The daily food and incomes of billions of people, particularly the rural poor, are determined by their access to land, fisheries and forests. Societies decide and regulate access to these resources through systems of tenure. Paul Munro-Faure, Deputy Director and Francesco Romano, Land Tenure Officer of the FAO Partnership, Advocacy and Capacity Development Division explain how supporting responsible governance of tenure is critical to achieving food security and allowing families to invest in sustainable production. They describe the FAO policy work, including key policy messages.

In a landmark decision, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) endorsed a set of far-reaching global guidelines aimed at helping governments safeguard the rights of people to own or access land, forests, and fisheries. The new Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security outline principles and practices that governments can refer to when making laws and administering land, fisheries and forests rights.

La familia Aquino Poma decide retornar al campo y aprovechar la propiedad familiar de los Aquino. Gracias a un acuerdo, no dividen la propiedad entre los hermanos y se hacen cargo de toda la producción, construyen 10 qotañas (atajados) para la reserva de agua y de esa forma viabilizan la producción agrícola y pecuaria de su predio.

En el año 2000, se intensificaron las amenazas de expansión de la frontera agrícola, extracción de madera, cacería comercial y pesca masiva no controlada, creándose conflictos entre aripaeños y foráneos por el uso del bosque y sus espacios. Por ello, los comunarios del lugar iniciaron las conversaciones para concretar un Acuerdo de Conservación.

El pueblo Ye´kwana tiene un patrón de asentamiento ribereño y disperso a lo largo de la cuenca del rio Caura, sus comunidades están asentadas en la selva y pese a la influencia de la iglesia evangélica y católica, los ye´kwana mantienen aún su organización política propia, basada en las autoridades en cada comunidad.

El Gobierno Territorial Autónomo de la Nación Wampis (GTANW) ejerce su autonomía de hecho, sin expreso dictamen de la normativa interna sino basándose en el Convenio 169 de la OIT. De esta forma ejercen el control de su territorio, la cual una parte está titulada y la otra no; las áreas no tituladas son de uso y ocupación ancestral y que han sido aprovechadas y cuidadas por los Wampis.

Desde el Instituto Para el Desarrollo Rural de Sudamérica (IPDRS) nos acercamos a la discusión sobre las autonomías y gobiernos indígenas, a través del trabajo que realizamosde manera puntual en el acceso a la tierra y territorio y de manera más general en la innovación de discursos y prácticas de desarrollo rural.

Memoria del Conversatorio Acceso a la tierra y territorio en Sudamérica. Necesidades de visibilización, realizado en el marco del IV Encuentro Internacional del Movimiento Regional por la Tierra y Territorio.

March 2014 – Odisha, a state on the eastern coast of India, has endeavored over the years to enact laws aimed at providing land to those cultivating it and redistributing ownership of land. Landesa designed and piloted a model where a local youth (called a Community Resource Person) – identified by the community – is trained to provide additional capacity to local government land administration officials to identify and provide title to the formerly landless families. This model was subsequently scaled to cover 1,042 villages in seven districts of the state.

March 2014 – In most of Africa, land is at the heart of economic, social and political life. Therefore, land and natural resource rights and governance issues profoundly affect and are affected by development initiatives across the continent. To fully succeed and contribute to ending extreme poverty in the post-2015 world, development initiatives must recognize and strengthen the land and natural resource rights of local people, especially the rural poor and women. However, while there is growing awareness of these issues, they are often overlooked.

March 2014 – This paper critically examines how lease farming can be a viable livelihood option for landless rural poor, especially women in India. In the absence of land ownership and education, the majority of landless and semi-landless rural women are engaged as low wage agricultural labourers and remain trapped in poverty and indebtedness. Lease farming by landless women in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh shows a pathway for reducing their poverty and enabling upward social mobility.

March 2014 – The authors conducted extensive interviews of farmers in twelve villages in southern China, where Stora Enso, a large multinational pulp and paper producer, had acquired large areas of farmers’ forestland rights for its eucalyptus plantations.