2020 was a tough year on many fronts, and land rights were no exception. COVID-19 hindered land rights advocates from doing field research, meeting with government officials, prioritizing policy initiatives, and obtaining funding. Despite these headwinds, we have seen important advances, and the field continues to grow. Here are eight breakthroughs in 2020 to celebrate.
COVID-19 and climate change are impacting all of us, but the dual disasters have a disproportionate impact on communities in emerging economies. These impacts are felt most acutely in rural areas, especially among indigenous communities and minority groups, and by women and others who are marginalized within those groups. Land rights were already crucial for food security, identity, and survival; but COVID-19 and climate change make land rights an increasingly vital solution in rural areas.
Legal recognition of land rights is a necessary basis for successful biodiversity conservation and restoration. To be effective, the process must include rural land users, with attention to intersecting vulnerabilities faced by women, youth, and other marginalized groups.
What if we could alleviate rural poverty, strengthen women’s rights, and help turn the tide against climate change, all at once? In Myanmar, a program to secure land rights for the country’s forest-dwelling communities is helping villages make progress toward all three.
Both the climate crisis and inequality require a democratic overhaul. Governments globally should start by turning over legal control of land and natural resources to local communities and indigenous land users. Their rights are key to survival for all of us.
With the world’s food supply under threat and millions already facing climate-driven migration, a land-use revolution is needed. Legal reforms that strengthen rural communities’ land rights are essential to providing the leverage and incentive to invest in climate resilience.
The climate crisis will reshape our relationships to land around the world. To shift how the world produces food, manages land, and adapts to this crisis, it’s imperative that we don’t sacrifice the land rights of rural communities who have sustainably maintained their lands for generations.
Landesa’s Sr. Research and Evaluation Advisor Gina Alvarado argues that the US should invest in programming that strengthens the land tenure rights of Central American farmers as a sustainable way to stem the current migrant crisis.
As world leaders, climate scientists, researchers, and members of civil society debate the global climate change agenda, their efforts must account for the billions of rural people who bear little responsibility for causing climate change but are most vulnerable to its consequences. Land rights are an important way to confront this immense inequality and promote a more secure world for all.
For communities across the Global South, the impacts of climate change are not abstract projections but concrete realities that threaten their land and food security.