LandMark

Those who live on collectively managed land and forests have strong spiritual, social, and economic relationships with their territory - yet their legal rights to it are often precarious. Indigenous Peoples protect more than 50% of the world’s land surface, but have formally recognised ownership of just 10% (RRI). Mapping land is key to securing rights for traditional territories of Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLC). Maps demonstrate how IPLC preserve ecosystems, prevent encroachment by commercial interests, and reveal land claims. LandMark does just that: an online, interactive global map with critical information on the tenure claims IPLC have over their territories. LandMark's maps now cover 12.4% of the world’s land. This scalable solution can enable many of the 2.5 billion people depending on collectively held land -  including more than 476 million Indigenous Peoples (IWGIA) - around the world to map their lands and secure their rights.

Many of the world’s remaining strongholds of biodiversity remain thanks to the stewardship of the Indigenous Peoples and local communities protecting them with (often the most) cost effective solutions that help build resilience to human encroachment. Despite this crucial role, the lack of recognition and legal protection of IPLC territories leaves them vulnerable to land grabs, driven by rising global demands for food, timber, minerals, and energy, as well as conservation and climate regulation. A lack of land rights for IPLC affects their wellbeing and livelihoods, through restrictions to nutrition, water, cultural practices, and economic activities, and further jeopardises their stewardship role. Lands held by Indigenous Peoples have lower deforestation rates than formally protected areas (Nolte, et al.) and IPLC-managed forests store 37.7 billion tonnes of carbon - more than the world’s 2013 CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes combined (Common Ground). Securing IPLC land rights is essential for addressing  climate change (SDG13), global biodiversity management (SDG15), bio-cultural conservation and justice (including territorial and gender justice) (SDG16), and sustainable livelihoods (SDG 1, 2, 3).

LandMark is the first online, interactive global platform to provide maps, journal articles, reports, and other publications on lands that are collectively held and used by IPLC. LandMark was developed to fill a critical gap in information on indigenous and community land rights by providing several categories of data to visualise and create awareness about the land tenure situation for IPLC around the world. LandMark provides IPLC with a platform to let governments, development assistance agencies, and others know of the lands they hold and use. By identifying and mapping collectively-held lands around the world, it will be clear to all parties that these lands are not vacant or idle and provide information on who holds claims over them. LandMark displays georeferenced information on collectively-held and used lands worldwide in order to consolidate the numerous ongoing local, national, and regional efforts to map and document IPLC lands within a single global platform. The LandMark platform includes maps and data on indigenous and community lands that are publicly available, as well as information directly from individuals and organisations. LandMark data is offered at national level and community level scales to all users at no cost through the platform’s website.

Indigenous Peoples and local communities are “ethnic groups who are descended from and identify with the original inhabitants of a given region, in contrast to groups that have settled, occupied or colonised the area more recently” (IPBES). IPLC populations can be found throughout all regions of the world. In every country across the globe, Indigenous Peoples are poorer, have worse access to basic services, and enjoy far fewer social and economic opportunities (World Bank). The lasting impacts of colonialism, including forced resettlement, external development pressures, and exclusion from decision-making power have undermined IPLCs’ ability to manage their lands and waters and to participate in various livelihood activities (The Nature Conservancy). 

Today, these challenges remain, particularly with regards to land, as many governments acknowledge customary and community land rights, but few have established the strong legal protections needed to secure these tenure systems. Furthermore, even when supportive legislation is in place, few governments have effectively implemented or enforced these laws. As a consequence, IPLC are still losing their land to governments and corporations for economic development and commercial investment purposes. Many rural people are also facing a growing number of restrictions on how they use their land, which can threaten livelihoods and trigger potentially violent conflicts. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing threats to land rights and heightened conflicts and criminalisation of Indigenous Peoples, in particular, while highlighting their existing discrimination and marginalisation.

In an effort to improve their situation, IPLC and their allies developed the LandMark platform to help protect IPLC land rights by identifying their territories and insisting outsiders acknowledge their existence. LandMark thus recognises the necessity of full engagement and support of IPLC leaders and organisations in order to achieve our goals and objectives. It is also crucial for legitimacy of the platform, data quality, and achieving our desired impact. Therefore, LandMark exercises two main strategies to understand the needs of IPLC facing restricted land rights and tenure security and how to engage them in developing our solution. 

First, LandMark is committed to having significant IPLC participation in our governance structures to ensure they can contribute to the growth and development of this platform. LandMark’s Steering Group (SG) is the principal governance organ and the central decision-making body of the platform. It sets LandMark’s vision, mission, goals, policies, and strategies. In order to ensure LandMark is accurately addressing the needs of IPLC, 50% of the SG membership are IPLC organisations and SG members originate from a variety of regions throughout the world. LandMark also works to have strong IPLC representation in our Advisory Group (AG), LandMark’s third governance body, which provides the SG with specific advice and feedback relevant for adjusting the priorities and work of the platform, such as suggesting revisions in LandMark’s direction, the presentation of data, and data-sourcing.

