^{Photograph by CIFOR-ICRAF (CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED)}

As carbon markets continue to expand and countries rush to develop national carbon frameworks, the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities—particularly regarding land tenure—have become central to the debate. The sixth installment of the ALIGN webinar series, held on March 27, 2025, brought together panelists from the Philippines, Zambia, Brazil, and the global advocacy community to explore how these rights are being addressed—or sidelined—in emerging national carbon strategies.

Moderated by Sabine Frank, Executive Director of Carbon Market Watch, the webinar unpacked how carbon crediting schemes are colliding with long-standing land tenure issues and how governments, civil society, and communities are responding. As Frank emphasized in her opening remarks, “The assumption of the debate today is not that getting land rights respected will solve all challenges. However, respect for land rights in carbon frameworks is our focus today.”

Carbon Markets and the Tenure Gap

Rebecca Iwerks, Director of the Global Land and Environmental Justice Initiative at Namati, opened the discussion by framing the core issue: “Nature-based carbon projects impact vast areas of land, often in rural areas like forests and mangroves. Much of this land is managed under informal or insecure tenure regimes.” She pointed to a concerning gap in policy: while global standards often link land rights to biodiversity or forest management, “carbon market standards are less consistent.”

The urgency is fueled by the implementation of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, particularly 6.2 (bilateral trading) and 6.4 (voluntary market), which has led to a flurry of national policy development. Yet, as Iwerks warned, this rush has resulted in frameworks being developed while projects are already underway, risking rights violations. “More than half of the countries rich in forests don’t have clearly defined carbon rights,” she added, citing a joint study by RRI and McGill University.

Country Perspectives: The Philippines, Zambia, and Brazil

In the Philippines, Edna Maguigad, a legal and policy specialist, described a decade-long evolution from REDD+ readiness to more recent efforts to regulate voluntary carbon markets. While the country has existing environmental and Indigenous rights safeguards, operational gaps remain. “The remaining forests are mostly in ancestral lands, where overlapping rights and unclear mandates prevail,” Maguigad noted. The FPIC (Free, Prior and Informed Consent) process is a legal requirement, but Maguigad emphasized that “carbon trading is categorized as extractive and must undergo a full-blown FPIC process.” A new set of FPIC guidelines introduced in 2025 explicitly recognizes Indigenous Peoples' rights to carbon credits, a major policy milestone.

In Zambia, Isaac Mwaipopo, Executive Director of the Centre for Trade Policy and Development, traced the development of carbon policies back to the Forests Act of 2015 and the more recent Green Economy and Climate Change Act of 2024. While community forest groups have been enabled to participate in carbon markets, Mwaipopo highlighted persistent gaps: “Most of the carbon project developers are external, and communities express concern about not knowing how much revenue is being realized.” Chiefs—who hold significant sway over customary land—are often gatekeepers, but “some abuse their authority and make decisions that do not benefit the communities.”

In Brazil, Johny Fernandes Giffoni, Public Defender of Pará and expert in socio-environmental law, described a complex legal landscape. While a 2024 federal law—Law 15.042—mandates consultation and consent for forest peoples under international law (ILO Convention 169), Giffoni noted a disconnect between legal protections and on-the-ground implementation. “We are living a land chaos in the Amazon,” he said, citing Professor Girolamo Treccani. In response, communities are developing “Autonomous Consultation Protocols” to document and defend their rights. Giffoni highlighted a case in Pará where communities declared that “carbon credits are a silent and unknown threat.”

The Role of FPIC and Benefit Sharing

All panelists agreed that FPIC processes are essential—but underdeveloped. Maguigad emphasized that in the Philippines, FPIC is where benefit-sharing negotiations take place. “It is crucial to ensure that carbon projects are co-designed with communities and reflect their social and ecological contexts.”

Mwaipopo noted that in Zambia, CSOs are increasingly involved, but meaningful participation is lacking. “Communities are often only engaged at the end of the process, and benefit-sharing is still opaque.” In Brazil, Giffoni described judicial actions against carbon developers for failing to conduct proper consultations and using abusive contract clauses. “Communities are fighting back using legal tools and alliances with universities and civil society.”

Land Data and Biodiversity: The Missing Links

Another key theme was the importance of land data. “You can’t have equitable carbon frameworks without transparent, accessible, and accurate land data,” said Iwerks. Countries must be able to map areas with clear versus insecure tenure and assess where conflicts may arise. Maguigad and Mwaipopo both confirmed that their countries lack integrated carbon project registries or geotagged land data, hampering accountability.

The connection between carbon storage and biodiversity also drew critical attention. While carbon projects can theoretically align with biodiversity goals, conflicts often arise. In Zambia, Mwaipopo described overlapping licenses for carbon and mining on the same land. “We need clear laws to resolve these conflicts and protect biodiversity-rich areas.” Giffoni added that in Brazil, “biodiversity is often compromised in the rush to establish carbon markets.”

Conclusions and the Way Forward

Across contexts, the same warning resounded: carbon frameworks developed without secure land tenure and genuine community participation risk deepening social and environmental injustices.

Questions and concerns were also posed to the panel by participants regarding the potential limits of safeguards and FPIC given what they had described in terms of implementation gaps, that indigenous peoples and a right to FPIC are not always recognized, and that conflicts are abounding, but also, that carbon projects as a climate solution have been called into question.

As Sabine Frank concluded, “Land rights are not the silver bullet, but they are the foundation. Without them, the entire structure of carbon markets becomes unstable.”

Several  paths forward were highlighted as needing attention before governments advance national frameworks:

• Legal clarity on carbon rights and benefit-sharing mechanisms.
• Stronger and better-implemented FPIC processes, with special attention to Indigenous legal systems.
• The need for protection - the ability of people to speak up about how their land is being impacted without retaliation or reprisals
• Transparent land and carbon data systems accessible to communities.
• Inclusive multi-stakeholder policy development, starting—not ending—with local voices.

As governments forge ahead with advancing carbon frameworks, global carbon markets mature, the challenge is no longer whether to involve communities and the wider public, but how. “Communities are not just stakeholders,” said Iwerks. “They are rights holders. And it’s time that carbon policies reflect that reality.”