As Indigenous Groups Wait Decades for Land Titles, Companies Are Acquiring Their Territories
圣塔克拉拉·德·乌丘尼亚（Santa Clara de Uchunya）社区已经居住在秘鲁亚马逊（Peruvian Amazon）的一个偏远地区。像许多土著群体一样，这个船只 - 康尼博人的社区传统上也依靠森林来狩猎，钓鱼和自然资源。
但是在2014年，有人开始削减社区祖先森林的大部分。
没有社区成员的知识或同意，区域政府赠送了200块土地，然后由棕榈油公司Plantaciones de Pucallpa购买，这是一个外国公司的一部分，该公司的一部分environmental和legal troubles.
社区成员转向土著组织Feconau寻求帮助，但有一个问题：圣塔克拉拉·德·乌丘尼亚（Santa Clara de Uchunya218 hectares(539 acres).
因此，在2015年，社区要求将其头衔延长到其全祖先的土地上。地区政府responded bymaking vague promises and implying that the existence of competing claims to the land made any action impossible. Faced with administrative inaction, the community提起诉讼to compel the government to recognize their constitutional rights to their ancestral land.
该诉讼仍然陷入法院，社区只能获得政府对较小的750公顷延期的承诺。当官员和社区成员试图完成此扩展的必要映射时，大概与棕榈油行动有关的一大群人，阻止了他们的道路.
Community members continue to advocate, but they’ve been met with加强暴力. Unknownarmed mencame to their homes, making threats like “we are ready to kill.” They beat a community member who refused to leave his land and opened fire on a community delegation trying to gather evidence of deforestation.
同时，尽管multipleinjunctions命令停止该公司的业务，以免获得适当的许可证和非法森林砍伐至少5300公顷（13,000英亩）。
“我们从来没有想过我们会在跨国公司遇到这样的问题。”卡洛斯·霍约斯·索里亚（Carlos Hoyos Soria）, leader of the Santa Clara de Uchunya community. “We live from hunting, fishing — from the resources that the forest has to offer. Indigenous people without land are nothing.”
圣塔克拉拉·德·乌丘尼亚（Santa Clara de Uchunya）争取土地权的斗争是全球
圣克拉拉·德·乌丘尼亚（Santa Clara de Uchunya）的故事太熟悉了。新的WRI研究发现在拉丁美洲，非洲和亚洲的15个国家中，农村社区和土著人民面临着正式化其土地权利的巨大挑战。当他们等待数十年以来可能永远不会出现的法律头衔时，公司在短短30天内就获得了土地或开始运营（通过我们的流程差异交互式信息图）。在有争议的土地上产生的冲突可能是去年的，使社区取代并为公司造成了重大的法律和经济风险。
土著人民和农村社区占据more than halfof the world’s land, but they legally own just 10 percent of land globally. Obtaining formal land rights is众多工具之一他们用来保护自己的土地，但我们的研究发现这些程序中明显的不平等：
当试图获得其土地的正式权利时，社区面临着艰苦的战斗。Many communities do not realize that their customary forms of land ownership lack legal protection; those that do often lack the legal knowledge and resources to begin the process of applying for formal rights. While laws differ by country, land formalization procedures often involve difficult steps like writing technical reports or legal documents. In practice, most communities need help from an outside non-profit organization. Furthermore, as seen with Santa Clara de Uchunya, when conflicts or overlapping land rights and concessions exist, communities may be unable to title their lands at all. We found this to be a key challenge not only in Peru, but also in countries like Indonesia, Tanzania, Guyana and Mozambique.
即使社区确实获得头衔，这些文件也排除了祖先的土地和自然资源。圣克拉拉·德·乌丘尼亚（Santa Clara de Uchunya）的原始标题是他们总领土的一小部分。同样，许多社区也将祖先的土地排除在其头衔之外，政府当局对授予社区的土地规模施加了任意的上限。在其他地方，某些类型的土地不能包括在标题中：在秘鲁，如果政府将土地归类为“林地”，社区必须完成单独的程序。即使那样，他们只能获得使用土地的合同（cesiónen uso), not ownership rights. In practice, only a few communities have been able to obtain this contract.
一些公司在收购土地时会采取捷径，并带来严重的社会和环境后果。Laws and policies regulating how companies obtain land are sometimes conflicting or inconsistent, leaving loopholes that companies can exploit to acquire land more quickly. Like Plantaciones de Pucallpa, which did not properly complete social and environmental licensing before beginning its operations, some companies take advantage of governments’ limited abilities to monitor for misconduct. This not only hurts communities, but also sets companies that do carefully screen for environmental and social risks at a competitive disadvantage compared to those taking shortcuts.
达到土地权问题的根源
Investigating environmental crimes and problematic land transactions after they occur comes too late, and is expensive and time-consuming. A far better solution is to solve the land issues at the root of these problems. Governments should recognize indigenous and community land rights, engage in better monitoring of company misconduct during land acquisitions, and ensure that businesses secure the free, prior and informed consent of the people who live on the land before they begin operations.
- LEARN MORE:阅读完整报告，土地权利的争夺：减少社区与公司之间的不平等
Editor's note: This post has been edited. An earlier version incorrectly implied that the ancestral size of Santa Clara de Uchunya's territory was 8,000 hectares, a number which only reflects a portion of the ancestral territory.