New publication: Synthesis Paper on Indigenous peoples’ rights to lands, territories and resources

Rome, Italy

2013

Download: ILC Synthesis Paper – Indigenous peoples’ rights to lands, territories and resources

The International Land Coalition (ILC) seeks to secure equitable access to land and resources for the rural poor through advocacy, knowledge management, networking, capacity building, and dialogue. Indigenous peoples comprise more than 370 million people worldwide. It is estimated that they constitute approximately 5 % of the world’s population, but make up 15 % of the world’s poor and about one-third of the world’s 900 million extremely poor rural people (DESA, 2009: 21). Indigenous peoples have strong spiritual, cultural, social and economic relationship with their traditional lands, but their land rights are often the most precarious. Hence, indigenous peoples’ issues are of central importance for ILC’s mandate.

New publication: ILC Annual Report (2012)

Rome, Italy

2013

The ILC Secretariat has published the ILC Annual Report (2012).

Information from Land Matrix used to ‘sound warning on foreign investments in oil palm estates’

June 2013

Indonesia

See: Green Activists Sound Warning on Foreign Investments in Oil Palm Estates (Jakarta Globe, 14 June 2013)

Access to Land Matrix data is available here

Information on the launch of the Land Matrix is available here

AFA Video on land investments shown at Asian Development Bank brown bag session on voluntary guidelines (VG) and responsible agricultural investment (RAI)

Asian Farmers’ Association for sustainable rural development (AFA)

June 2013

An AFA video featuring case studies on land investments in the Philippines and Cambodia was shown on June 10, 2013 at ADB West Core Resource Center at the opening session of the ADB brown bag session on the voluntary guideline on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forestry in the context of national food security (VG) and the responsible agricultural investment (RAI).

AFA Policy Advocacy Officer Lany Rebagay summarized the video presentation and emphasized the negative impact of irresponsible land-based investments which lead to the displacement of smallholder farmers, loss of biodiversity due to the introduction of unsustainable package of production and processing technologies including the unequal sharing of risks and benefit caused by unbalanced negotiation in the contracting process. AFA also stressed that small-scale farmers can effectively contribute to food security and poverty reduction if they are given security over their rights to productive resources like land, water and seeds “

For additional information, see: AFA on land investments

PASTORAL PEOPLES’ PARLIAMENT – A PLATFORM FOR THE UNHEARD, THE UNSEEN

MARAG, India

June 2013

The Maldhari in Gujarat State are the unheard and the unseen in the development agenda at state and national levels. They have no representation in policy decision-making processes despite those decisions having a fundamental impact on their lives and livelihoods. Their voices are not heard and their needs are not attended to. The Pastoral Peoples’ Parliament seeks to change this. The Pastoral Parliament is the brainchild of MARAG (Maldhari Rural Action Group) a local NGO based in Ahmedabad, India and an active ILC member. MARAG has supported the process of establishing the Parliament in its initial stages and is now playing a mentoring role”.

Further information is found in the Rangelands Bulletin (no.3) - pg. 9 Pastoral Peoples’ Parliament, MARAG, India; pg. 11 Opportunities for New Land Laws to support community-based pasture and NRM in Mongolia

New: Land Matrix partnership launches second phase of its Global Observatory on large scale land acquisitions

June 2013, ILC

Dynamic public interface promotes greater transparency in land investments

See: Land Matrix Global Observatory

Bern/Hamburg/Montpellier/Rome (10 June 2013) The Land Matrix partnership today launches the second phase of the Global Observatory on large scale land acquisitions. The Land Matrix Global Observatory is a tool that promotes transparency in land transactions and supports open data and open source communities focused on land deals. The thoroughly updated dataset allows tracking of large scale land acquisitions, from negotiation to implementation.

Since the launch of the Beta version in April 2012, the Land Matrix partnership has received a substantial number of reactions, most of which expressed appreciation for the initiative, though some noted concerns. It provides valuable lessons on the challenges and successes of promoting open data on practices that are often shrouded in secrecy and have led to improving the Land Matrix and its database. Madiodio Niasse, Director of the International Land Coalition (ILC) Secretariat noted, “We have taken all comments that we have received very seriously, and we thank those who have contributed.”

The modifications and improvements to the database structure and its contents explain the significant difference between earlier estimates of total large scale land acquisitions (83.2 million ha for 1217 land deals) provided by the Land Matrix and the new estimates (32.5 million ha for 753 concluded land deals). The database now differentiates between intended, concluded and failed deals. In addition, the platform reports the implementation status of each deal, including if a project actually becomes operational and eventually starts producing. Finally, each piece of information is directly related to its source, allowing the filtering of deals by the type of source and enabling users to themselves judge the reliability of the information.

As the Land Matrix is a constantly evolving database, conclusions drawn from the data should be tentative. Jann Lay, from the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies noted, “The Land Matrix Global Observatory data reveal the importance of capturing the dynamics of large scale land acquisitions, which are not easy to trace.”

The new dynamic interface offers multiple technical enhancements and innovations, including allowing users to download the entire unfiltered dataset – a significant step towards achieving truly open data. An advanced crowdsourcing function enables any user to submit details on land deals, from a single deal to sharing entire datasets.

Markus Giger from the CDE (Centre for Development and Environment) at the University of Bern said, “We hope for feedback from a wide range of stakeholders. More evidence and data is needed to help to continuously update and improve the quality of the data”.

With these improved functions, the Land Matrix Global Observatory can become an important tool to address the lack of transparency that still surrounds large-scale land transactions. Ward Anseeuw from the Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD) said, “The Land Matrix has evolved from a database into a public tool promoting greater transparency in decision-making over land and investment at a global level.”

 

Potential impact on the rights of Indigenous Peoples (IP) as the Court recognizes customary forests in Indonesia

JKPP, Indonesia

May 2013

The Constitutional Court in Indonesia court decided to scrap the word “state” from Article 1 of the 1999 Forestry Law, which says “customary forests are state forests located in the areas of custom-based communities”. The court also ruled that the government had to recognize indigenous communities’ ownership of customary forests. “Indigenous peoples have the right to own and exploit their customary forests to meet their daily needs” (see: Jakarta Post, 18 May 2013). Such developments provide greater opportunities to IPs to claim their forest lands in Indonesia.