Participatory Assessment and Dialogue on Advocating for Land Rights in the Context of Climate Change

Brot für die Welt (BftW) and their partner organizations in Southeast Asia and the Pacific decided to elaborate a workshop on the relation between land rights and climate change. In order to reach “net-zero climate targets”, private actors from the Global North try to reduce part of their emissions and buy carbon credits on the Carbon Market by implementing land-based carbon projects in developing countries. Indigenous peoples (IPs) and local communities (LCs) are directly affected by these climate mitigation projects as they are often being planned and implemented on their customary land without their participation or consultation. Since most of the governments fail to explicitly recognize customary land rights of IPs and LCs, there are more and more cases where climate action has led to land grabbing of LPs’ and LCs’ customary land and even to evictions.

The core of FAKT’s tasks was to design and implement an online discourse in which BfdW partner organizations were sensitized by external experts and selected project examples to the connection between climate protection measures at national and international level and land and land rights. The aim was to enable the partner organizations to develop and exchange ideas and experiences on new/adapted approaches for working with indigenous and local communities and advocating for their land rights in the context of climate change. The results were documented in a study and a documentary film on the issue land rights and climate change. The link for the video ‘Advocating for Land Rights in the Context of Climate Change’ can be accessed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8K-3Yno9WI.