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This Is Our Land: Why Reject the Privatization of Customary Land

February 24, 2021

This Is Our Land: Why Reject the Privatization of Customary Land, is an educational resource that debunks myths used for privatizing land around the world, while providing facts on how customary tenure systems are critical to protecting livelihoods and ensuring sustainable development for the people and the planet.

The privatization of land consistently serves the interests of private investors and multinational corporations at the expense of billions of livelihoods and the environment. Whether it is through private titling efforts or customary land made available for private investment or “development” projects, commodification of land drives inequity, dispossession, and displacement.

While insecure land tenure remains a pressing issue around the world, privatizing land does not offer communities the security and stability they need. Rather, it is just another avenue for further colonization and exploitation of natural resources for the benefit of private interests and multinational corporations, that pose fresh threats to livelihoods, environment, and further the climate crisis.

Produced at the demand of partner organizations who are on the frontlines of the struggle against land grabbing, This is Our Land provides communities with critical facts and figures to challenge the theft of their land and resources.

Help us continue the debunk the myths used to justify the privatization of land and protect customary land tenures systems around the world

This Is Our Land cover