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Climate change is the gravest threat to the future peace, security, and prosperity of everyone on the planet. But the most severe consequences of climate change are experienced largely by people living in rural areas.
That’s why Landesa focuses on strengthening rural land rights as a means for promoting climate justice. When these communities have rights to the land they rely on to survive, they have the confidence to make investments in sustainable and climate-smart farming practices that build their resilience to climate change. At scale, those same investments can have a massive impact on climate mitigation, by storing more carbon in the soils and vegetation on sustainably managed lands.
Now is the time to act on climate change. We invite you to learn more about how land rights offer a path to a restored planet and a secure future for us all.
Walk the path with us.
The urgency of the present moment has been made startlingly clear in Glasgow over the past two weeks, where the world has gathered for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (commonly referred to as COP26). There, world leaders are discussing collective commitments to blunt the most devastating consequences of climate change and restore the health of our planet now and long into the future. Landesa has contributed to the dialogue on the role of land in mitigating climate change, building resilient communities, and in creating a hopeful and equitable future for all.
On Friday, Nov. 5, Landesa hosted a side event with partner Canadian Foodgrains Bank on the critical role of women’s land rights as a tool for building climate resilient food systems. Joined by speakers representing Indigenous Peoples, governance, and civil society, the event emphasized the central role of women smallholders as powerful change agents for advancing climate adaptation and mitigation by building sustainable food systems, and served as a call to action for all to recognize women’s land rights as critical tools for addressing the climate crisis, gender inequality, and food insecurity.
A recording of the event, which was moderated by Landesa Climate Change and Land Tenure Specialist Rachel McMonagle, is available on our website.
We’ve been busy rallying support for women’s land rights as a solution to climate change in many other ways. For Ms. Magazine, the foundational platform of the feminist movement, our Director of the Center for Women’s Land Rights Beth Roberts appeals to governments, policymakers, and corporations to center women’s voices in solutions for climate change. In her op-ed, “We Must Listen to Women to Tackle Our Changing Climate,” Beth writes with urgency and clarity on the challenge before us:
If we want to turn the corner on the climate crisis, we need more than just a slow march toward the full and equal participation of women. When women’s insights and experiences are sidelined, we sideline half of our opportunities for innovation. Women must not just be represented; they must equitably occupy leadership positions.
Read the full op-ed in Ms. Magazine here.
While the conversations in Glasgow are nearing a close, Landesa’s work to deliver sustainable solutions for climate change by strengthening smallholder land rights continues.
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