How Global Climate Initiatives Can Risk Indigenous Women’s Land Rights

After years of being away from her ancestral village of Jotomana, Rosa Velásquez, a member of the Wayúu Indigenous group in La Guajira, Colombia, was greeted by gigantic wind turbines punctuating the horizon and dominating the surrounding landscape.

"We live among turbines. The companies like them, but I don't," Velásquez told The Guardian. "Where am I to go if this is my territory? What are my grandchildren going to do once I die?"

While Velásquez wrestled with these uncertainties, Leiji Hana González, a 32-year-old Wayuu mother of two, and her family were forced to flee their 40-year-old home in her ancestral village because of land conflict sparked by the installation of a wind farm on their land.

González recounted to Dialogue Earth how armed men belonging to a group that wanted to control clan territory and negotiate with the wind park developer burst into the house shooting and killing one of her aunts. They buried her aunt on the same day and then escaped in the middle of the night with barely more than the clothes on their backs. The family moved to Riohacha, the capital of La Guajira, to live in exile.

These kinds of stories about displacement and land conflict borne by Indigenous women and their communities have become embedded in Colombia's transition to renewable wind and solar energy as global climate initiatives help the country reduce climate-harming emissions and restore nature.

As Colombia seeks to transition to renewable energy, wind turbines are installed in areas of La Guajira that are home to Indigenous peoples. Photo by Nelson David Alonso Charry/Flickr.

How Climate Initiatives Can Put Women at Risk

Recognizing Indigenous lands is important to achieving forest and biodiversity targets and mitigation goals. This is directly acknowledged in initiatives like the Global Biodiversity Framework's 30x30 Target, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) and Net Zero by 2050.

However, the actions necessary to achieve these targets can sometimes result in pressure and infringement on Indigenous and local land tenure systems that are already insecure due to lack of formal recognition and communities' weak participation in decision-making related to climate initiatives. These pressures are experienced differently by women and men because of social, economic and political dynamics that influence land tenure and community governance systems. Failure to account for gender when implementing climate initiatives can risk eroding the traditional land entitlements of women and trigger additional negative impacts.

The rights within Indigenous land tenure systems are defined by gender, and social markers including marital status, age and kin group. They are often held collectively by the group but different women and men within that group have different rights and obligations. For example, the Wayuu are a matrilineal society where kinship and rights to inherit land run along the maternal line (from mother or aunt to daughter). With these rights also come the obligation for women to impart cultural and traditional knowledge to the next generation.

Studies show that in general women bear more risks from external pressures on collectively held lands no matter the tenure system. This is so even in Indigenous matrilineal communities, where women's land rights are culturally legitimate.

The biggest risks women face include:

Loss of Traditional Land Rights

For González and other Wayuu women whose families get mired in disputes over lands designated for climate initiatives, the loss of traditional land rights is their biggest risk. Beyond displacement for entire families, women additionally lose the specific ancestral property they are entitled to under the matrilineal tenure system.

Resettling on new land can often be precarious. It's more difficult for women to purchase land because they often have lower incomes and educational levels, lack access to credit or don't have proper identification documents.

Moreover, especially in and around urban areas, land acquisition may require the male head of household to be named as the owner on property titles. This requirement can effectively erode matrilineal cultures, as it replaces the traditional system of rights and obligations for women with a male dominated majority culture.

Women can also lose their land rights when climate initiatives fail to abide by international conventions, such as the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (ILO 169), which requires initiatives to include a consultation process and obtain the consent of Indigenous communities. This is the case with Indigenous Bribri women in Talamanca, Costa Rica, one of the most forest-rich regions in the country and among the areas identified for carbon offset programs under REDD+. Like the Wayuu, the Bribri are a matrilineal society where maternal clans own land.

Interviews with members of the Bribri suggested that during REDD+ negotiations, government negotiators bypassed the Bribri ancestral authority (the council of elders) in favor of the Integral Development Association, which serves as the local governance body in Indigenous territories. Since the Integral Development Association is not bound to follow the rules of the matrilineal tenure system in negotiating terms, compensation and benefit-sharing of the agreement, women we interviewed said this could threaten their traditional land rights.

There's precedent from previous carbon contracts managed by the Integral Development Association, where the management of funds ultimately led to mistrust in the Integral Development Association and conflict among community members because the association chose to bypass customary tenure rules in the investment and distribution of funds.

Without an approach that's inclusive of the community, initiatives like REDD+ could disregard women's cultural entitlement to land and instead value Indigenous land for its carbon storage.

A Bribri woman stirs a chocolate drink she made from scratch. Many Bribri women rely on cacao agroforestry for their livelihoods and food security. Photo by Ray Waddington/Alamy Stock Photo.

Disruption of Land-based Livelihoods

Another significant risk faced by women is the loss or disruption of their land-based livelihoods. For the Bribri, the emphasis of Costa Rica's REDD+ strategy on forest conservation and prohibition of land use change to enhance carbon stock can disrupt the Bribri's use of their lands.

Bribri forest conservation is integrated with Indigenous livelihoods and domestic practices, such as hunting, extracting plants for medicinal and other purposes, tree felling for construction and cultivating small crops (such as citrus, banana and cacao). Forests are also integral to Bribri spirituality, which allows them to maintain one of the most densely forested areas in the country.

Many Bribri women rely on cacao agroforestry for their livelihoods and food security. Others depend on nature tourism to supplement the economy. In Yorkin village, tourism earnings have funded a health clinic, high school, aqueduct and community center.

