The World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Resources and Rights Initiative (RRI) have released a report which shows that forests thrive much better when they are under the control of local communities.
The report Securing Rights, Combating Climate Change: How Strengthening Community Forest Rights Mitigates Climate Change analyzes the growing body of evidence linking community forest rights with healthier forests and lower CO2 emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. It presents a compelling case for expanding and strengthening community forest rights based on evidence drawn from comparative studies, advanced quantitative research, case studies, and original deforestation and carbon analyses by the World Resources Institute (WRI).
The findings centre on examples from 14 forest-rich countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The countries include Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Papua New Guinea, Peru, and Tanzania. Together, these countries contain about 323 million hectares of government-recognized community forest (68 percent of the estimated total in all low- and middle-income countries) as well as large areas of community forests without legal or official recognition.