Agrarian reform, environmental justice, and human rights: Inseparable struggles

Agrarian and environmental justice are deeply interlinked causes. Although both are discussed in different international forums and guided by independent normative frameworks, one can hardly be achieved without the other. Agrarian reform—a set of measures based on the equitable distribution of land among the rural population—remains an unfulfilled promise in many countries, especially in the Global South. The debate around it is essential because democratizing land is a necessary step toward reducing hunger, improving living conditions in rural areas, and combating climate change.

The land-climate connection was one of the central topics of discussions among governments, academics and human rights defenders at the second International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20), which took place in Cartagena, Colombia, from February 24th to 28th. INCLO attended ICARRD to explore how proposals to advance just agrarian reforms can inform our efforts and those of our members in safeguarding human rights across climate-related actions.

We share three reflections that confirm the importance of agrarian justice in advocating for a healthy environment.

1. The climate impact of the current food system

Perhaps one of the most studied tensions in the agrarian-environmental link has been the dual role of agriculture: a sector deeply vulnerable to the effects of climate change, while simultaneously contributing about 12% of global greenhouse emissions. For years, social movements and scholars have promoted agroecology and peasant agriculture as long-term alternatives to address both problems. This implies moving away from the current industrial food system, marked by environmentally destructive practices, and promoting a peasant agriculture that “in addition to producing food in quantity, quality and diversity, regenerates the biophysical basis of ecosystems”, as explained by Pablo Petersen, Brazilian expert and member of the Family Farming and Agroecology Association. This approach was presented by diverse actors at the Conference and included in the final declaration as a key principle for implementing a fair and sustainable agrarian reform. 

Transforming the food system also requires challenging the dichotomy between rural life and nature conservation, or the stigma that peasants are inherently destroyers of nature. On the contrary, initiatives such as the Campesino Reserve Zones in Colombia —designated territories where rural communities collectively manage land and natural resources— have demonstrated that peasant families can coexist with nature while helping reduce deforestation. In the words of Jalima Lopes, from the Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), “we have proved that it is possible to produce food and defend nature at the same time.”

One concrete tool to advance towards a more sustainable agro-food system is tax policy, as Sergio Chaparro, international coordinator at Dejusticia, proposed: “taxation has the potential to regulate in favor of the climate. For instance, by imposing higher taxes on monocultures and extractive industries, while providing tax benefits and incentives for agroecology. Today, it works the other way around.”

2. Agrarian reform, a tool for environmental protection

Agrarian reform is, above all, an issue of justice. But it can also be a vehicle for environmental protection. There is growing evidence that agrarian inequality has serious consequences for the environment, as professor Ruth Hall, from Western Cape University in South Africa, explained at ICARRD: “the concentration of land holdings, extractive industries and expansion of industrial agriculture are bad not only for equity, but also fuel emissions and erode biodiversity and soil health (…) The IPCC’s special report on climate change and land establishes the scientific basis of this.”

Moreover, land redistribution, one of the first steps of agrarian reform, is often necessary to relieve pressure on environmentally protected areas, as the Colombian experience suggests. Rodrigo Uprimny, a senior researcher at Dejusticia, explained that because agrarian reform was never implemented in the country, peasant families were forced to settle in areas such as the Amazon rainforest to produce food. Giving them access to adequate land would remove that pressure, allowing peasant communities to practice sustainable agriculture while preserving the environment.

Agrarian reform also has the potential to protect land and environmental defenders. According to Javier Garate, researcher at Global Witness, at least 2.157 environmental and land defenders have been killed worldwide over the last 13 years, 43% of them in cases related to land conflicts. Colombia, the country with the highest number of defenders killed and home to various illegal armed groups, illustrates the connection between agrarian reform and the protection of defenders. In the words of Natalia Romero, from the Colombian Ombudsman’s Office, “these actors have a particular interest when attacking defenders: the control of territory. That is why the chaos of land informality works in their favor, since they benefit from the lack of title regulation and the absence of the State.”

3. Climate solutions that threaten land rights

The effects of climate change on human rights (including land rights) have gained growing recognition due to the striking images of climate displacement that dominate the news year after year. However, the other side of the coin is only beginning to be recognized: the risks that some poorly designed climate solutions pose to land rights and other human rights.

A glimpse of this was revealed by the authors of the 2025 Land Gap Report, which looks at how much land will be required to achieve governments’ climate mitigation strategies. They found that over 1 billion hectares (an area larger than China) would be needed for activities included in those pledges, such as tree planting, bioenergy crops, and the protection and restoration of forests. According to Kate Dooley, co-author of the report, “some of these activities can be beneficial for agrarian reform, but we’re concerned that a lot of them represent land grabbing and monoculture plantations.”

Another growing concern is that the need to transition from coal, oil, and gas to renewable energy sources is placing new demands on land. Tatiana Roa, former Colombian Environment Minister, warned about a triple pressure in rural areas: fossil fuels, minerals for the transition, and monocultures (such as palm oil) to produce ‘clean’ fuels. “This, of course, affects access to land, water availability, food sovereignty, and territorial autonomy.”

This squeeze on land and the wave of green grabbing (the appropriation of land under the guise of environmental goals) are occurring in a context of historic agrarian inequality. Globally, the largest 10% of landowners control around 89% of the world’s agricultural land, according to the FAO’s latest report on land tenure and governance, presented at ICARRD.

Agrarian reform, then, is a matter of social equity, but also an environmental imperative. By redistributing land and promoting more sustainable food systems, it can relieve the pressure on critical ecosystems like the Amazon and help protect the defenders who risk their lives to safeguard them. As climate solutions multiply, the warning is clear: without a justice lens, they risk repeating the same dispossessions caused by extractive industries. There can be no climate justice without the defenders who protect the land, and no future for the land without the agrarian justice the defenders have long been fighting for.

By Marcela Madrid Vergara, INCLO Climate and Environmental Justice Coordinator

Illustration by Estefanía Henao via femiñetas