Delivering data to the debate: The Land Matrix at the GLF 2025
Authors: Jérémy Bourgoin, Natalia Espinosa Rincón, and Nikka Rivera
As over a thousand participants from around the world converged in Bogotá, Colombia, at this year’s Global Land Forum (GLF) in June, Land Matrix Initiative team members Jérémy Bourgoin, Natalia Espinosa Rincón, and Nikka Rivera joined them, coming together to navigate the complex and dynamic political, economic, environmental and social linkages between land governance, food security, poverty and democracy.
The initiative’s invaluable contribution to this critical work was apparent not only in the many presentations that made use of the platform as a direct source of information, but through our own participation, which underscored the importance of reliable and accessible data as a fundamental tool to strengthen transparency and accountability around the large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) that shape these linkages – and their effects on the people and places at the centre of them.
Fair ground: Rethinking land governance
The GLF took place in a setting marked by deep inequalities in land access and conflicts over the use and control of land and other natural resources, demonstrating the urgency of moving beyond the limitations of traditional market-based approaches. However, while the forum stressed the importance of recognising the crucial role of social movements, rural communities, and ethnic peoples in formulating agrarian and rural policies to do this, it also highlighted how land concentration and the LSLAs at the centre of this challenge remain largely invisible phenomena in many contexts due to the limited availability of systematic and disaggregated information – thereby preventing these groups’ participation and making it difficult to defend the land rights of those affected by LSLAs for agribusiness and extractive projects. In Colombia, for example, where land-related conflicts persist despite regulatory advances, this agenda becomes particularly relevant for monitoring agribusiness dynamics, foreign investments, and land restitution processes. This challenge is not unique to Colombia, and similar dynamics play out across other regions, illustrating once again the critical role independent monitoring initiatives that capture and share data, like the Land Matrix, play in bringing these issues out into the open and in supporting advocacy efforts with national policy decision-makers.
The forum also emphasised the value of these in building collaborative platforms that engage researchers, civil society organisations, and institutional actors working on land governance in the production and analysis of data, such as the support Land Matrix data provides to LANDex indicators like conflict incidence linked to LSLAs and corrective mechanisms. Beyond a purely technical approach, land governance requires information systems that respond to community needs, recognise the diversity of land rights and territories, and help make visible the tensions between development, conservation, and territorial justice. In this way, the GLF further served as a strategic space to articulate knowledge, strengthen networks, and advance towards more just and democratic systems of land management.
Going for green: Making carbon standards count
In light of the growing global focus on climate action, this critical need for transparent, verifiable data was a key theme in discussions around a just energy transition as well, especially with regard to questions around who owns, controls, or benefits from these lands, whether communities have consented, and what social and environmental impacts are observed. These are the types of questions the Land Matrix seeks to answer as we increasingly monitor land-based green deals, such as those for carbon offset and REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), projects, renewable energy investments like solar, wind, and biofuels, transition minerals, and biodiversity conservation corridors or rewilding zones.
As such deals proliferate across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the Land Matrix is uniquely positioned to track, analyse, and report on these emerging dynamics and ensure that green transitions do not reproduce land injustices under a new guise. For example, our recently published deal narrative delved into two Verra Verified Carbon Standards (VCS)-registered carbon offset projects in Indonesia to assess whether their levels of community engagement and benefit sharing actually meet these standards. Through a lab session at the forum on carbon standards and their implications for communities in land-based offset projects, the Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA), hosts of the Land Matrix Regional Focal Point for Asia, shared some insights from the analysis of this study, including that there is indeed a disconnect between the standards as written and the realities on the ground. For instance, while the VCS provide procedural requirements on stakeholder consultation, Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), and grievance redress, they do not require negotiated benefit-sharing agreements and FPIC is treated as a one-time activity, rather than a continuous process. The study also found that grievance mechanisms were either poorly understood or absent, and engagement was often limited to village heads, excluding other legitimate land and resource users.
AFA also shared comparative insights on the Gold Standard for the Global Goals (GS4GG) and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standards (CCB), drawn from research undertaken with the support of the Lincoln Institute on Land Policy. In looking at these standards alongside the ASEAN FPIC Handbook and the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT), the message is clear: safeguards must mean ongoing, rights-based engagement, inclusive decision-making, and benefit-sharing agreements that are not just suggested, but required and enforceable.
Charting the path to a just transition
The growing presence of people’s organisations in shaping the global conversation on land governance is an encouraging sign that we are moving in the right direction. Now the fact that they are not only participating in but actually leading discussions, presenting community-driven research, and ensuring that evidence informs policy debates must gain momentum. These spaces need to be grounded in the voices and realities of those whose lands and forests are central to climate action, ensuring that standards and finance mechanisms work with them, not around them.
With the GLF’s reinforcement of the centrality of equitable land governance to global goals on peace, justice, climate, and development, the Land Matrix, through our established partnerships and data systems, remains a vital contributor to these efforts. And as we race towards net-zero, our engagement on green deals and climate-related land governance will be even more important to ensuring that land transitions are both sustainable and just.
Jérémy Bourgoin is a researcher at the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) as well as the Head of Knowledge Management and Research at the International Land Coalition (ILC) in Rome, Italy. He is also a Steering Committee member of the Land Matrix Initiative. His research focuses on global trends in land concentration and dispossession through accumulation; the impact of LSLAs on human rights, territorial governance, and the environment; developing accountability mechanisms to better assess and attribute responsibility among states, operational companies, shareholders, and ultimate global landowners.
Natalia Espinosa Rincón is a professor at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Colombia, coordinator of the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) working group on critical rural development studies, and represents Colombia for the Land Matrix’s Latin America Regional Focal Point. She holds a Master’s degree in Rural Development and is currently a PhD candidate in Environmental and Rural Studies. Her work focuses on the study of the socio-political dimension of the armed conflict, peasant movement, and land grabbing in Colombia.
Nikka Rivera is the Land Rights and Young Farmers Agenda Coordinator at the Asian Farmers Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA), the Regional Focal Point for the Land Matrix in Asia. Her work focuses on strengthening the capacities of AFA members through policy advocacy, knowledge management, and movement building. She coordinates regional initiatives on land rights and youth engagement in agriculture, linking grassroots actions with regional and global policy spaces.