Forest Tenure Matters: World Bank’s Strategy for Land Rights in EAP Forestlands

The World Bank's 2025 report outlines best practices for recognizing and formalizing land rights in forestlands across East Asia and the Pacific, emphasizing inclusive, systematic, and environmentally sustainable approaches. It highlights that secure tenure for Indigenous Peoples and local communities is essential for forest conservation, climate goals, and equitable development.

The World Bank’s 2025 report, Good Practices for Strengthening Land Rights Recognition in Forestlands of the East Asia and Pacific Region, offers a detailed policy and practice roadmap for recognizing land rights, especially for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPs and LCs) within forested territories. Developed with the support of research entities such as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the Land and Geospatial Lab, and the PROGREEN Trust Fund, the study draws on 38 experimental and quasi-experimental cases across Asia, Latin America, and Africa. These insights, grounded in robust analysis, explore how tenure recognition intersects with forest protection, development equity, and climate resilience.

Insecure Forest Tenure: A Persistent Barrier to Sustainability

Millions across the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) region inhabit forestlands without formal land rights, especially in territories labeled as state-owned. From Indonesia and Cambodia to Papua New Guinea and Myanmar, overlapping claims and outdated cadastral systems continue to create uncertainty. The report underscores how this insecurity disincentivizes sustainable land investments, discouraging tree planting, long-term stewardship, or community-based forest management. In countries where tenure remains informal, forests are more vulnerable to clearing and conversion, particularly when private rights are granted without accompanying environmental regulations. For example, in parts of Brazil and Southeast Asia, land titling has occasionally led to increased deforestation where such safeguards were absent.

However, when communal or Indigenous land rights are recognized and secured, evidence points to either neutral or positive impacts on forest cover. Community stewardship, especially when backed by traditional governance and local enforcement, has shown remarkable results. Yet legal recognition is uneven. China leads the region with over 180 million hectares of collective forestland allocated and more than 100 million tenure certificates issued. In contrast, countries like Laos, Myanmar, and Malaysia show slow or partial implementation, often hampered by bureaucratic obstacles, lack of political will, or complex overlapping jurisdictions.

From Laws to Practice: Bridging the Implementation Gap

The report identifies a crucial disconnect: although most EAP nations possess legal frameworks allowing for land rights recognition, actual implementation remains piecemeal. Even where recognition is possible, the processes can be lengthy, unclear, or inconsistently applied. In the Philippines and Indonesia, despite progressive legal provisions for Indigenous and customary tenure, less than 10% of applicable lands have been formalized. In Cambodia, procedural hurdles continue to prevent Indigenous communities from securing full legal rights, while in Laos, regulations remain vague and poorly enforced. These gaps often leave communities in limbo, caught between legal acknowledgment and operational exclusion.

To remedy this, the report advocates for a systematic and inclusive approach to land registration. This includes surveying, adjudication, and titling all tenure types, private, communal, and public, within a defined area. Such landscape-wide registration avoids piecemeal efforts that can fuel further conflict or deforestation. Fit-for-purpose technologies such as satellite imagery, aerial photography, and handheld GPS devices are recommended to reduce costs and adapt to the complex topographies of forest areas. Participatory methods are especially emphasized to ensure that marginalized groups, including women, gain recognition and voice.

Strengthening Institutions and Data for Better Outcomes

Institutional coordination emerges as another key theme. In many countries, forest rights are managed by one agency, while land titling falls under another, leading to fragmented efforts and overlapping mandates. The report points to Brazil’s experience where Indigenous and land agencies work together using shared databases, and to Indonesia’s ambitious One Map Policy, designed to unify national geospatial information. These examples show that integrated information systems are vital not only for recognition but also for enforcement and public transparency.

Brazil’s SIGEF system and its real-time forest monitoring platform DETER offer compelling models. By linking land rights data with deforestation alerts, Brazil has equipped enforcement agencies with timely information to act on illegal land clearing. Similarly, Costa Rica’s success with Payments for Environmental Services (PES) illustrates how secure tenure can be the gateway to effective conservation finance. Yet the report warns that such incentives can only be equitably distributed when tenure rights are clearly defined and locally governed.

A Path Forward: Learning, Inclusion, and Climate Commitments

Ultimately, the World Bank’s report positions land rights as central to multiple development and environmental goals. It calls for enhanced global learning, urging international organizations, governments, civil society, and academia to work collectively in identifying what works and scaling up best practices. Countries must ensure that Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) is applied rigorously, particularly in Indigenous territories, and that gender equity is integrated into tenure reforms. Specific recommendations include joint registration of marital property, collecting sex-disaggregated data, and actively involving women’s organizations in forest governance.

The document aligns its recommendations with the aspirations of the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and the Paris Agreement. It argues that forest tenure security is not a peripheral issue, but a fundamental component of climate action and social equity. As nations prepare to meet their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and biodiversity targets, land rights must be at the center of planning and implementation.

In sum, this report is both a technical manual and a policy manifesto. It not only guides governments on how to formalize forest tenure but also issues a clear message: there can be no lasting climate solution without justice for the communities who have long lived in, managed, and protected the forests of East Asia and the Pacific.