The Biodiversity Impacts of Forestry and Agricultural Land Grabs on Indigenous Peoples’ Lands

Indigenous Peoples' Lands (IPLs) play a key role in biodiversity conservation, yet IPLs are vulnerable to land grabbing for agricultural development. To understand the potential habitat exposure and main commodities overlapping with land grabs on IPLs, we combined the spatial distribution of land grabs intended for agricultural crops, plantations, and logging on IPLs with biodiversity metrics for mammal and bird species. Globally, 9.4 Mha of land grabs were on IPLs, with Russia (4.5 Mha), Myanmar (0.7 Mha), and Indonesia (0.7 Mha) having the highest areas. Land grabs were mainly for logging in Russia, biofuels in Myanmar, and a mixture of non-food, food, and biofuel crops in Indonesia. Oil palm (39 kha) and rice (37 kha) were the food crops and oil palm (42 kha) the biofuel crop associated with the highest deforestation areas on grabbed IPLs, while it was rubber (6 kha) for non-food crops. Deforestation on grabbed IPLs overlapped with 3213 species ranges with the highest potential habitat exposure in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, on land grabs intended for oil palm, rubber crops, and timber plantations. Our results show that there are substantial land grabs on IPLs with a considerable potential habitat exposure, hence more effort is needed to protect IPL rights, ensuring indigenous stewardship of their land and biodiversity conservation.