ABSTRACT
Attention to land governance has been superseded by health concerns as the novel coronavirus ravaged the world, crippling healthcare systems and economies. Governments raced to close borders, restrict movement, and shut down non-essential services in a bid to curb infection, illness, and death rates. Government agencies, including land governance offices, and non-government entities specialized in monitoring and mediating land conflicts, temporarily closed.
While the world grappled with rethinking business-as-usual, some governments and private actors worked to undermine access and control of land that communities depend on for housing, food, and their livelihoods. In particular, land claimed and managed by Indigenous peoples came under threat. This chapter examines how, with government enforcement mechanisms under strain, private interests have pushed to dispossess communities and Indigenous peoples of land, exacerbating poverty and vulnerabilities. It assesses government failure to protect land rights and the subsequent heightened risks to human rights. The chapter describes intimidation and violence experienced by land and environmental rights defenders during the pandemic and government restrictions to social activism. The chapter concludes with basic interventions that national and local governments, as well as civil society organizations, can undertake to protect rights of communities and Indigenous peoples, with a particular focus on women.
