International development agencies and our own government need to rethink their development approaches. Too often, instead of development, they end up degrading the environment and worsening social problems. Decisions on land acquisition for “development”, without consulting the indigenous and local communities that will be affected, are leaving them with no access to land, food, clean water and security. The progressive dispossession of indigenous peoples’ lands, underscores the precarious nature of the land rights of indigenous and local communities.

“Our rivers and Lakes are drying, our forest burning, our grasses flooding and our children present is under threat with an uncertain future. African indigenous peoples are now more vulnerable than ever because of the changing climate directly impacting our livelihood and survival. We have our grand mother and father with incredible traditional knowledge that can help to the climate adaptation and mitigation but this needs to be ensured by respecting our rights and FPIC” - Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim

Gathering Landscape Leaders from Across Africa for Peer-to-peer Learning and agenda-setting from the grassroots. 27 Sub-Saharan African countries have pledged to restore, or begin the process of restoring, over 96 million hectares of degraded land on the continent by 2030. 40 SSA countries include climate change mitigation from Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry in their (intended) Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for the Paris Climate Accord. 34 NDCs include mitigation contributions from agriculture. Every African nation has signed on to the Sustainable Development Goals. The question now asked regularly: how will our countries keep these commitments?