Up to 65 percent of the world’s land is held by Indigenous Peoples and communities, yet only 10 percent is legally recognized as belonging to them. The rest, held under customary tenure arrangements, is largely unmapped, not formally demarcated, and therefore invisible to the world. Without strong legal protections or concrete maps delineating their territories, communities are vulnerable to losing their land to governments and investors for economic and commercial development [read more here]

By Peter Veit and Katie Reytar