Access To Land
In 2012, the United Nations Committee on World Food Security officially endorsed the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security. Since their adoption, various international organisations such as the UN General Assembly and FAO have encouraged their implementation.
The People’s Manual on the Guidelines on Governance of Land, Fisheries and Forests : a guide for promotion, implementation, monitoring and evaluation explains how to use these Guidelines in everyday life to protect the rights of peasants and other communities. This manual is the result of collective and participatory work by members of the International Planning Committee (IPC) for Food Sovereignty, which is the world’s largest Alliance of small-scale food producers, pastoralists, indigenous organizations, the landless, urban producers, and alternative consumer movements, whose aim is to advance the food sovereignty agenda at the global and regional level.
The Manual is composed of three chapters. First, it recalls the debates and process which led to the adoption of the Guidelines. Second, it gives examples of nine conflicting situations to show how the Guidelines can be useful or applicable. Finally, it offers differents tools and suggestions to enable communities to elaborate their own concrete proposals. Its aim is to provoke a multiplier effect and spread its use.
The Tenure Guidelines are an international instrument but are perfectly relevant to the European context. The Guidelines were indeed signed by all EU governments and provide a major legal reference for governments, local authorities and civil society organisations working on land allocation, land regulation and land rights.
Chapter 2 also provides several cases of evictions of peasant communities for land concentration and land grabbing, large scale monoculture production, urban development and land speculation in urban and peri-urban areas, which are also issues affecting Europe.
This Manual is an useful guide to understand how to implement the Tenure Guidelines. It can help strenghten grassroot struggles by offering an international standard to claim land rights and reinforce existing legal frameworks.
Read the Manual on line, in English, Spanish and French: http://www.foodsovereignty.org/peoplesmanual/
People’s Manual_EN
People’s Manual_ES
People’s Manual_FR
