Leading Global Experts Call Land Rights for Indigenous Peoples Affordable, Effective, Untapped Solution to Deforestation, Biodiversity Loss & Pandemic Risk

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Leading Global Experts Call Land Rights for Indigenous Peoples Affordable, Effective, Untapped Solution to Deforestation, Biodiversity Loss & Pandemic Risk Indigenous leaders, researchers  warn of massive destruction to rainforests from mining, agriculture, major infrastructure projects; cite urgent need to strengthen land tenure for tropical forest communities to defend ecosystems, protect traditional knowledge EDITOR’S NOTE: Click here for a recording of today’s event and here for a virtual newsroom, with links to the research cited in this release. NEW YORK--Experts on deforestation, biodiversity loss and emerging disease presented findings today suggesting Indigenous Peoples and conservation-minded local communities must be central to efforts to slow forest loss and climate change and cut the odds of new pandemics. Convened by the Earth Institute at Columbia University, the virtual panel focused on evidence suggesting that major conservation goals could more easily be achieved if pacts like the Paris Agreement encouraged the scaling up of land rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Doing so could safeguard traditional knowledge and much of the world’s remaining biodiversity, estimated to be worth US$44 trillion to the global economic sector. “Protecting the land rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities has the potential to save people’s lives everywhere on the planet,” said Peter Daszak, president of the EcoAlliance and an author of the recent report on pandemic risk from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). “The degradation of ecosystems feeds into climate change. Deforestation feeds into climate change So, if we can invest in protection of the remaining wild areas on the planet—those that are managed by indigenous and local communities around the world, we can get an incredible return on investment.” Streaming live just days before the five-year anniversary of the historic and ambitious 2015 Paris climate accord, the panel of Indigenous leaders and researchers met as deforestation continues unabated in tropical forest countries; a recent assessment concluded, “Forests are under threat from an ever-increasing demand for natural resources and different land uses, fueled by global markets, power imbalances, weak governance.” The experts meeting today sought to raise the visibility of evidence that has yet to influence policies aimed at addressing deforestation and other crises linked to the destruction of vulnerable ecosystems.  “Part of the problem is that we have asked individuals to take on these problems, when we need structural change,” said Pamela McElwee, Associate Professor in the Department of Human Ecology in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University and and a lead author on high-level reports on land use and biodiversity loss published by IPBES and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “Evidence cited in our reports for the IPBES and the IPCC is very clear that indigenous peoples play a key role in preventing biodiversity loss and deforestation. In my opinion, structural recognition of rights should be fundamental to the Paris Agreement and to the Convention on Biodiversity. “I want to see Indigenous Peoples and local communities represented as rights holders at the main events and not just at side events during global climate and biodiversity summits,” McElwee said. Research by the World Resources Institute, the Rights and Resources Initiative and other institutions reveals that Indigenous Peoples and other local communities across every continent except Antarctica occupy more than 50% of the world's land, said Peter Veit, director of the Land and Resource Rights (LRR) initiative at the World Resources Institute. Land rights are cited in reports released by the IPBES and the IPCC, but the obstacles are significant; only 10% of land is recognized as belonging to communities, with another 8%designated for their use. Today’s panel was held during a week-long initiative to raise awareness of land rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. “We know from our research that procedures for registering and titling lands are complicated, costly and can take decades to get,” Veit said. “It’s a travesty that companies are granted concessions—often to the same lands—in far less time. And when communities do have rights, it may not be for the trees, the water or the wildlife on their land. And governments often reserve for themselves the right to grant concessions to minerals under the soil. So, we need to streamline recognition of rights so that they are meaningful.” Norman Jiwan, a Kerambai Dayak from West Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) reported on a series of case studies about Borneo that illustrated the impact of a massive infrastructure project on forests and forest peoples, funded by Chinese and Asian development banks. “We have a very simple solution to climate change: Give us our rights to our lands and we will keep the forests standing,” said Jiwan. “Investors and industry coming into our country need to stop doing business as usual. These plans for the island of Borneo are not the answer to climate change and do not represent the climate justice that we are calling for.” The projects introduced by the governments of Indonesia and Malaysia bring in outsiders to serve as labor, Jiwan said. The changes are beginning already to undermine the local communities’ abilities to protect the island, 60% of which remains covered in primary forests. “Worldwide, throughout modern history, Indigenous Peoples and local communities have had their lands wrested from them, whether we look at the Amazon or Borneo,” said Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and convener of the Science Panel for the Amazon. “There seems no stopping this relentless greedy corrupt system. Until now. We have a very big year ahead, with the oceans summit in Portugal and the meeting of the Convention on Biodiversity and the climate COP in November. We are at the end of planetary survival. Can we protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples and the juggernaut that is putting us all at risk?” Mina Susana Setra, an indigenous Dayak Pompakng from from West Kalimantan, Indonesia, described her frustration after 13 years of attending global climate conferences, where she and other indigenous leaders advocated for rights as a solution to the deforestation that is now contributing significantly to carbon emissions, particularly in countries such as Brazil and Indonesia. “For so many years, negotiators at the COPs have been focusing on city-based solutions,” said Setra, an expert on environment, and climate policy at Indonesia’s Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN). “It is clear from what we have heard here today that we need to find community-based solutions and that is not we are doing. The solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss exist already, but we are not using them. And our governments have opened a highway to new investments, so our rights are even more at risk.” Peter Daszak concluded by calling on citizens of rich nations and their leaders to recognize the impact their behaviors are having on vulnerable ecosystems and the Indigenous Peoples and local communities that protect them. “We hear a lot of doom and gloom, but if we realize who is causing these problems, we have to recognize it is us, and we have the power to stop it,” Daszak said “Get involved. Not just in fighting climate change, but in supporting Indigenous Peoples’ rights around the world. This is how we can protect ourselves against future pandemics that kill our loved ones and our neighbors and crush our economies. And don’t stop. We need to focus on the outrageous abuses of land rights, year after year. And we need to speak up.” ### SUSTAIN WHAT hosted by environment journalist Andrew Revkin, is a global conversation identifying solutions to the complicated, shape-shifting and epic challenges attending humanity’s Anthropocene environmental surge. A prime focus is making sense of, and getting the most out of, the planet's fast-forward information environment—the one Earth System changing faster than the actual environment. This webcast is produced and hosted by Andrew Revkin, founding director of the Earth Institute's new Initiative on Communication and Sustainability. For the time being, these sessions are focused on mitigating the unfolding societal disruption and devastation driven by the global spread ofCoronavirus Disease 19, best known today as COVID-19. But we are also focusing on ways to build more resilient, inclusive and sustainable communities in the years ahead. 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