It is well-known that land management practices within Indigenous cultures across the world are often highly sustainable, promoting respect, rather than exploitation. Therefore, barriers to Indigenous people’s land rights likely reduce the sustainability of the land management in a region. As the ancestral land of Indigenous people is closely tied to the unique cultures and history of a community, threats to their land security may also threaten their culture, identity and sense of well-being. Earlier this year, I worked with the ILC and some of its member organisations to investigate how barriers to Indigenous land rights might impact the sustainable land management of a country, and methods of policy and practice used to protect indigenous land rights. I was also interested in how barriers to women’s land rights might interact with barriers to indigenous communities, creating a unique experience for indigenous women.
Methods
Six representatives of ILC member organisations were interviewed for this study from May - July 2025. They reflected on indigenous communities located in Thailand, Malawi, the Philippines and Cameroon. This spread of locations was beneficial as it allowed different methods and barriers to be identified within the specific contexts of each country, across which commonalities were identified. The participants were chosen based on their expertise, as well as the presence of Indigenous communities in each country. The interviews were conducted virtually and followed a basic 12-question structure created ahead of time. However, the nature of semi-structured interviews allowed for follow-up questions and prompts to be asked in order to gain a greater depth of information, making each interview unique and specific to the participants’ experiences.
Results
The interview data was categorised into distinct groups, and three significant themes were identified:
Government and social barriers to indigenous land rights:
The study identified government policy action as the main source of Indigenous land rights barriers, and social norms and traditions as the primary barrier to women’s land rights, both within and outside of indigenous social structures. Inheritance rights produced a significant barrier to women’s acquisition of land, as some indigenous cultures in Thailand, and the mainstream culture in Malawi traditionally only allowed land inheritance to pass down the male line.
A lack of involvement of women in land management discussions was highlighted by all participants, despite a strong female presence in the agriculture sectors of all countries included in the study. Importantly, the data also revealed that many Indigenous communities are significantly more inclusive, with greater participation of women in all areas of land management.
Governmental barriers to Indigenous land rights occurred in multiple forms, such as failing to label Indigenous people as Indigenous, which justified policies that harmed Indigenous land security. The Thai government was also reported to pressure indigenous people into accepting individual land titles, disregarding Indigenous perspectives of collective land ownership. In the Philippines, significant conflicts between the government and Indigenous communities were identified due to the government’s allowance of harmful resource extraction practices on indigenous land. These examples display a lack of respect for Indigenous land rights and culture shown by governments, prioritising economic gain or attempting to impose mainstream practices.
Indigenous sustainable land management
The data revealed that Indigenous societies practice sustainable land management; identifying a strong link to the value of land in indigenous cultures. All participants discussed how land possesses cultural, historical and personal value to indigenous communities. Therefore, threats to their land rights risk Indigenous culture and well-being in deeper ways than only impacting their livelihood. This strong value of land was found to produce highly sustainable techniques of land management and agriculture within indigenous communities.
The data also displayed how this perspective of land contrasts significantly with governmental perspectives, which view land as a commodity. An example of this was found in the Philippines, where resource extraction was seen to destroy the biodiversity of Indigenous land. The Philippine government was reported to allow this due to the economic benefit of foreign investment from resource-hungry corporations.
There was a strong sense during the interviews that Indigenous land practices should be promoted to mainstream agricultural sectors in each country examined. Indigenous practices of sustainable land management have the potential to positively affect climate change if used on a larger scale, as well as a necessary shift in perception of land as holding greater value.
Structural action and knowledge-sharing
The data identified multiple successes of policy and practice used by ILC member organisations to remove or reduce the barriers discussed. For example, inheritance barriers were significantly reduced in Malawi due to the member organisation in the country acting as an informal tribunal addressing individual cases of injustice. This effort was condoned by the Malawi government, implying that this initiative has been effective.
All participants discussed the importance of educating Indigenous communities about policies affecting their land rights, increasing their capacity to fight back. Similarly, education was emphasised as an important method of building women’s capacities as leaders in patriarchal communities. As commented by one participant, it is crucial that both men and women in a community are educated on gender equality issues for effective change to occur.
The main findings of this study include the confirmation that land rights barriers to women and indigenous people can combine to create a uniquely challenging experience for Indigenous women.
The social barriers produced within a patriarchal Indigenous society may impact women simultaneously with policy barriers to their community as a whole. It is imperative that efforts to reduce these impacts account for both sets of barriers in order to adequately secure indigenous women’s land rights. The study also concluded that multiple governmental barriers to Indigenous land rights stem from the perspective of land as an economic resource held by the government. By contrast, Indigenous communities were often found to place significant cultural, historical and spiritual value onto their ancestral land, resulting in highly sustainable land management and agricultural techniques.
There was a general consensus that indigenous perspectives of land and their management techniques should be promoted in mainstream societies in order to mitigate climate change. Education and knowledge-sharing was found to be both a significant method of reducing land rights barriers, and a way in which efforts are being made to spread Indigenous knowledge of sustainable land management.
This study demonstrates that ILC member organisations would highly benefit from a greater level of collaboration with each other in order to more effectively reduce land rights barriers. The study identified similarities between Indigenous experiences across different countries with regards to land rights struggles. It is likely that successful policy and practice strategies would positively impact cases with similar challenges in a range of geographical settings, highlighting the value of knowledge sharing.