What are indigenous land rights, and why does land matter so much?
Presented by ClearTrust Free for classrooms, newsrooms and the curious.
Indigenous land rights are the rights of a people to own, use and control the lands and waters they have traditionally lived on. Land matters because it is the source of food and income, the place of ancestors and sacred sites, and the basis of language, law and identity.
For most indigenous peoples, land is not simply property that can be swapped for other property. Knowledge, stories and ceremonies are tied to particular hills, rivers and forests. Losing the land often means losing the way of life that goes with it.
Land is usually held by the community as a whole under customary rules. Because such ownership was rarely written down, colonial and later governments often treated the land as empty or as state property and gave it to settlers, companies or forest departments.
Legal recognition takes different forms: native title in Australia, ancestral domain titles in the Philippines, demarcated indigenous territories in Brazil, reservations in the United States, and community forest rights in India. The strength of these rights varies, and many do not include minerals under the ground.
Research suggests that indigenous peoples manage or hold rights over at least a quarter of the world's land surface, including many of its most intact forests. Secure land rights are therefore also important for conservation and for the climate. Where rights are insecure, communities have little power to keep out loggers, miners or land speculators.
Words used here
Sources
- United Nations: Indigenous Peoplesun.org
- Wikipedia: Indigenous land rightsen.wikipedia.org
- World Bank: Indigenous Peoplesworldbank.org