Issue Brief: Tenure and Indigenous Peoples

Indigenous peoples (IP) often live on lands governed by customary or informal law. Securing access to these natural resources and formalizing land tenure rights is an essential foundation for vulnerable IP to maintain themselves; exercise their civil, social, cultural, political, and economic rights; and contribute to local, national, and global sustainable development. Legal recognition and demarcation of tribal areas, territories, or domains are the key means for empowering IP. However, these legal protections often do not exist. Reasons include weak states, land acquisition for agriculture, infrastructure developments, biodiversity conservation, inappropriate tenure instruments, agrarian reforms, Global Climate Change (GCC) mitigation, extractive industries, and an inability to work effectively with remote IP. Assistance to IP through strengthening tenure security requires attention to issues and limiting factors with which IP identify when they produce their own long-term plans for development. Therefore, development efforts should address the specific needs of IP while also ensuring that well-intentioned initiatives do not inadvertently harm indigenous communities. This brief discusses the key issues, opportunities, and recommendations for strengthening land and resource rights of indigenous peoples.

Author(s): Janis Alcorn

Indigenous Peoples Brief August 2011.pdf — PDF document, 239 kB (244792 bytes)