Securing tenure rights for local communities is one of the most important ways we can be thinking about climate action around the world. We believe no one knows their land better than communities who live in it, and when good governance mechanisms are bolstering those rights, it enables the best conditions for good stewardship.

Global Land Alliance acknowledges that we, as individuals and as an organization, benefit from the traditional land of the Nacotchtank and the Piscataway Conoy People working in what is now known as Washington D.C. As a core value of our mission, we believe that the Indigenous knowledge is key to advancing rights to land and resources.

In the summer of 2023, Global Land Alliance’s Brazilian team and Brazilian partners Torsiano Consulting set out to conceptualize how the Brazilian government could approach the designation of public lands in the Amazon. Our team analyzed the efforts currently underway by the Brazilian government how they are improving and accelerating public land allocation process, which will have dual-benefits for climate outcomes and rights for Indigenous People and forest-dwelling communities in the Amazon. The following article is a summary of the legal and operational analysis.

The 2022 United National Climate Change Conference (UNCCC) COP will be the 27th convening of this group and will take place from November 6th-18th. The stakes are higher than ever as a series of recent scientific reports has shown that global climate change affecting nature, people’s lives and infrastructure everywhere. Its dangerous and pervasive impacts are increasingly evident in every region of our world. These impacts are hindering efforts to meet basic human needs and they threaten sustainable development across the globe. (IPCC 6trh report 2022) The same scientific consensus shows a growing recognition of the role of land, land tenure security and forests in climate mitigation, adaptation and resiliency goals.

In the recently published Land Tenure Security and Sustainable Development, edited by Margaret B. Holland, Yuta J. Masuda, and Brian E. Robinson, a diverse range of contributing authors, including Malcolm Childress, Moustapha Diop and Christina Kuntz, provide a unique disciplinary, sectoral and topical perspective

The work to shut down Line 5 to protect the Great Lakes and the climate continues despite spreading misinformation about the need for the pipeline. On July 28 join communities and stakeholders for this special virtual event, The Latest on Line 5: Key Pathways to Protect the Great Lakes from an Oil Spill Disaster.

Last week, the International Land Coalition (ILC) hosted its 9th Global Land Forum in Jordan - the first large in-person meeting of the land community for three years. The main focus of the Forum was on the climate crisis and the role of strong land rights in adapting to and mitigating climate change. However, it also focused on those issues traditionally championed by those working on land rights: gender equality and social inclusion, peace-building, food security, tenure security, land governance and the continued plight of those defending land rights and the environment.

Mike Wiggins Jr, Bad River CEO and Tribal chair said of the removal: “No amount of compensation is worth risking Wenji-Bimaadiziyaang- an Ojibwe word that literally means ‘From where we get life.’ It’s time to end the imminent threat the company is presenting to our people, our rivers, and gichi gami (Lake Superior). It’s not only an infringement of our sovereignty, but a burden felt by our people having to engage in the perpetual chase for the next pipeline rupture. It’s time to stop the flow of oil immediately.”

In the past few weeks, a number of water protectors have seen criminal cases dropped by prosecutors in so-called Northern Minnesota after alleged actions taken to stop the Line 3 pipeline in defense of the water, the climate, and the treaty rights of the Anishinaabeg people. Violating Anishinaabe treaty territories in Minnesota, the new stretch of Line 3 was approved without full consent or proper impact studies, threatening safe water sources for millions. It carries the carbon equivalent of 50 coal plants. More than 68,000 Minnesotans testified against this plan.

Global Land Alliance’s March 2022 edition of our Parcel Post contains articles entitled: “Invisible And Excluded: Risks To Informal Wives And Partners From Land Tenure Formalization And Titling Campaigns In Latin America”, by Jen Duncan, Laura Bermudez, and Kevin Barthel; “Indigenous Land Defense at Peehee Mu’huh: “Green Energy" Demands Encroach on Paiute and Shoshone Territory” by Christen Corcoran;

In this first episode of the Land UP! podcast, we ask: where do we land up on climate change?

We spoke to Indigenous climate activist Dr Myrna Cunningham Kain, the Guardian's global environment editor Jonathan Watts and Prindex Co-Director Anna Locke about diversity, representation, and climate justice at COP26.

Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant Peoples have been stewarding Earth’s lands for millennia. Maintaining their sovereignty over their lands is not just a pressing human rights issue, it is now also recognized as a powerful climate change solution.

On the face of things, this is the first time that nature and biodiversity have achieved real prominence at a climate COP. Following a strong focus on forests and land use during the World Leaders’ Summit, COP26 included a dedicated Nature Day on the weekend. In between these two moments, a series of declarations and commitments were released:

A new report “Opportunity Assessment to Strengthen Collective Tenure Rights in Forest Carbon Partnership Facility Carbon Fund Countries” published by Forest Carbon Partnership Facility and the World Bank, identifies pathways for strengthening collective land tenure rights of IPLCs and features detailed Carbon Fund country profiles.

Global Land Alliance celebrates International Women’s Day 2021 and women’s rights to ownership and security of their land and natural resource rights. GLA strives to achieve sustainable prosperity for people and places; and gender equity is certainly a cornerstone of this work. Securing women’s land and property rights can increase agricultural productivity, incentivize the adoption of climate-resilient natural resource management and increase household spending on health and education. Conversely, when women face barriers to accessing, using or controlling land and other productive resources around the world, it not only puts them on an unequal footing in life, but it also restricts these wider positive social, economic and environmental outcomes.

Global Land Alliance and Cadasta Foundation are pleased to announce joint funding to, and collaboration with, Yayasan Puter Indonesia (Puter) to support a Village Boundary Setting/Resource Mapping, Land Use Mapping and Community Sample Survey (VBS-RM/LUM/CSS) activity in Labulia Village in the Jonggat Sub-District of Lombok Indonesia.

As we share the Global Land Alliance's 2019 Annual Report with you, we reflect on the core issues of security for land, shelter, and livelihoods that has been further underscored by the global COVID19 pandemic. These issues that GLA has been working towards since our founding six years ago. GLA continues to grow to advance sustainable prosperity for people and places in innovative and exciting ways, and continues to deliver this mission through a Reliance on our Alliance. GLA's alliance consists of individuals and organizations that share a common vision and mission.

This Earth Day marks the 50th Anniversary of a dedicated event to promote advocacy and education of environmental protection and our planet’s ecosystems. Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson established the first Earth Day event in 1970, which sparked Washington D.C. to adapt the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency.

This past spring, Global Land Alliance and The Nature Conservancy began a partnership to complete an analysis of legal access to freshwater rights and resources in Colombia and Ecuador, as well as prepared and scoped for a full analysis to take place in early 2020 in Gabon, Angola and Brazil.

During the 2019 World Bank Conference for Land and Poverty, an Analytical Framework for the Securing Forest Tenure Rights for Rural Development initiative was launched