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2012-05-11
UN Endorses Land Tenure Guidelines
Tanzania: Men cultivating land Photo: Geoff Sayer/Oxfam
The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) has today adopted a series of guidelines, which aim to improve the governance of people’s tenure of land, fisheries and forests, while also ensuring food security. The guidelines address various issues ranging from the protection of informal land rights and the transfer of tenure rights, to the right of women and indigenous people to have access to land. They are also intended to prevent land grabbing by ensuring responsible forms of investment. The endorsement of the principles was the result of a three year process with the participation of various stakeholders. “Land, fisheries and forests cannot be left at the mercy of markets and speculators", said Flavio Valente, Secretary General of FIAN International, a human rights organisation engaged in the preparation process. Now governments must commit themselves to implementing the guidelines and adapting national policies. According to FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva “It's a starting point that will help improve the often dire situation of the hungry and poor”.
- FAO Media Centre: Countries adopt global guidelines on tenure of land, forests, fisheries
- CFS: Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security
- FIAN International: FAO Tenure Guidelines a Modest Step, Governments Must Commit to Implementation
Rio+20 - Time to act
20 years after the Rio Earth Summit, the planet is in a deeper environmental, energy and financial crisis. The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in Rio de Janeiro in 2012 might be just another high-level conference stating the need to eradicate hunger and poverty, stop climate change, the loss of biodiversity, soil erosion and other serious environmental problems – and then, after the conference, life goes on as before. But it can be different. It has a historical opportunity to make important decisions and agree on actions that actually do eradicate hunger and poverty, and save the environment. It’s time to act!
More than hundred civil society organisations have signed a document with recommendations for the future of agriculture and proposals for practical policy initiatives the Rio+20 conference can adopt immediately. "What are the options, when business as usual is not an option?" Download the document or sign it here.
