First came the forest, followed by the people, and then the government. Does this chronology allow the newest entrant in the scheme to determine the relationship between the two older entities?

This brief highlights key attributes of national constitutions, laws, and regulations that play a fundamental role in protecting indigenous and rural women’s rights to community forests and other community lands.

The explicit reference to “a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases” (Art. 4) in the 2015 Paris Agreement has given a strong impetus to Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) proposals that aim to remove greenhouse gas emissions through bioenergy and carbon capture and storage (BECCS).

After decades of industrial logging and forest mismanagement, the Liberian government has pledged that it will now only issue forest licenses to the communities who own the forest. This welcome change could be undermined however, by weaknesses in the country’s laws that govern how community forest licenses are awarded and managed.

Up to 2.5 billion people hold and use the world’s community lands, yet the tenure rights of women—who comprise more than half the population of the world’s Indigenous Peoples and local communities—are seldom acknowledged or protected by national laws.

This report is an outcome of the Community Forest Rights-Learning and Advocacy Process (CFR-LA) which was initiated in 2011 to facilitate exchange of information and experiences to reinforce national level efforts for evidence-based advocacy on Community Forest Resource Rights (CFRs) under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwelle

Amid the realities of major political turbulence, there was growing recognition in 2016 that the land rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities are key to ensuring peace and prosperity, economic development, sound investment, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.