The High-Level Session on Land Management in Times of Crisis at the Third Arab Land Conference convened policymakers, experts, and practitioners to explore how effective land governance can mitigate these challenges, prevent future conflicts, and drive resilience.
Recognizing Indigenous lands is important to achieving forest and biodiversity targets and mitigation goals. This is directly acknowledged in initiatives like the Global Biodiversity Framework’s 30x30 Target, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) and Net Zero by 2050.
However, the actions necessary to achieve these targets can sometimes result in pressure and infringement on Indigenous and local land tenure systems that are already insecure due to lack of formal recognition and communities’ weak participation in decision-making related to climate initiatives. These pressures are experienced differently by women and men because of social, economic and political dynamics that influence land tenure and community governance systems. Failure to account for gender when implementing climate initiatives can risk eroding the traditional land entitlements of women and trigger additional negative impacts.
Land administration has historically focused on economic growth and formalization – now it must evolve to address climate imperatives.
Observers marked 2023 as a “make-or-break” year for voluntary carbon markets and a key “inflection point” for their role in addressing climate change and global deforestation. Proponents highlight that forest carbon projects channel much-needed funds towards forest protection and are pivotal to climate change mitigation. However, critics emphasize that carbon deals set incentives for over-crediting. Moreover, carbon offsetting allows the biggest emitters to simply outsource their climate mitigation efforts with potentially adverse impacts for affected communities.
Under the umbrella of the Land Dialogues series, the last webinar of this year’s series “Navigating Loss and Damage : A Path to Justice for Indigenous Peoples” took place on December 5th, 2024. The webinar drew in a little over 250 participants. The series is organized by a consortium of organizations, including the Land Portal Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Tenure Facility and this particular webinar was
The Land Dialogues nurture a community of trust with Indigenous peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendent peoples by producing webinars that bring unlikely voices and perspectives together.
