Opinion: Land Restoration to Indigenous Peoples Required to Counter Climate Change
Even though Indigenous Peoples make up just 5 percent of the world’s population, their ancestral territories collectively span across 65 percent of the Earth’s surface. However, just 10 percent of that land is within their legal control. This discrepancy creates a significant gap in securing the human rights and political, social, and economic needs of the world’s 5000 distinct Indigenous Peoples and Nations.
Despite their immense cultural and linguistic diversity, Indigenous Peoples developed their ways of life in much the same way. By maintaining an intimate relationship with the land for generations on end, the languages, livelihoods, customs, and cultures became inextricably linked to that same land. Some refer to this relationship as a bio-cultural heritage.
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