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This report analyses evidence linking community forest rights with healthier forests and lower carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
It makes the case for strengthening the rights of indigenous and local communities over their forests as a policy tool for mitigating climate change. The report argues that when Indigenous Peoples and local communities have no or weak legal rights, their forests tend to be vulnerable to deforestation and thus become the source of carbon dioxide emissions. Legal forest rights for communities and government protection of their rights tend to lower carbon dioxide emissions and deforestation. Indigenous Peoples and local communities with legal forest rights maintain or improve their forests’ carbon storage. Even when communities have legal rights to their forest, government actions that weaken those rights can lead to high carbon dioxide emissions and deforestation. It argues that communities can partially overcome government actions that weaken their forest rights.
