The Land Rights Law (LRL), enacted on the 23rd of August 2018, was an impressive feat. It recognizes the land rights of all Liberians, especially rural communities who have historically been subject to mere user rights on their ancestral lands. The LRL protects the rights of communities to their claimed customary areas as their lawful property – “with or without deed”. This provision places an estimated 70% or more of the country under customary ownership.

This session sought to explore examples of international community land ownership and to collate the experiences of community land governance during the pandemic.

The session aimed to respond to the following questions:

Countries are largely missing out on a key strategy to fight climate change.

The back has been broken on legal denial of community property. This is the conclusion of a study of land laws in 100 countries.

Factually, most administrations now acknowledge community lands as a viable unit of property and provide mechanisms through which this essentially social form may be formally mapped and registered. And I mean community property, with comparable legal protections as granted private and corporate property.

2018 could be transformative for the indigenous and community land rights movement, with unprecedented opportunities for scaling up rights recognition around the world.

By Andy White, Coordinator of the Rights and Resources Initiative

By Rachael Knight, Senior Advisor, Community Land Protection, Namati

By Liz Alden Wily and Fabrice Dubertret, Members of the LandMark Operations Team.

Do community-held lands thrive today in Europe? If so, what can communities in Asia, Africa and Latin America learn from their long experiences? This was the topic of a Practitioner Lab hosted by LandMark : the Global Platform of Indigenous and Community Lands at the XVI biennial conference of the International Association for Study of the Commons held in Utrecht on the 10^th of July. A panel of four experts from Europe (Monica Vasile, Romania; Evelyn Dietsche, Germany; Rita Serra, Portugal; and Pedro Medrano, Spain) helped participants understand the realities of commons in their countries today. Pedro Medrano represented the Soria Forest Association of Spain, winner of the Elinor Ostrom Practitioner Award 2017.

By Julia Christian, Forest Governance Campaigner for FERN

Michoacán’s indigenous communities’ greatest resource is their forests. And they defend them with their lives.

By: Eileen Omosa, PhD