Land Rights and Sustainability for the Mayangna People

Clearing of forest for cattle ranching, monoculture plantations, unsustainable logging, hydro-electric projects, and mining are the main causes of deforestation and forest destruction in Mesoamerica. These processes are associated with increased forest degradation, pollution, biodiversity loss, water shortages, and damage to local economies and food security, as well as higher carbon emissions. Centralized governmental management models have proved to be insufficient to stop deforestation and forest degradation. Instead indigenous and community land management in Mesoamerica has proved effectiveness for natural resource conservation, climate change mitigation, and poverty alleviation, but communities do not receive adequate support to address the pressures they face.

Many still lack secure rights to their land and forest and/or financial and technical support for managing them. The governments and large producers are responsible for forest destruction, typically disregard the rights of indigenous and forest communities, and often threaten, put in jail, or assassinate community activists.

In this context, it is necessary to promote sustainable livelihoods and respect for the rights of indigenous peoples and forest communities. Most of the remaining forest in Mesoamerica are land administered collectively by indigenous people and forest communities, as the Sumu-Mayangna indigenous communities and territories. These communities have deep historical and cultural connection to their land and can help prevent forest destruction and maintain their forests as carbon sinks.