Peru
Peru
* Mha = million hectares
In Peru, Indigenous Peoples and local communities have secure legal ownership rights to 12.78 million hectares of forestland as of 2017, representing a 2 million hectare increase since 2002. An additional 4.98 million hectares are designated for their use, an increase from 1.57 in 2002. [Source: RRI 2018 (At a Crossroads)]
35.29 million hectares of land was formally recognized as owned by Indigenous Peoples and local communities as of 2015, or 27.57% of the total land in Peru. An additional 9.27 million hectares are designated for communities, bringing the total recognition to 34.81% of Peru’s total land area. [Source: RRI 2015 (A Global Baseline)]
Peru voted in favor of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, and has ratified ILO Convention 169.
Secure community land rights are an intrinsic component of poverty alleviation goals and the achievement of national and global economic development goals.
Almost a third of the world’s population manages and depends on community-held lands. Land use by rural communities is more sustainable, benefits more people, and generates better environmental outcomes than large-scale plantations and extractive projects. Secure community rights are therefore vital to poverty reduction and sustainable development. [Source: RRI 2017]
Where Indigenous Peoples and local communities have secure rights, climate outcomes improve: deforestation rates are lower and carbon storage higher.
Globally, Indigenous Peoples and local communities manage at least 17 percent (nearly 300 billion metric tons) of the total carbon stored in the forestlands of assessed countries—a global estimate that is 5 times greater than shown in a previous analysis of aboveground tropical forest carbon, and equivalent to 33 times the global energy emissions of 2017. [Source: RRI et al. 2018 (A Global Baseline of Carbon Storage in Collective Lands)]
In Peru, 9.3 billion metric tons of aboveground, belowground, and soil carbon is stored in forestlands that are legally owned or designated for Indigenous Peoples and local communities. An additional 2.3 billion metric tons of aboveground, belowground, and soil carbon is stored in forestlands that are collectively held by Indigenous Peoples and local communities but not legally recognized. [Source: RRI et al. 2018 (A Global Baseline of Carbon Storage in Collective Lands)]
Indigenous and community women’s land and forest rights are crucial for the achievement of global development goals.
According to a legal analysis of 30 low- and middle-income countries, governments are not respecting indigenous and rural women’s tenure rights and are failing to meet international obligations to do so. The nine countries in Latin America provide the strongest protections for women’s overarching inheritance rights and greater recognition of women’s community-level membership rights, but lag behind countries in Africa and Asia with respect to women’s community-level leadership rights and the affirmation of women’s property rights in overarching laws. [Source: RRI 2017, Power and Potential]
Peru is one of only 8 countries studied that recognizes inheritance rights for women in consensual unions at the national level. [Source: RRI 2017, Power and Potential]
In Peru, although widows, daughters, and women in consensual unions have the right to inherit under national laws pertaining to all women, this right is not protected in community-level laws and regulations. [Source: RRI 2017, Power and Potential]
In Peru, while community governance and dispute resolution are addressed in the laws regulating 3 of 4 community-specific legal frameworks, women’s rights to vote, participate in leadership bodies, and access dispute resolution mechanisms are not guaranteed. [Source: RRI 2017, Power and Potential]
Insecure land rights can result in conflicts that threaten sustainable + inclusive economic development as well as corporate profits.
More than 40% of Peru’s land has been allocated by the government for timber, mining, and oil & gas drilling operations. [Source: TMP Systems 2014 (Communities as Counterparties)]
In an examination of 105 forest concessions covering 79,351.73 square kilometers, people were already living in 98-100% of them. [Source: TMP Systems 2014 (Communities as Counterparties)]
In an examination of 59,159 mining concessions covering 269,894.01 square kilometers, people were already living in 92-100% of them. [Source: TMP Systems 2014 (Communities as Counterparties)]
In an examination of 70 oil and gas concessions covering 203,258.17 square kilometers, people were already living in 97% of them. [Source: TMP Systems 2014 (Communities as Counterparties)]
Ignoring land rights can also cost investors billions in delays and legal fees: globally, ignoring community land rights can increase company costs by 29x the baseline [Source: TMP Systems 2012 (The Financial Risks of Insecure Land Tenure)]
The majority of conflicts are caused by communities being forced to leave their homes (46% of conflicts), with the second most common cause being destruction of the environment (26%).[Source: TMP Systems 2015]
Insecure land rights are driving conflict, insecurity, and a human rights crisis.
The Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, Vicky Tauli-Corpuz, published a special report in 2018 on the attacks and criminalization of Indigenous Peoples defending their lands and rights. It highlighted the case of Peruvian Quechua defender Maxima Acuña de Chaupe , who was sentenced to seven years n prison in July 2017 on charges of “disturbances” in the context of protests against mining concessions in the Puno region. [Source: Tauli-Corpuz 2018 (Peru case study)]