ResourcesResearch

Blue Carbon: Assessing the Mitigation Potential of Strengthening Coastal Community Fisheries’ Tenure

A new Landesa report shows how strengthening local rights to manage coastal resources in Cambodia can protect livelihoods, restore mangrove forests, and fight climate change. Many community fishery organizations face challenges like unclear boundaries and limited control over their resources, putting both ecosystems and livelihoods at risk. This report shares findings from carbon studies at two pilot sites, highlighting how strengthening land rights can help expand Cambodia’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions and meet its climate goals.

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Evaluating mangrove community forestry outcomes: a mixed synthetic control and field-based approach

Landesa contributed to a peer-reviewed study comparing 50 coastal villages with community forest (CF) certification to 50 control villages, revealing significant positive outcomes for mangrove conservation in Myanmar. CF sites saw reduced deforestation, enhanced regrowth, and a surprising spillover effect, where nearby non-CF areas also experienced increased forest cover. The study underscores the long-term benefits of government and INGO support, while highlighting the need for sustainable community management and governance to ensure continued success in protecting vital ecosystems.

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Women’s Land Tenure Security as a Pathway to Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation

As research on the nexus of land tenure security and climate grows, a more fine-tuned focus on tenure security for whom is needed to assess emerging evidence that women’s land tenure security (WLTS) can be an important lever for enhanced climate change mitigation and adaptation. To this end, we reviewed relevant empirical evidence to ascertain how WLTS affects climate change mitigation and adaptation. Our review seeks to further clarify the significance of women’s land tenure security to climate change mitigation and adaptation, inform Landesa and partners’ climate advocacy, and provide guidance to partners in data generation.

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Links between Women’s Land Tenure Security and Climate Action: An Evidence Brief

Although existing evidence points to meaningful linkages between land tenure and climate change, findings can fail to critically consider whose land tenure security, decisions, and practices contribute to key climate change outcomes, and how. Enhanced understanding of the complex and critical connections between women’s land tenure security and climate can advance our knowledge of the investments and planning needed to mitigate climate change and achieve more resilient futures.

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Respecting the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities in Landscape Initiatives

Many challenges, such as deforestation, water management, land conflicts, labor rights, and smallholder support require collective action to address them in a meaningful way. This resource offers guidance for planners and implementers of landscape initiatives and suggests practical approaches to ensuring IPLC participation in, or ownership of, decisions in landscape initiatives at various key steps.

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Land Rights and Renewable Energy: Risks & Recommendations for Responsible RE Development

Landesa looked into the land issues and risks of coal and renewable energy (particularly wind, solar, and geothermal) in seven countries. Check out the full report for findings and recommendations for addressing prevalent land-related issues.

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Ethiopia Strengthening Land Tenure and Administration Program Follow-On Report

This report presents findings from an evaluation of long-term impacts of the highly innovative and cost-effective Ethiopian land certification program that took place between 2005 and 2020. We assess certification’s impacts on tenure security, agricultural investment, leveraging land for credit or rental, and women’s empowerment.

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This is not your home: An assessment of land rights of tribal women in Jharkhand

Landesa researchers reveal a brutal system of abuse and torture that deters tribal women from accessing their rights to land. The women in the tribal communities are particularly disadvantaged, as the customary practices do not support their land rights and the law of the state accepts customary practices of the tribal communities to be legal. While the research area focuses on the state of Jharkhand, similar trends are observable in India’s other tribal areas.

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Tanzania Youth Land Rights Assessment

Landesa Tanzania provides an overview of Tanzanian law as it pertains to youth land rights, identifies gaps and challenges in youth exercising land rights — including gender-based barriers for young women to access land — and issues policy recommendations for strengthening youth access and rights to land.

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A Report on High Level Findings from Research on Women’s Participation in Forest Governance Bodies in Nimba, Grand Bassa and Margibi Counties

This report provides a set of clear, in-depth recommendations to the Liberia Land Authority on improving women’s participation in community-level land governance in the implementation of the Land Rights Act (LRA) passed in 2018. These recommendations are based on learnings from primary qualitative research conducted on forest governance structures at 4 case study sites in 3 counties of Liberia on the implementation of community forestry governance bodies.

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