Sink or swim: How Indigenous and community lands can make or break nationally determined contributions

The document argues that the 2030 global mitigation targets of the Paris Agreement cannot be met without protecting and empowering IPLCs. Analysis of Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru shows that 92% of forested IPLC lands are net carbon sinks, sequestering an average of 30 metric tons of carbon per hectare annually—more than twice the rate of non-IPLC lands. Despite this, the NDCs of these four countries largely fail to acknowledge the role of IPLC lands in meeting national targets. The paper identifies critical governance gaps, including lack of legal land recognition, limited land rights, and poor implementation of free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC). It also highlights the prevalence of illegal deforestation and violence against environmental defenders. The authors recommend that governments strengthen partnerships with IPLCs, ensure full legal land titling, and integrate specific IPLC carbon sequestration data into national inventories.

• Forested IPLC lands in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru are highly efficient carbon sinks, with 92 percent of these lands acting as net sinks and sequestering an average of 30 metric tons of carbon per hectare annually, which is more than twice the sequestration rate of non-IPLC lands.
• The carbon sequestration provided by IPLC lands is critical to meeting 2030 unconditional NDC targets, averaging 30 percent of the targets for the four focus countries. Loss of these services would require massive economic offsets, such as Peru needing to retire its entire passenger vehicle fleet to compensate for a 50 percent drop in sequestration.
• Current NDCs in the four focus countries fail to adequately incorporate IPLCs and their lands, with references mostly limited to fairness, rights, and participation rather than specific mitigation targets. Brazil notably removed forest-specific targets from its 2020 update that were present in its 2015 submission.
• IPLC lands face constant threats from illegal ranching, mining, and logging, often involving collusion between governments and illegal actors. This environment has made these four countries some of the most dangerous globally for environmental defenders, with women facing particularly high levels of violence in Colombia.
• While payment for environmental services (PES) and REDD+ programs exist, they are often underfunded or ineffective. Mexico's PES funding dropped from USD 63 million in 2016 to USD 8 million in 2020, and REDD+ in Peru has not stopped deforestation or improved Indigenous well-being.

APA

Forest Declaration Assessment (2022). Sink or swim: How Indigenous and community lands can make or break nationally determined contributions. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Sink-or-swim-IPLC-lands-and-NDCs.pdf

Chicago

Forest Declaration Assessment. Sink or swim: How Indigenous and community lands can make or break nationally determined contributions. 2022. https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Sink-or-swim-IPLC-lands-and-NDCs.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Forest Declaration Assessment |title=Sink or swim: How Indigenous and community lands can make or break nationally determined contributions |date=March 2022 |url=https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Sink-or-swim-IPLC-lands-and-NDCs.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{forestdeclarationassessment2022sink, author = {{Forest Declaration Assessment}}, title = {{Sink or swim: How Indigenous and community lands can make or break nationally determined contributions}}, institution = {Forest Declaration Assessment}, year = {2022}, month = mar, url = {https://forestdeclaration.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Sink-or-swim-IPLC-lands-and-NDCs.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }