The Silent Crisis Beneath our Feet: Why Land Rights Matter Now
More than one billion people worldwide fear losing access to their land. Although large areas are managed under customary tenure systems, most communities still lack formal legal recognition. Rising inequality, concentrated land ownership, and the continued marginalization of women and Indigenous peoples illustrate how closely land is tied to power. At the same time, collective initiatives from Cameroon to Kenya show that laws and lived realities can change. The International Land Coalition (ILC) provides an overview.
Land rights are clearly not just a technical or a policy issue. They are about dignity, identity, survival, equity, and hope. Responsible land governance is an answer to some of the most urgent challenges of our time, from climate to food systems, to biodiversity, to gender equality, to peace.
According to a new report, a groundbreaking baseline on the state of land tenure and governance, soon to be launched with FAO and CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development), one in four adults worldwide, 1.1 billion people, fear losing their land or home within the next five years. That number is rising. And the scale of invisibility is staggering. While 42 percent of the world's land is under customary tenure, only 8% of it is legally recognised, giving rise to all sorts of vulnerability and risk. Land is about power. Power between men and women, the private sector and communities, Indigenous Peoples and mainstream societies, between the global north and the global south, the list goes on.
Our research shows that land inequality, a physical representation of power, is not only worse than we thought, but it is also on the rise. The largest 1 percent farms in the world operate more than 70 percent of the world's farmland, forming the backbone of the corporate food system. As corporate investments in land grow, ownership and control are becoming more concentrated and increasingly opaque.
The International Land Coalition was established to bring grassroots and multilateral organisations together. Thirty years later - we have grown from 30 to 323 member organisations across 93 countries in our network, ranging from people's organisations, NGOs, research organisations, and intergovernmental organisations. Together, ILC's members represent more than 100 million people worldwide - farmers, women, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralists, Afro-descendants, and youth - making ILC the world’s most diverse, member-led alliance advancing land rights to end poverty and protect the planet. . And through their persistence, they have helped to secure the land rights of more than 4.7 million women and men, more than 45 million hectares, and have contributed to 154 policy and legal reforms over the last decade. That is the power of collective action. ILC supports its members and National Land Coalitions, collecting and coordinating land data, evidence, and advocating together.
Women and the Right to Land
The question of who owns land - and who does not - often determines the fate of societies. Land ownership and its use shapes how people live, who succeeds, who struggles and ultimately, who holds power.. When we look closer, one of the clearest injustices emerges: women's right to access and control land.
Unfortunately, legal rights do not always translate into real rights for women when it comes to land. While 164 countries legally recognise a woman's right to inherit land, only 52 guarantee these rights in practice. So, for every three countries, only one ensures that women can inherit land. Almost all of them say they do. Yet, there are glimmers of hope, as a story from the village of Logdikit in rural Cameroon shows: When Justine Epse Bel lost her husband, she also lost her land. Customary laws and traditions overrule the national laws that should have protected her. In the eyes of her community, she was no longer the rightful owner of the land she had lived on and farmed for years. In her own words, you are no longer a living being. You no longer have the right to anything. And Justine, as we all know, is not alone.
Millions of women across the world face the same injustices. Through the National Land Coalition in Cameroon, women like Justine are finding their voices and claiming their rights. They are working with traditional leaders, local authorities, and communities to change not only laws, but practices on the ground. By creating spaces for dialogue, they are challenging harmful customary practices and showing that democratic processes must evolve to include women's voices. Sustainable change, in any sector, not only land, is built through dialogue and consultation, bringing in traditional leaders and chiefs early in the process. Through the efforts of ILC members and the National Land Coalition, Cameroon is advancing a land policy that safeguards women’s inheritance rights. This community-driven, law-backed reform reflects ILC’s core approach and aligns with the Responsible Land Policy Program’s call for inclusive, multi-stakeholder land governance as the foundation for lasting change.
Defending Indigenous peoples and protecting land and environmental defenders
As a supporter of the Global Alliance for Land, Indigenous and Environmental Defenders (ALLIED), we document Breaches of the rights of indigenous peoples and the protection of land and environmental activists. Last year, ALLIED recorded over 1100 non-lethal attacks against Indigenous and land environmental defenders across 52 countries, adding to the 142 killings in the same year. Since 2015, only five UN member states have acknowledged any killings or attacks on defenders in their SDG reporting on SDG 16. ILC is helping citizens to fill this critical gap through Land Acts and other tools, collecting grounded, desegregated data for accountability. An example is Kenya.
In 2024, Kenya used citizen-generated data provided by ALLIED to report on violations against Indigenous peoples, land and environmental defenders. The government openly acknowledged that official data systems have gaps and that they must rely on civil society organizations as allies to provide a full picture of what's happening on the ground. This is what our work is about: Supporting governments to craft better laws, as well as accompanying the struggles in places where rights are contested and where data is invisible.
Land rights are linked to the environment
One huge challenge lies in scaling solutions and broadening the conversation. The UN Conventions on Climate, Biodiversity, and Desertification offer crucial opportunities to keep land at the center of global policy. And progress is already visible: Indigenous peoples and local communities are increasingly recognized as essential stewards of biodiversity, a role that depends on secure land rights. Countries such as Burkina Faso, Liberia, and Togo are integrating tenure security into their nationally determined contributions and restoration plans, making climate goals both more just and more achievable. Another example of progress comes from the UN Convention on Biodiversity, which has adopted a new headline indicator on the land rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities – an achievement driven by joint advocacy and a major win since it makes land visible in global biodiversity frameworks.
In closing, the message is clear: land is political and complex, and it is fundamental. Securing equitable land governance is inseparable from achieving climate resilience, food security, biodiversity protection, and peace. The cost of inaction will be borne by all of us. Yet there is momentum to build on. Power can and does shift when people unite behind a shared vision – when practitioners exchange proven solutions, when diplomats champion them in negotiations, and when citizens demand accountability. Real change happens through persistence and collaboration.