This article was originally published on Landscape News.
“Degradation of natural resources reduces employment opportunities for at least 11 million young Africans entering the job market every year, and soil and nutrient depletion on croplands cost the continent 3 percent of its gross domestic product. Climate change magnifies the challenge.
In response, numerous countries and corporations are engaging in landscape restoration across the continent, while indigenous peoples and local communities are reasserting their role in preserving and recovering the natural capital to the benefit of society as a whole.
Delegates attending the recent Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) in Nairobi at UN Environment headquarters highlighted the importance of aligning policies to ensure sustainable land management. In parallel, they urged countries to secure the tenure rights of indigenous peoples as stewards of their ancestral lands.
“In Africa, indigenous peoples and local communities have customary rights to around 80 percent of the land, but they are only recognized for 16 percent of that territory,” explained Patrick Kipalu, Africa Program Coordinator at the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI).
“Protecting the land rights of these populations is the most cost-effective way to preserve and restore landscapes, so we must put people at the center of land management and ensure effective accountability mechanisms,” said Kipalu…”
Read on at: Landscape News.
