Tomado de: «WHO OWNS THE WORLD’S LAND?».
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Abstract:
Ownership of the world’s rural lands and natural resources is a major source of contestation around the globe, affecting prospects for rural economic development, human rights and dignity, cultural survival, environmental conservation, and efforts to combat climate change. Historically, most rural lands were owned and governed by local communities and Indigenous Peoples under customary tenure systems. Over time, however, large areas of these lands have also been claimed by states under statutory law. In much of the so called “developed world,” this assertion of state claims has led to the reallocation of community lands to households and corporations as private property, though public ownership has remained important in some countries. In developing countries, states have often continued to assert direct claims over community lands, resulting in a situation of overlapping claims to lands that extend across large areas of the world to this day.
Communities are estimated to hold as much as 65 percent of the world’s land area through customary, community-based tenure systems.1 However, national governments only recognize formal, legal rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities to a fraction of these lands. Some countries are in the process of recognizing communities’ rights, and estimates from those countries provide some indication of the size of these gaps in recognition. Recent work in India and Indonesia has identified approximately 40 million hectares (Mha) of customarily-held forest land in each country that has not yet secured formal, legal recognition.2 In Peru, estimates indicate that an additional 20 Mha of land is still due for formal recognition, and in the Caribbean region of Colombia, only around 2 percent of land held under customary tenure by Afro-Descendant communities has been formally titled.3 Many other countries have not yet established the legal authority for the recognition of communities’ land rights, and there is limited information on how much land is held by communities and still due recognition.
