Afro-Brazilian communities and traditional territories: Achievements and barriers to guarantee land rights
Isabelle A. Lopes Picelli, Richard Torsiano
There is a wide recognition in law of the rights of the traditional population to land in Brazil, including the African descendant communities (WB, 2014). In 2003, Decree No 4,887 regulating the procedure to acknowledge and title land was issued. Since then, the current titling procedures adopted an expansive definition that accommodates the historical diversity of quilombos, not only granting the land currently occupied by Afro Brazilian communities but also the land they have traditionally occupiedand used in the past. This paper aims to analyse the current situation of Brazil’s policy to address afrocommunities land rights after fourteen years of the issue of the Decree No 4887, outlining the achievements and the barriers to its implementation. We also analyse this policy vis-a-vis the recent measures adopted by the federal government to foster the issue of individual land title deeds towards other groups, especially individual farmers.
Event: Land Governance in an Interconnected World_Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty_2018
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