Indigenous Peoples and other Communities rely on their collectively held lands for food, water, livelihoods and well-being. Yet around the world, these groups face barriers to legally registering and titling these lands—and it’s getting worse. While 50-65 percent of the world’s land is occupied and used by Indigenous Peoples and communities, only an estimated 10 percent of the world’s land is legally recognized as belonging to them, with another 8 percent designated by governments for them. Many countries had been taking important steps to protect indigenous and community land rights over the past 20 to 30 years, but more recently, there’s been a slowdown in the formal recognition of these lands, leaving communities vulnerable to losing their spaces to companies, governments and others. In some cases, the pace of titling of indigenous and community land has fallen short of legal requirements, and in most countries, it has fallen far short of popular expectations. Government actions have contributed to this slowdown by, for example, defunding responsible government agencies and establishing new administrative measures that act as barriers to the community land recognition process.
