Deep Roots

mentioned indigenous family farmers in the Polochic Valley,

Guatemala, is a good example in this respect.

In March 2011, the Government of President Álvaro Colom

violently evicted fourteen Q’eqchi communities (769 families)

in the Polochic Valley, Guatemala, in order to make way for

sugar plantations. One year later, following a huge demonstra-

tion organized by the Guatemala Farmers’ Unity Committee in

which over 10,000 people marched 212 kilometres to Guatemala

City, the newly elected president Otto Pérez Molina promised

to return the land to the communities and to guarantee their

security, access to food, health care and housing. However, no

immediate action was taken.

ILC member Oxfam connected its global GROW campaign

to the cause of the Polochic in Guatemala. Through the

campaign, Oxfam obtained more than 107,000 signatures

from 55 countries in support of the Polochic. In 2013, the

ILC Global Land Forum brought President Molina face to face

with peasant leaders on this issue and the ILC Members, who

expressed their concern about lack of tenure security of family

farmers and indigenous communities in Guatemala, explicitly

called on the Guatemalan Government to revoke the evictions

of the Q’eqchi communities in the Polochic Valley.

The Government started considering the farmer organi-

zations as legitimate interlocutors and the cause of the

Q’eqchi could be discussed openly. These factors may have

contributed to the President of Guatemala, in October 2013,

publicly handing over land titles to 140 of 769 families and

promising to resolve the situation of the remaining families

in the course of 2014.

One well-known initiative of ILC is the Land Matrix,

a global

partnership aimed to monitor large-scale land acquisitions. The

Land Matrix has evolved from a data collection effort into an

independent, decentralized partnership to promote transpar-

ency and accountability in land governance.

Initially a small ILC blogging initiative about large-scale land

deals, the Land Matrix soon became a global reference for data

on large-scale land deals. The Land Matrix project has collected

verified data of large-scale transnational land deals that cover

over 37 million hectares,

equivalent to over four times the size

of Portugal. The tentative data suggests that much of this land

was under family farming prior to its conversion.

The Land Matrix has also evolved from a data collection

effort into an independent, decentralized partnership. Its

goal is to facilitate an open development community of citi-

zens, researchers, policymakers and technology specialists to

promote transparency and accountability in decisions over

land and investment. The Land Matrix partnership contin-

ues gathering data on large-scale land deals through an open

online tool, the Observatory, which allows wide participation

in constantly upgrading, correcting and improving the data.

Supporting land users to claim their rights

ILC is a coalition of member organizations. While all members

share a common vision and commitments, they also have

strong individual identities. This diversity in the coalition is

a unique asset, and the combined work of ILC as a coalition

with the work of single members tends to be very powerful in

both political and operational terms. The case of the earlier

Civil society organizations helped formulate Uganda’s National Land Policy, which supports the land rights of women, pastoralists,

family farmers and minorities on customary land

Image: ILC Secretariat

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