offensive on Land Rights

Published

7 days ago

November 13, 2025

witnessradio.org

Climate wash: The World Bank’s Fresh Offensive on Land Rights reveals how the Bank is appropriating climate commitments made at the Conference of the Parties (COP) to justify its multibillion-dollar initiative to “formalize” land tenure across the Global South. While the Bank claims that it is necessary “to access land for climate action,” Climatewash uncovers that its true aim is to open lands to agribusiness, mining of “transition minerals,” and false solutions like carbon credits – fueling dispossession and environmental destruction. Alongside plans to spend US$10 billion on land programs, the World Bank has also pledged to double its agribusiness investments to US$9 billion annually by 2030.

This report details how the Bank’s land programs and policy prescriptions to governments dismantle collective land tenure systems and promote individual titling and land markets as the norm, paving the way for private investment and corporate takeover. These reforms, often financed through loans taken by governments, force countries into debt while pushing a “structural transformation” that displaces smallholder farmers, undermines food sovereignty, and prioritizes industrial agriculture and extractive industries.

Drawing on a thorough analysis of World Bank programs from around the world, including case studies from Indonesia, Malawi, Madagascar, the Philippines, and Argentina, Climatewash documents how the Bank’s interventions are already displacing communities and entrenching land inequality. The report debunks the Bank’s climate action rhetoric. It details how the Bank’s efforts to consolidate land for industrial agriculture, mining, and carbon offsetting directly contradict the recommendations of the IPCC, which emphasizes the protection of lands from conversion and overexploitation and promotes practices such as agroecology as crucial climate solutions.

Read full report: Climatewash: The World Bank’s Fresh Offensive on Land Rights

Source: The Oakland Institute

NGO WORK

Africa’s Land Is Not Empty: New Report Debunks the Myth of “Unused Land” and Calls for a Just Future for the Continent’s Farmland

Published

7 days ago

November 13, 2025

witnessradio.org

A new report challenges one of the most persistent and harmful myths shaping Africa’s development agenda — the idea that the continent holds vast expanses of “unused” or “underutilised” land waiting to be transformed into industrial farms or carbon markets.

Titled Land Availability and Land-Use Changes in Africa (2025), the study exposes how this colonial-era narrative continues to justify large-scale land acquisitions, displacements, and ecological destruction in the name of progress.

Drawing on extensive literature reviews, satellite data, and interviews with farmers in Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, the report systematically dismantles five false assumptions that underpin the “land abundance” narrative:

That Africa has vast quantities of unused arable land available for cultivation
That modern technology can solve Africa’s food crisis
That smallholder farmers are unproductive and incapable of feeding the continent
That markets and higher yields automatically improve food access and nutrition
That industrial agriculture will generate millions of decent jobs

Each of these claims, the report finds, is deeply flawed. Much of the land labelled as “vacant” is, in reality, used for grazing, shifting cultivation, foraging, or sacred and ecological purposes. These multifunctional landscapes sustain millions of people and are far from empty.

The study also shows that Africa’s food systems are already dominated by small-scale farmers, who produce up to 80% of the continent’s food on 80% of its farmland. Rather than being inefficient, their agroecological practices are more resilient, locally adapted, and socially rooted than the industrial models promoted by external donors and corporations.

Meanwhile, the promise that industrial agriculture will lift millions out of poverty has not materialised. Mechanisation and land consolidation have displaced labour, while dependency on imported seeds and fertilisers has trapped farmers in cycles of debt and dependency.

A Continent Under Pressure

Beyond these myths, the report reveals a growing land squeeze as multiple global agendas compete for Africa’s territory: the expansion of mining for critical minerals, large-scale carbon-offset schemes, deforestation for timber and commodities, rapid urbanisation, and population growth.

Between 2010 and 2020, Africa lost more than 3.9 million hectares of forest annually — the highest deforestation rate in the world. Grasslands, vital carbon sinks and grazing ecosystems, are disappearing at similar speed.

Powerful actors — from African governments and Gulf states to Chinese investors, multinational agribusinesses, and climate-finance institutions — are driving this race for land through opaque deals that sideline local communities and ignore customary tenure rights.