Second, engagement of IPLC in data collection and mapping efforts is a growing priority of LandMark and one that will be of significant interest throughout the next five years of our work. In particular, drawing on input provided by IPLC members of the SG and AG, LandMark will implement new capacity building activities for IPLC, including participatory mapping projects and data collection, management, and analysis skills. These efforts will ensure that the quantity and quality of data on our platform is most relevant to the needs of IPLC themselves.

By making local land rights and territories visible on LandMark’s platform, allowing them to be overlaid with other maps such as information on biodiversity or deforestation, it not only has the capacity to secure IPLC tenure rights; it also allows them to prove and claim their role as custodians of more sustainable nature-based practices. Secure tenure rights and documentation of their stewardship role of our ecosystems will enable IPLC to manage their lands and waters for their own wellbeing and be an example of how we can all ensure the resiliency of our planet.

By delineating their territories and making visible their land rights, LandMark recognises IPLC as custodians of nature and enables them to claim and secure their rights - and thus decision-making power - over their traditional territories, empowering them to protect, manage, and restore ecosystems. LandMark also contributes to IPLC data sovereignty by building their data collection and analysis capacity, supporting them to own, develop, manage, and use maps and data for more inclusive and informed decision-making processes about their land and natural resources, as well as for their own land rights advocacy efforts.

Since LandMark’s launch in late 2015, it has developed into a well-established tool displaying a variety of data layers from multiple datasets. In fact, as of today, the indigenous and community land maps on LandMark cover 12.4% of the world’s land. We now look to scale these efforts in various areas of our work. First, LandMark is looking to increase the quantity and quality of the data displayed (continued updates to existing data layers, new data layers from new sources, and data collected by IPLC themselves). Second, while LandMark already has several data analysis tools available on our platform, we aim to develop new ones in order to expand the analysis and interpretation capabilities of our users. Finally, LandMark looks to expand our impact through greater capacity building opportunities for IPLC, including participatory mapping skills, so they can generate, manage, and own their own maps.

Landmark’s platform was developed to fill a critical gap in information on indigenous and community land rights by consolidating the numerous ongoing local, national, and regional efforts to map and document IPLC lands within a single global platform. Notably, the design and continued development of the platform has been led by IPLC in order to guarantee that this technology serves its intended purpose: making visible the tenure situation of IPLC in order to assist them in gaining land rights. LandMark’s open data design ensures a global technological data platform is available, accessible, and useful for local and grassroots organisations throughout the world and provides IPLC with data sovereignty over the collection, ownership, and application of data about their lands; therefore, empowering them both from a technological as well as a political perspective. Thanks to these features, LandMark provides often marginalised groups with the ability to engage with and influence decision-makers that set and implement policies impacting IPLC lands.

In addition to IPLC utilising LandMark for their own advocacy efforts, our platform has also attracted various other users, including companies looking to assess the land-based risks to investment. LandMark provides these risk assessors with a resource to review existing land and resource rights present in their region of interest, with the hope that well-informed investment decisions will respect the rights of IPLC. When IPLC rights are upheld, it reinforces their role as stewards of resilient ecosystems and prevents the establishment of ecologically harmful land use practices in the area.

An average of 18,500 people access LandMark’s platform each year. Throughout the next five years, LandMark will implement new activities that will strengthen the engagement of our current users and generate new users, especially with regards to IPLC, through LandMark’s new global mapping platform and capacity building activities.

In the first year, our global mapping platform will serve 80-100 IPLC and mapping organisations - gathered from the International Land Coalition’s land rights network and those currently involved in the LandMark partnership. Thereafter, the global platform will open to the wider IPLC and mapping communities, aiming to gather all major mapping organisations involved at global, national, and/or local scales. Training and capacity transfer on data generation, data analysis, and advocacy efforts will be provided to all IPLC and mapping communities involved in the new platform.

LandMark also serves more than just it’s direct users. As of today, the indigenous and community land maps on LandMark cover 12.4% of the world’s land, representing about 25% of IPLC territories worldwide (home to more than 400,000 IPLCs). By scaling our work, we aim to add maps covering an additional 5% of the world’s land each year - equating to approximately 50% of all IPLC territories worldwide within the next five years.  Increased mapping and protection of IPLC land rights not only serves the up to 2.5 billion IPLC worldwide; it serves everyone on this planet due to the stewardship role IPLC play in sustaining resilient ecosystems.

