Stories Articles Climate efforts won’t succeed without secure community rights – A Mongabay interview with Nonette Royo

2022-01-31

Climate efforts won’t succeed without secure community rights – A Mongabay interview with Nonette Royo

Mongabay have conducted an interview with Nonette Royo, director of the Tenure Facility, on progress and obstacles in the push to advance local peoples’ tenure rights

  • Indigenous territories account for at least 36% of the world’s “intact forests” and Indigenous Peoples and local communities (ILPC) live in or manage about half of the planet’s lands, making these areas a critical imperative in efforts to combat climate change and species loss.
  • Yet in many places, IPLCs lack formal recognition of their customary lands and resources, jeopardizing their basic human rights and heightening the risk that these areas could be damaged or destroyed. For these reasons, helping IPLCs secure land rights is increasingly seen as a central component of efforts to address climate change and achieve conservation goals.
  • Nonette Royo, the executive director of the Tenure Facility, is one of the most prominent advocates for advancing the rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and women. Royo spoke with Mongabay about progress and obstacles in the push to advance local peoples’ tenure rights as well as the Tenure Facility’s approaches.
  • “Many models are now emerging to get these types of approaches, which require deep listening and letting communities lead the process, and adjusting or adapting their own agenda, and being willing to be transformed in the process,” Royo said. “This is most needed in the conservation space. This means respecting all rights, not just of people (as individuals or collective), but of their ways of tending with nature and co-beings with nature.”

 
Click here for the full article

Nonette Royo, Director of the Tenure Facility

Nonette Royo, a lawyer from Northern Mindanao in the Philippines who has been working at the intersection of rights and the environment for more than 30 years and has co-founded several organizations, is one of the most prominent advocates for advancing the rights of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and women. Royo is now the executive director of the Tenure Facility, which was created to provide financial and technical support to IPLCs in their struggle to secure and strengthen their rights, including legal recognition of their land tenure. Royo has served in that capacity since the Tenure Facility became an independent organization in 2017 when it was spun out of the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI).

Mongabay have conducted an interview with Nonette concerning land rights and the issues faced by Indigenous People’s and local communities. Click below to read the full article.
Click here to read the full article

Articles

24 August 2026

Cameroon

La terre sous leurs pieds : le cheminement des communautés Bagyeli vers la reconnaissance de leurs droits fonciers

Dans le département de l’Océan, au sud du Cameroun, les routes serpentent entre des forêts denses, de longues pistes de latérite rouge et des plantations industrielles qui semblent s’étendre un peu plus chaque année.

17 August 2026

Cameroon

The land beneath their feet: Bagyeli communities’ journey towards recognition and security of their land and forest rights

In the Ocean Department of southern Cameroon, roads wind through dense forests, long stretches of red laterite tracks, major development projects — including mining and agro-industry — and industrial plantations that seem to expand a little further each year, gradually reducing the living space available to communities.

04 August 2026

Blogs

Pourquoi les droits fonciers ne peuvent pas attendre la paix

Et si attendre la paix était l’un des plus grands obstacles à la sécurisation des droits fonciers ? Pendant des décennies, la gouvernance foncière a été largement considérée comme un élément de la reconstruction post-conflit. L’hypothèse était simple : le conflit prend fin, les institutions se redressent, les populations rentrent chez elles, et ce n’est qu’alors que les droits fonciers peuvent être rétablis. Dans de nombreuses régions du monde, cependant, cette séquence ne correspond pas à la réalité. Les conflits sont souvent prolongés, les institutions peuvent être affaiblies ou inexistantes, et les registres fonciers officiels ont parfois disparu. Pourtant, les communautés continuent de cultiver leurs terres, de gérer les forêts, de résoudre les différends et de défendre leurs territoires en s’appuyant sur les systèmes de gouvernance qui restent à leur disposition.

23 July 2026

Blogs

Why land rights can't wait for peace

What if waiting for peace is one of the biggest obstacles to securing land rights? For decades, land governance has largely been treated as part of post-conflict recovery. The assumption has been straightforward: conflict ends, institutions recover, people return home, and only then can land rights be restored. In many parts of the world, however, that sequence does not reflect reality. Conflict is often prolonged, institutions may be weakened or absent, and official land records may have disappeared. Yet communities continue farming, managing forests, resolving disputes, and defending their territories using the governance systems still available to them.

13 July 2026

Brazil

"We are the middle, the beginning and the middle." : Quilombola women in land rights and climate action

Long before a land title is granted or a policy is signed, movements are built. They are built by women and men organising communities, defending territories, passing on ancestral knowledge, protecting culture, and ensuring generations of struggle are never forgotten. Between 10 and 14 June 2026, the III Meeting of CONAQ's Quilombola Women's Collective brought hundreds of these leaders together from across Brazil, alongside representatives from Latin America and Africa. Over five days, they celebrated victories, confronted urgent challenges and strengthened a movement that continues to shape Brazil's conversations on land rights, climate justice, gender equality and historical reparation.

02 June 2026

Congo Brazzaville

Seeding land rights in northern Republic of Congo

The road into the Sangha and Likouala departments in northern Republic of Congo passes through thick forest. Yet asphalt gives way to red soil where logging trucks pass day and night, carrying off trees that stood firm for centuries before concession paperwork tried to redefine who owns the land. These forests hold more than timber—they cradle rivers, fertile soils, unique species, and carbon stock.
Show More