By the Numbers: Indigenous and Community Land Rights | World Resources Institute 31.10.

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Blog By the Numbers: Indigenous and Community Land Rights

By the Numbers: Indigenous and Community

Land Rights
by Peter Veit and Katie Reytar - March 20, 2017

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When more than 1,200 land rights

experts converge on the World Bank’s
Washington, DC headquarters today
for the 18th Annual Land and Poverty
Conference, participants from
government, civil society groups,
private sector and donor agencies will
focus on how they can use data and
other evidence to reform land Aerial view of Amazon rainforest near Manaus.
policies, identify strategies for Photo by Neiil Palmer (CIAT)/Flickr
expansion and find ways to monitor
progress.

While conference participants from around the world have in previous years
presented and discussed new information on individual private property rights and
state land, here are some important numbers about Indigenous and community
land rights, the world’s most common form of tenure.

50%
The proportion of the world’s land held by Indigenous Peoples and other
local communities.

The precise amount of communal land is not known, but many experts argue that
at least half of the world’s land is held by Indigenous Peoples and other
communities. Some estimates are as high as 65 percent or more of the global land
area. Indigenous Peoples hold an estimated 20 percent of the Earth’s land mass,
one-half to one-third of the world’s collectively-held land. Communal land is found
in all continents of the world except Antarctica, with the largest area located in
Africa. LandMark, the global platform of indigenous and community lands,
provides maps and other critical information on these lands.

2.5 billion
The number of people who depend on indigenous and community land.

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By the Numbers: Indigenous and Community Land Rights | World Resources Institute 31.10.20, 20(20

Up to 2.5 billion men, women and children, including more than 370 million
indigenous people, rely on land, natural resources and ecosystems – forests,
rangeland and wetlands - that are held, used or managed collectively. With a
current world population of about 7.5 billion people, about one in three people is
dependent on communal land for their wellbeing and livelihood.

10%
The share of the world’s land legally owned by Indigenous Peoples and other
communities.

Globally, Indigenous Peoples and local communities have formal legal ownership
of 10 percent of the land, and have some degree of government-recognized
management rights over an additional 8 percent. Two-thirds of the global land
owned or controlled by communities is in five countries: China, Canada, Brazil,
Australia and Mexico. That means at least one-third to one-half of the world’s land
is held by Indigenous Peoples and local communities informally, under customary
tenure arrangements alone. Without legal recognition, Indigenous Peoples,
communities and their lands are “vulnerable to illegal, forced or otherwise unjust
expropriation, capture and displacement by more powerful interests.”

24%
The amount of climate-warming carbon stored in collectively-held tropical
forests.

At least 24 percent of the carbon stored above ground in the world’s tropical forests
(not counting the carbon stored in the soil) is in the collectively-managed lands of
Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Indigenous and community lands

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By the Numbers: Indigenous and Community Land Rights | World Resources Institute 31.10.20, 20(20

contain at least 54,546 million metric tons of carbon (MtC), equivalent to four times
the total global carbon emissions in 2014. One-tenth of the total carbon contained
above ground in tropical forests—22,322 MtC—is in collectively managed areas that
lack formal, legal recognition. Considerable carbon is also stored in indigenous and
community lands that is not tropical forestland. In addition to carbon
sequestration, indigenous and community lands also protect other ecosystems that
provide critical local, regional and global ecosystem services. For example, most of
the world’s forests are found on communal lands, and indigenous lands alone hold
80 percent of the planet’s biodiversity.

50%
The reduction in deforestation rates in the Amazon on securely held
indigenous lands compared to deforestation rates on similar land without
security.

In many areas in Latin America and around the world, annual deforestation rates
on tenure-secure indigenous lands are significantly lower than on similar land that
lacks tenure security. For example, in Bolivia, the average deforestation rate -
between 2000 and 2012 - inside tenure-secure indigenous lands was 0.15 percent,
while the rate outside indigenous lands was 0.43 percent. In Brazil, the
deforestation rate inside tenure-secure indigenous lands was 0.06 percent,
compared to an outside rate of 0.15 percent. And in Colombia, deforestation inside
tenure-secure indigenous lands was 0.04 percent, while the deforestation rate
outside was 0.08 percent. Tenure security provides Indigenous Peoples and
communities greater assurance that they will benefit from investments in their
land.

1%
The costs of securing indigenous lands in the Amazon as a percentage of total
benefits derived from these lands.

In Amazonian countries, the cost of securing indigenous lands amounts to less

than 1 percent of the total environmental benefits derived from these lands. Secure
indigenous lands provide important and valuable ecosystem services, including
regulation of local climate dynamics and water cycling, carbon sequestration, and
recreation and tourism. In Bolivia, Brazil and Colombia, these benefits are
estimated to range between $1845 to $4158 per acre or a total of $679 billion to

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By the Numbers: Indigenous and Community Land Rights | World Resources Institute 31.10.20, 20(20

$1,530 billion for the next 20 years (and considerably more if social and economic
benefits are included). In contrast, investments in tenure security are estimated at
only $18.21 per acre in Bolivia, $27.52 per acre in Brazil, and $2.43 per acre in
Colombia (the calculated sum of discounted total costs for a 20-year period).
Tenure-secure indigenous lands provide low-cost forest conservation investments
for governments.

These numbers speak for themselves: formal government recognition of

collectively-held lands makes economic, environmental and societal sense.
Governments and their partners should support Indigenous Peoples and other
communities to protect and safeguard their lands.

TAGS:
deforestation, indigenous people, land rights

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By the Numbers: Indigenous and Community Land Rights | World Resources Institute 31.10.20, 20(20

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