A Call for a New Vision

The report calls for a radical shift away from high-tech, market-driven, land-intensive models toward people-centred, ecologically grounded alternatives. Its key policy recommendations include:

Promoting agroecology as a pathway for food sovereignty, ecological regeneration, and rural livelihoods.
Reducing pressure on land by improving agroecological productivity, cutting food waste, and prioritising equitable distribution.
Rejecting carbon market schemes that commodify land and displace communities.
Legally recognising customary land rights, particularly for women and Indigenous peoples.
Upholding the principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) for all land-based investments.

This report makes it clear: Africa’s land is not “empty” — it is lived on, worked on, and cared for. The future of African land must not be dictated by global capital or outdated development theories, but shaped by the people who depend on it.

Download the Report

Read the full report Land Availability and Land-Use Changes in Africa (2025) to explore the evidence and policy recommendations in detail.

Source: Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA)

NGO WORK

Discover How Foreign Interests and Resource Extraction Continue to Drive Congo’s Crisis

Published

1 week ago

November 12, 2025

witnessradio.org

Whereas Donald Trump hailed the “peace” agreement between Rwanda and DRC as marking the end of a deadly three-decade war, a new report from the Oakland Institute, Shafted: The Scramble for Critical Minerals in the DRC, exposes it as the latest US maneuver to control Congolese critical minerals.

Under the Guise of Peace

After three decades of deadly wars and atrocities, the June 2025 “peace” deal between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) lays bare the United States’ role in entrenching the extraction of minerals under the guise of diplomacy. For decades, US backing of Rwanda and Uganda has fueled the violence, which has ripped millions of Congolese lives apart while enabling the looting of the country’s mineral wealth. Today, Washington presents itself as a broker of peace, yet its longstanding support for Rwanda made it possible for M23 to seize territory, capture key mining sites, and forced Kinshasa to the negotiation table with hands tied behind its back. By legitimizing Rwanda’s territorial advances, the US-brokered agreement effectively rewards aggression while sidelining accountability, justice for victims, and the sovereignty of the Congolese people.

The incorporation of “formalized” mineral supply chains from eastern DRC to Rwanda exposes the pact’s true aim: Securing access to and control over minerals under the guise of diplomacy and “regional integration.” Framed as peacemaking, this is part of United States’ broader geopolitical struggle with China for control over critical resources. Far from fostering peace – over a thousand civilians have been killed since the deal was signed while parallel negotiations with Rwanda’s rebel force have collapsed – this arrangement risks deepening Congo’s subjugation. Striking deals with the Trump administration and US firms, the DRC government is surrendering to a new era of exploitation while the raging war continues, driving the unbearable suffering of the Congolese people.

Introduction

The conflict in eastern DRC, which dates back three decades to the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and subsequent Congo Wars, has claimed over six million lives, displaced millions more, and inflicted widespread suffering. Since late 2021, Rwanda and its proxy militia, M23, have stormed through mineral-rich lands and regional capitals, inflicting brutal violence and triggering mass displacement. While billions of dollars in natural resources are extracted from the area, Congolese communities toil in extreme poverty.

On June 27, 2025, a “peace” agreement was signed between Rwanda and the DRC under the auspices of the Trump administration, with diplomatic assistance from Qatar.¹ The deal included pledges to respect the territorial integrity of both countries, to promote peaceful relations through the disarmament of armed groups, the return of refugees, and the creation of a joint security mechanism. A key clause commits the countries to launch a regional economic integration framework that would entail “mutually beneficial partnerships and investment opportunities,” specifically for the extraction of the DRC’s mineral wealth by US private interests.

Placing the deal in a historical perspective – after three decades of conflict and over seven decades of US chess game around Congolese minerals – this report examines its implications for the Congolese people as well as the interests involved in the plunder of the country’s resources.

The report begins by retracing 30 years of war, fueled by the looting of Congo’s mineral wealth and devastating for the people of eastern DRC. It then examines how US policy in Central Africa, from the Cold War to the present, has been shaped by its interest in Congolese minerals, sustained alliances with Rwanda and Uganda, and a consistent pattern of overlooking atrocities in support of these allies.

The report then analyses the implications of the regional economic integration aspect of the deal, which aims to link mineral supply chains in the DRC and Rwanda with US investors. The last sections examine the prospect for lasting peace and security resulting from the deal and the impact of growing involvement of US private actors in DRC and Rwanda.

Original Source: Oakland Institute