21.04.2023
While the Scientific and Technical Committee (CST) on Forests is launching an ambitious project on indigenous peoples and local communities, an article published at the end of March in Le Monde discusses the need to recognize community land rights in tropical forest countries.
Written by Jacques Tassin, ecologist, and Christian Kull, geographer, this article highlights the negative effects of land insecurity on natural resource management. It reminds us that constitutional reforms affirming the recognition of the knowledge and rights of local communities and indigenous peoples have already shown, in the past, their positive effects on the reduction of deforestation, mainly in Latin America.
In the same vein as the work that is being undertaken within the CST, the objective is to encourage the financing mechanisms for actions aimed at fighting deforestation to better consider the role of tropical forest populations as actors in the preservation of ecosystems. The recognition of this role must be accompanied by an improvement in land tenure security in order to be fully efficient.
The first part of the article is available on Le Monde website, the whole article being reserved for subscribers.
You can also read this article on the subject.
