Global S&T Development Trend Analysis Platform of Resources and Environment
As Indigenous Groups Wait Decades for Land Titles, Companies Are Acquiring Their Territories | |
admin | |
2018-07-11 | |
发布年 | 2018 |
语种 | 英语 |
国家 | 美国 |
领域 | 气候变化 ; 资源环境 |
正文(英文) | This blog post is part of WRI's Struggle for Land series. The Santa Clara de Uchunya community has lived in a remote section of the Peruvian Amazon for generations. Like many indigenous groups, this community of the Shipibo-Konibo people have traditionally managed and relied on forests for hunting, fishing and natural resources. But in 2014, someone started cutting down large sections of the community’s ancestral forests. Without community members’ knowledge or consent, the regional government had given away 200 parcels of land, which were then bought by palm oil company Plantaciones de Pucallpa, part of a foreign group of companies with known environmental and legal troubles. Deforestation caused by palm oil development in Santa Clara de Uchunya. Photo by Mathias Rittgerott Community members turned to indigenous organization FECONAU for help, but there was a problem: Santa Clara de Uchunya only had formal legal title to a small sliver of their ancestral lands — about 218 hectares (539 acres). So in 2015, the community requested an extension of their title to their full ancestral lands. The Regional Government responded by making vague promises and implying that the existence of competing claims to the land made any action impossible. Faced with administrative inaction, the community filed a lawsuit to compel the government to recognize their constitutional rights to their ancestral land. The lawsuit remains stuck in the courts, and the community has only been able to obtain a government commitment to a small 750-hectare extension. When officials and community members tried to complete the necessary mapping for this extension, a large crowd, presumably affiliated with the palm oil operations, blocked their path. Community members continue to advocate, but they’ve been met with intensifying violence. Unknown armed men came to their homes, making threats like “we are ready to kill.” They beat a community member who refused to leave his land and opened fire on a community delegation trying to gather evidence of deforestation. Children from the La Roya community of the Shipibo-Konibo people. Photo by Juan Carlos Huayllapuma/CIFOR Meanwhile, palm oil operations continue, despite multiple injunctions ordering a halt to the company’s operations for failing to obtain proper permits and for illegally deforesting at least 5,300 hectares (13,000 acres). “We never thought that we would have such problems with transnational companies,” said Carlos Hoyos Soria, leader of the Santa Clara de Uchunya community. “We live from hunting, fishing — from the resources that the forest has to offer. Indigenous people without land are nothing.” Santa Clara de Uchunya’s Struggle for Land Rights Is a Global OneThe story of Santa Clara de Uchunya is all too familiar. New WRI research finds that across 15 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia, rural communities and Indigenous Peoples face steep challenges to formalizing their land rights. While they wait decades for legal titles that may never come, companies acquire land or begin operations in as little as 30 days (experience the difference in processes through our interactive infographic). The resulting conflicts over the contested land can last years, displacing communities and creating significant legal and economic risks for companies. Indigenous Peoples and rural communities occupy more than half of the world’s land, but they legally own just 10 percent of land globally. Obtaining formal land rights is one of many tools they use to try and protect their land, but our research finds clear inequities in these procedures:
Village children in Indonesia. Photo by Icaro Cooke Vieira/CIFOR Getting to the Root of the Land Rights ProblemInvestigating environmental crimes and problematic land transactions after they occur comes too late, and is expensive and time-consuming. A far better solution is to solve the land issues at the root of these problems. Governments should recognize indigenous and community land rights, engage in better monitoring of company misconduct during land acquisitions, and ensure that businesses secure the free, prior and informed consent of the people who live on the land before they begin operations.
Editor's note: This post has been edited. An earlier version incorrectly implied that the ancestral size of Santa Clara de Uchunya's territory was 8,000 hectares, a number which only reflects a portion of the ancestral territory. |
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来源平台 | World Resources Institute |
文献类型 | 新闻 |
条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.173/C666/handle/2XK7JSWQ/220301 |
专题 | 资源环境科学 气候变化 |
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714 | admin. As Indigenous Groups Wait Decades for Land Titles, Companies Are Acquiring Their Territories. 2018. |
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