In order to measure progress toward our overall goal of improving tenure rights for IPLC globally, LandMark will utlise various statistical tracking methods. Fortunately, these methods will also enable LandMark to contribute to current international development discussions as they align with tracking done for United Nations Sustainable Development Goals targets:

• Percentage of IPLC territories and lands covered and made visible by LandMark (relates to SDG 16.10)
• Percentage of documented/recognised IPLC lands by Government (corresponds precisely to SDG 1.4.2)

• Perception of security of property rights of IPLCs (corresponds precisely to SDG 1.4.2)

LandMark will evaluate its progress on our second work package by tracking the number of IPLC that participate in our global mapping platform and are subsequently trained for data collection and analysis, as well as land rights advocacy.

Presently, as LandMark has little project funds, all workers are part-time. 

- 2 chairs (time covered by employing institutions)

- 3 support staff (1 technical, 1 resource mobilisation, 1 IPLC engagement; covered by LandMark funds)

- 2/3 contractors (temporarily-engaged Steering Group members, supporting specific technical/data activities; covered by LandMark funds)

Management, IPLC engagement, policy impact: I am the head of Data/Research/Learning at the International Land Coalition (ILC). ILC promotes the use of people-centred data in all facets of its work and supports the generation of such data through various initiatives (LANDex, Land Matrix, Defend the Defenders Coalition). As co-chair of the LandMark Secretariat, I apply my knowledge and experience from involvement in these ILC initiatives to support the day-to-day management of the LandMark platform and workplan implementation. Myself and other ILC colleagues manage LandMark funds and ensure that IPLC are actively engaged in its development and operations, made possible through ILC’s global land rights network which engages 56 thousand land-user communities (eg. Indigenous Peoples, farmers, pastoralists, fisher folk) around the world (equivalent to 71 million people).

Technical development, data management: The other co-chair of LandMark’s Secretariat is a staff member from the World Resources Institute (WRI). Staff at WRI are responsible for the technical development and management of the LandMark platform, including secondary data collection, based on their extensive technical expertise related to their existing data projects and tools. 

Global mapping network, community development: All members of the Steering Group - IPLC and others - are actively engaged in LandMark. These include global members (RFUK and RRI), as well as local technical organisations that are engaged in data generation and development of the mapping community (IBC, RAISG, PAFID, FES), and IPLC organisations for local data generation, use, advocacy, and policy engagement (CENESTA, AIPP).

In addition to LandMark’s Secretariat, LandMark has two other governance bodies: Steering Group and Advisory Group. In order to ensure a diverse leadership team, one of LandMark’s goals is to maximise the level of engagement of IPLC in these governance bodies. LandMark aims to be led and guided by IPLC, as representatives of those our platform is ultimately serving. 

At least 50% of the LandMark Steering Group members identify as IPLC organisations, representing various regions of the world, as well as the main IPLC constituencies (Indigenous Peoples, local communities, smallholders, and pastoralists). As the principal decision-making body for LandMark, the expertise of these members ensures that the platform will fulfill its intended purpose of assisting IPLC secure their land and territorial rights. 

Current Steering Group members: Liz Alden Wily, PAFID (Philippines), RFUK (UK), WAIPT (Global), AMAN (Indonesia), FES (India), IBC (Peru), RAISG (Amazon), RRI (USA), CENESTA/UNINOMAD (Iran). These are to be joined by: AIPP(Asia), OPDP (Africa), WAMIP (Europe/Global), and Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (Global)

LandMark’s third governance body, the Advisory Group, includes a wide variety of stakeholders in land governance and IPLC rights from organisations, federations, and associations from regions throughout the world or representatives at the global level that have advanced knowledge of land and IPLC rights. Its composition is flexible. The members of the Advisory Group utilise their expertise to provide strategic guidance and ad-hoc advice to the Steering Group to ensure that the platform continues to be useful for IPLC.

LandMark has chosen to apply to the Resilient Ecosystems Challenge for the opportunity to improve and scale our platform so we can better serve IPLC. With the funds and strategic advice available through Solve and MIT networks, we would like to develop partnerships that will support our work and learn from other tech-based initiatives on how best to approach the next phase of LandMark’s work.

Being a member of the Solve community would also help us overcome several challenges, including the current technical and financial barriers we face. In order to increase our impact, LandMark must consistently develop our technology to ensure it is the best quality that it can be. Having active connections with leaders in the tech and social impact industry through Solve’s networks would help LandMark achieve this goal. Additionally, being successful in this Challenge would help our financial stability through the funding provided by MIT Solve as well as the connections and partnerships with other funders that are available to Solve community members. 

LandMark would also appreciate the opportunity to increase recognition that land rights are a fundamental element to addressing major challenges facing humanity today, such as overcoming rural poverty, building sustainable food systems, mitigating climate change, and managing ecosystems (and subsequently alleviating risks related to pandemics such as COVID-19). We would take great pride in encouraging more tech and social impact efforts to address current threats to land rights and the opportunity to promote land governance as a possible focus for future Global Challenges.

