A new report offers evidence that the modest investments needed to secure land rights for indigenous communities will generate billions in returns—economically, socially and environmentally—for local communities and the world’s changing climate. The report, Climate Benefits, Tenure Costs:...
Tenure-secure indigenous and other community forestlands are often linked to low deforestation rates, significant forest cover, and the sustainable production of timber and other forest products. New WRI research shows that securing indigenous forestland is also a low-cost, high-benefit investment and therefore makes good economic sense.
At an event on October 7, WRI will launch a new report, Climate Benefits, Tenure Costs: The Economic Case for Securing Indigenous Land Rights, which finds for the first time that relatively modest investments in secure land tenure for Indigenous Peoples can generate billions of dollars in returns—economically and environmentally.
The world lost more than 18 million hectares (45 million acres) of tree cover in 2014, an area twice the size of Portugal, according to new data from the University of Maryland (UMD) and Google released by Global Forest Watch.
Los bosques comunitarios alrededor del mundo resguardan 37,7 mil millones de toneladas de carbono
Nota del editor: El informe completo, el folleto con el resumen ejecutivo y las infografías de alta resolución están disponibles para su descarga aquí.
Read this press release in Spanish
Community forests around the world hold 37.7 billion tonnes of carbon
Editor’s note: The full report, executive summary brochure and high-resolution infographics are available to download here.
In a nationwide referendum in early 2009, Bolivia overhauled its federal constitution. Among its sweeping changes are new legal rights for citizens to take part in public policy planning and to be consulted and informed on decisions that may affect environmental quality and natural resource use. The constitution also establishes the country’s first environmental and agricultural court, giving citizens and communities a forum to air grievances.
These provisions are largely the result of work by WRI and PRODENA, one of Bolivia’s oldest environmental advocacy organizations. “Using a toolkit WRI developed, together we identified weaknesses in Bolivia’s proposed new constitution regulating public access to environmental information, participation, and justice,” explains Lalanath de Silva, director of WRI’s Access Initiative (TAI). PRODENA is a member of TAI, the world’s largest network of civil society organizations working to ensure that people have the right and ability to influence decisions about the natural resources that sustain their communities. Based on these assessments, and with WRI support, PRODENA advocated tirelessly for the inclusion of such rights, which Bolivia’s government adopted into the text of the constitution.
“It’s a great result,” continues de Silva, “the type we envisioned when we launched The Access Initiative a decade ago.”
This report introduces the National Adaptive Capacity (NAC) framework, a tool to help governments bring institutional capacity development into their adaptation planning processes. The NAC framework enables its users to systematically assess institutional strengths and weaknesses that may help...
Sets out to understand how decentralization of decision making and management authority affects biodiversity conservation.
Comparative analysis catalogues the different strategies pursued by NCSDs, areas of demonstrated achievement, and common obstacles.