For the Wayuu, the Colombian government's plan to intersperse La Guajira with wind parks significantly disrupts their traditional economic activities, which includes raising goats and sheep and small-scale agriculture. The semi-arid landscape already presents challenges, but the destruction of vegetation and excavation of land to erect wind turbines and build access roads and support structures are degrading open pastures and farming land.

In one community, 10 families saw a 50% decrease in livestock in less than five months after a large goat feeder was demolished by the regional environmental agency charged with overseeing wind park projects.

Meanwhile, new jobs promised to the local communities by wind park projects are often generated only during the construction phase, as afterwards most jobs are either automated or require special skills.

Installation of wind turbines are disrupting the livelihoods of the Wayuu in La Guajira, Colombia, which includes raising goats and sheep. Photo by Nelson David Alonso Charry/Flickr.

Erosion of Social Support Systems

In matrilineal and matrilocal (societies where the family residence is in the wife's village or clan territory) communities, where families live in compounds or settlements, the loss of land tenure often leads to a loss of support systems for women. One such case involves the Indigenous Guna community in Guna Yala, a group of islands off Panama's Caribbean coast affected by sea level rise.

The Guna live in family compounds consisting of several structures designed for large and multigenerational families. This allows women to share domestic responsibilities, diversify their livelihoods and exercise considerable decision-making powers.

Rising sea levels and increasingly severe storms are causing many of the Guna Yala island communities to consider relocating to their traditional lands on Panama's mainland. Gardi Sugdub, the first island community that made this decision a decade ago received some government support for housing and resettlement. However, the Guna had little input on the resettlement plan developed by the government, and their matrilineal tenure system and matrilocal residency were not accounted for in the design of the new settlement and prioritization of plot ownership.

The new settlement designed by the government is laid out as an urban development set up on a grid, with individual dwellings suited for nuclear families. The Guna have yet to officially move to the resettlement village, but the design risks reshaping the Guna women's land tenure system and entitlements in at least two ways. First, it may nudge a transition from collective land ownership to a more Western land tenure concept that privileges private ownership and titling in the name of the head of household, which is typically the husband or male relative. Second, it may shift Guna culture from one centered on the extended family to that of a nuclear family, potentially weakening the matrilineal tenure system and women's social support network that the multi-generational residency provides. Research shows that how architecture and spatial organization is designed influences people's behavior and social practices.

Sea level rise is threatening the homes of the Guna people in Guna Yala, Panama. Photo by MarcPo/iStock.

Mitigating Women's Risks

The vital roles of women in communities like the Wayuu, Bribri and Guna as food producers, homemakers, resource caretakers and leaders - and the centrality of secure land tenure to these roles - make it essential for climate initiatives and actions to incorporate strategies and measures to protect women's land entitlements.

For example, research shows that women with secure land rights have a greater say in household income and expenditures that typically improves family food security and children's health and education. Also, women who own land tend to invest more in climate adaptation strategies, as secure land tenure empower them to make long-term decisions about their land and adopt practices like sustainable agriculture, agroforestry and soil conservation to protect their land and improve their resilience to climate change impacts. But with any climate strategy or initiative, it is important that the approach ensures cultural sensitivity and applies a consultative process that's inclusive of women and marginalized segments of the community. Measures to achieve this include:

1) Institutionalizing Free, Prior and Informed Consent According to International Standards

Even when there's some form of consultation with Indigenous women and their communities, it still falls short of genuine participation and recognition of Indigenous rights and customary tenure systems. Meaningful consultations require mandating and institutionalizing Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), which are international standards set by ILO 169 and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

2) Support More Decision-Making by Indigenous Women and their Organizations

Women in Wayuu, Bribri and Guna communities were mostly underrepresented and played secondary roles in the processes and decisions impacting their land security, social support and livelihoods. Their crucial roles as producers, natural resources caretakers, and keepers and transmitters of ancestral knowledge, including traditional medicine, necessitate their participation in decision-making for climate action to be equitable and sustainable. Relevant state authorities, including gender ministries, collaborating with nongovernmental organizations, can provide support through, among others:

• Rights-awareness and leadership trainings to give Indigenous women and men a stronger voice to influence decisions.
• Skills-building trainings to improve economic prospects in case of loss of traditional livelihoods.
• Gender-sensitization activities for government personnel and third parties implementing climate actions, such as organizing workshops with women to design gender-responsive guidelines and safeguards for project implementation.
• Providing safe and convenient opportunities and spaces for women to meet, network and organize.
• Protecting women and men who may be threatened and placed in harm's way while defending their lands and rights.

3) Address Policy and Regulatory Gaps in Climate Action

Policy and regulatory gaps related to the climate initiatives or actions must be addressed by the state. For example, in Panama, climate policies on climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction can be strengthened to provide greater guidance on planned relocation of Indigenous communities, ensuring such initiatives are implemented in a culturally appropriate manner incorporating Indigenous and local perspectives. In Colombia, the energy transition policy can incorporate national consultation guidelines aligned with FPIC with minimum standards that guarantee the participation of women and marginalized groups, and secure Indigenous Peoples' and women's land rights. And in Costa Rica, the state can enact measures to properly implement REDD+ in Indigenous territories, including the integration of two components identified by Bribri women, namely, gender, language and culture; and tourism, both of which support the matrilineal culture and secure women's land tenure and livelihoods.

For more on this topic, read WRI's working paper: Potential Risks to Women's Land Rights from Climate Actions: Exploring Matrilineal Communities in Colombia, Costa Rica and Panama.