Beyond Tenure: Rights-based Approaches to Peoples and Forests

Background

Historically, policymakers and practitioners treated human development and human rights as separate issues. However, a growing consensus highlights the need to integrate rights-based approaches into development, particularly in the forestry sector. Past efforts to improve the well-being of forest-dependent communities have often failed because they overlooked the rights of these communities, even when governments implemented tenure reforms. Land tenure involves more than property rights—it encompasses a wide range of human rights, including civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights. International human rights standards recognize that forest peoples have the right to own, control, use, and benefit from their lands and resources, ensuring their means of subsistence.

Goals and Methods

This paper demonstrates the importance of addressing a broader range of human rights in tenure reform programs for forests. The paper draws on 17 years of work by Forest Peoples Programme (FPP) to emphasize the critical need to recognize and uphold the rights of forest-dependent communities.

Conclusions and Takeaways

The paper argues that certain governments and development agencies have long denied forest peoples their rights, resulting in social exclusion, poverty, and marginalization. Weak implementation of policies and the absence of an effective rule of law have exacerbated these issues. It calls on forestry departments and development agencies to adopt a human rights-based approach by prioritizing safeguards, accountability, transparency, and the active participation of forest peoples. To address these challenges, the paper urges policymakers to explicitly respect and protect forest peoples' rights, ensure development agencies meet their human rights obligations and follow international law, and support civil society organizations and researchers in raising community awareness of rights and advocating for long-term policy reforms.