As LandMark was originally intended to provide IPLC with resources and records that they could use in their own advocacy efforts, it is now our intention to support IPLC in all facets of this work. One such method is through increased public relations efforts. By increasing the visibility of LandMark and, by extension, awareness of the data available on the platform, land rights and tenure insecurity of IPLC will be more visible. In addition to promoting the existence of LandMark, marketing and media efforts must continuously include awareness raising about how infringing on the land rights of IPLC jeopardises the future for ourselves and the planet.

In addition to increasing public awareness about land and tenure security, LandMark also wants to advocate for the importance of data and transparency in support of all IPLC rights. Here, we could benefit from support from partners to ensure and legitimise the business model LandMark is promoting (data for all - which is related to more inclusive monitoring and evaluation). This would also support LandMark in reaching out to decision-makers or other funders and investors in the business spheres, for both greater impact and/or financial support.

As LandMark prepares to work directly with NGOs, Indigenous Peoples, and other communities to map their own territories and provide ground-level data on a multitude of factors, we will have to build capacity in the various available mapping tools and software, teach others how to use them, and, in some cases, work in the field directly with community members to map their lands. In order to do so, LandMark aims to work with trusted partner and ILC member Cadasta Foundation in order to facilitate the provision of innovative technology, land expertise, training, and services to empower communities to use these data to advance individual and community rights and tenure security. 

LandMark could also benefit from the broader environmental community in order to upscale its uptake and impact. Data on tenure rights are important for those who depend on the land (in particular IPLC), but it is also important for other communities - such as those interested in environmental protection or poverty alleviation - as land and land rights are core building blocks for more sustainable and resilient societies. The uptake of LandMarks data is thus of utmost importance, and could benefit from partnerships with various organisations and Solve members and partners such as Future Planet Capital, MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative, and The Nature Conservancy. Note that the Solve Challenge partner UNEP is also a member of the ILC network.

IPLC, due to weak land and other rights as well as to their minority status, are often the most marginalised and the most affected by external shocks (socio-political, economic or environmental). They are hence prone to forced migrations and to becoming refugees (outside of their territories, whether nationally or internationally). The aim of LandMark is to make these communities more resilient, in general and against such shocks, enabling them to stay on their land. Alternatively, making visible and safeguarding their land rights would also allow for refugees to claim their lands back, in view of returning home. 

The prize would be used in focusing on specific areas with, on one had, large number of refugees, and on the other hand, issues with land rights (lack of land rights, lack of maps/data/visibility - all aspects LandMark aims to address). A potential case could be the Congo basin, in particular Eastern DRC (affected by national and international conflict, huge numbers of displacements, blurry and insecure land rights and territories, and unsustainable land and natural resource use).  

In the movie uploaded to this call, we demonstrate (through LandMark's data and maps) that IPLC  territories - when acknowledged and/or recognised - are less affected by deforestation and represent huge carbon reserves.

 Actually:

- Half of intact forests in the Amazon Basin are in indigenous territories, and these intact forest declined by only 4.9% (2000-2016) on IPLC lands (whereas they decreased by 11.2% on non-IPLC lands (FAO/FILAC, 2021)).

- IPLC territories are responsible for one third of all the carbon stored in the forests of Latin America and14% of the carbon stored in tropical forests worldwide (FAO/FILAC, 2021).

To build resilient communities, restore ecosystems, and support carbon absorption and decarbonization, IPLC need secure land rights. The first step to secure such rights is to map them. Maps are a powerful way of sharing information and shaping decisions; they also help communities make their territorial claims and rights and protect their sustainable practices.  

LandMark is a tool to do just that: an interactive global platform and map that shows tenure status and claims of IPLC over their territories and how these contribute to sustainable use of resources (including carbon absorption and decarbonization).

LandMark aims to increase research and to make more visible/evident these links between IPLC lands and more sustainable land use. This prize would contribute to these activities. A special focus will be given to the tropical forest basins (Amazon, Congo), in order to extract good practices and the impacts of IPLC with regards carbon absorption and decarbonization.

LandMark offers a global technological platform and provides maps’ evidence to serve (often marginalised and precarious) IPLC, making visible the realities on the ground and by monitoring and embedding them in globalized trends and humanity. LandMark will not only support the IPLC who depend on the land, but contributes to counter issues and challenges that affect our planet and humanity. Indeed, the use of such technologies will, on one hand, help communities make territorial claims, to make their land and rights visible, and support them in building more resilient livelihoods and equitable societies. On the other hand, it will also provide evidence and support their stewardship role for climate change, resilient ecosystems and biodiversity, and a more sustainable planet overall.