Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Are missing palm trees causing more lighting deaths in Bihar appearing in ‘The Times of India’ dated 29.05.2025". The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Are missing palm trees causing …
Deforestation rates are significantly lower in Indigenous and Tribal territories where governments have formally recognized collective land rights, according to a new report. Jointly published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Fund for the Development of Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the …
This publication is the result of an extensive and fruitful debate within Friends of the Earth International about the rights that are essential for community forest management to be carried out more fully. The publication explains in detail why the implementation of these rights is necessary: if the right to …
With at least 6 million cases, India is currently among the world’s top three countries affected by COVID-19. The country’s forest-dwelling and Adivasi communities – already vulnerable and marginalized – have also suffered the pandemic’s economic ravages, facing extensive food insecurity and loss of livelihoods. These impacts have piled on …
This compilation of case studies from the central eastern tribal states of Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand is an attempt to bring together practices and experiences of forest dependent communities of managing and governing their resources. It also explains how the Forest Rights Act, 2006, is seen by the forest dwelling …
Well-performing community-based forestry has the potential to rapidly restore forests in ecological terms and scale up sustainable forest management to the national level, while improving local livelihoods of billions of the most marginalized people around the world. This document highlights the findings from a forest tenure and community-based forestry assessment …
There is broad consensus that community-based forestry (CBF) conservation, backed up by supportive governance arrangements, can play an important role in reducing poverty and restoring ecosystems. The working paper, published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO), aim to support policymakers’ efforts to assess which CBF approaches …
This report is intended to provide guidance to develop enabling legal frameworks governing community forestry. It offers recommendations and a framework for reflection for all actors engaged in creating, implementing or revising laws on community forestry, and for civil society in particular. Drawing lessons from the design and implementation of …
The International Network of Mountain Indigenous Peoples (INMIP) aims to support capacity development for biocultural heritage, climate change adaptation and sustainable food systems through community-to-community exchanges. It currently includes communities from 11 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. It is coordinated by Asociación ANDES (Peru).
Increasing global demand for natural resources is intensifying competition for land across the developing world, pushing companies onto territories that many Indigenous Peoples and rural communities have sustainably managed for generations. These communities, who collectively hold at least half the world’s land but legally own just 10 percent of land …
This paper develops a broad framework to conceptualize the multiple ways forests contribute to poverty reduction and inform interventions in forest landscapes. The paper identifies five key strategies for reducing poverty in forest landscapes: improvements in the productivity of forest land and labor; strengthened community, household, and women's rights over …
State has the highest potential CFR area of 48,20,028 hectares recorded till 2016. Mumbai: Maharashtra tops in community forest resource management across the states in India, as per a recently released report by Centre for Science and Environment, Delhi. Under the Forest Rights Act, Community Forest Resource (CFR) management was …
First came the forest, followed by the people, and then the government. Does this chronology allow the newest entrant in the scheme to determine the relationship between the two older entities? In other words, does the new regime of Community Forest Resource (CFR) bequeath rights or is it merely a …
This brief highlights key attributes of national constitutions, laws, and regulations that play a fundamental role in protecting indigenous and rural women’s rights to community forests and other community lands. These legislative best practices were derived from a 2017 analysis of over 400 national laws and regulations, Power and Potential, …
The explicit reference to “a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases” (Art. 4) in the 2015 Paris Agreement has given a strong impetus to Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) proposals that aim to remove greenhouse gas emissions through bioenergy and carbon capture and storage …
All major agencies intervening in community-based and carbon forestry – such as international development agencies, conservation institutions, and national governments – state that their interventions must engage local participation in decision making. All say they aim to represent local people in the design and implementation of their interventions. In practice, …
Despite their stated commitment to democratic processes, the Government of Ghana and international authorities presume the accountability and ability of NGOs to represent local interests in forest resource management. This article scrutinises elite formation and elite capture through the case of a Community Resource Management Area (CREMA) in western Ghana. …
After decades of industrial logging and forest mismanagement, the Liberian government has pledged that it will now only issue forest licenses to the communities who own the forest. This welcome change could be undermined however, by weaknesses in the country’s laws that govern how community forest licenses are awarded and …
Up to 2.5 billion people hold and use the world’s community lands, yet the tenure rights of women—who comprise more than half the population of the world’s Indigenous Peoples and local communities—are seldom acknowledged or protected by national laws. Although gender norms and women’s forest tenure security vary widely across …
This report is an outcome of the Community Forest Rights-Learning and Advocacy Process (CFR-LA) which was initiated in 2011 to facilitate exchange of information and experiences to reinforce national level efforts for evidence-based advocacy on Community Forest Resource Rights (CFRs) under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition …
Amid the realities of major political turbulence, there was growing recognition in 2016 that the land rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities are key to ensuring peace and prosperity, economic development, sound investment, and climate change mitigation and adaptation. Despite equivocation by governments, a critical mass of influential investors …
