Furthering Indigenous Female-Led Nature-Based Climate Solutions through Land Rights and Carbon Onsets in the Global South

This project explores Indigenous and female-led nature-based climate solutions as alternatives to market-based carbon offset schemes, emphasizing equitable and sustainable carbon removal. By integrating Indigenous knowledge and rights-based approaches, the initiative seeks to co-design a research-action agenda that enhances forest conservation, climate mitigation, and community livelihoods.

To address the global climate mitigation imperative, carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is considered a relevant and viable option. In the land-use sector, most CDR options come in the form of carbon offsetting schemes, including REDD+. Another prominent CDR option is forest and land restoration, which has become a global priority as demonstrated in the 2021-2030 UN’s Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, which bolstered existing mechanisms such as the Bonn Challenge and the New York and Glasgow Declarations on Forest. Forest and land restoration is a nature-based strategy that can address climate change, deforestation, and biodiversity loss while increasing benefits for communities whose livelihoods are nature-dependent.

Despite the importance of such CDR options, two inherent challenges plague their success and prevent their use to achieve an equitable realization of carbon reduction goals. First, moving beyond REDD+ criticisms, empirical impact evaluations show shortfalls in carbon offset approaches, underscoring ineffectiveness at reducing carbon while diminishing social benefits for the Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs). Second, land- and forest-based CDR options unearth unresolved issues of resource tenure/rights as a major bottleneck for REDD+ and other carbon offset schemes. Against such limitations and failures and given the demonstrated capabilities of IPLCs to conserve and restore nature, embracing alternative “carbon onset approaches” offers equitable and sustainable solutions for climate mitigation.

Unlike market-based approaches, carbon onsets foster rights-based approaches and incentives for IPLCs to conserve forests and enhance livelihoods to deliver local and global sustainability needs. Vaibale examples exist around the world, from Ecuador to Cameroon. We propose to further such Indigenous and female-led nature-based climate solutions. We aim to co-design a research-action agenda to develop research methodologies and actions to bring Indigenous knowledge and practices into conversation.