World Bank Land Conference 2025: Shining a light on the Land Matrix’s emerging role for equitable transitions
Authors: Jérémy Bourgoin and Christoph Kubitza
The 2025 World Bank Land Conference, which took place from 5-8 May in Washington, DC, once again highlighted that the Land Matrix Initiative’s documentation of increasing large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) in the Global South – propelled by intensifying energy transition and green deals, a prominent theme throughout the conference – is more relevant than ever.
With demand for land-based climate mitigation projects steadily increasing, mining for critical transition minerals booming, and renewable energy deployment accelerating, land is becoming an increasingly contested and strategic resource. What is more, the anticipated scale of land acquisition required to meet the growing need for renewable energy infrastructure, such as solar and wind farms, and expanding mining activities for transition minerals raises serious concerns about the rights and protection of both people and the planet – especially since these land deals are often implemented in countries with fragile land governance and histories of land-related conflict. Moreover, despite the existence of global frameworks, principles, and standards guiding responsible practices around land investments, compliance with them is generally low.
Against this backdrop, this year’s conference sought to explore effective strategies for securing land tenure and access and scaling up land sector initiatives, investments, and policy reforms that promote global prosperity and environmental sustainability. Land Matrix team members Jérémy Bourgoin and Christoph Kubitza attended the conference to gather important lessons from and contribute towards these discussions. Here are their key takeaways.
Securing land rights for an equitable transition
The critical role of land systems in addressing major global challenges, including job creation, economic development, poverty reduction, and environmental protection, was a common thread throughout discussions. However, while secure land and forest tenure rights are foundational to safeguarding ecosystems, mitigating climate change, supporting livelihoods, and managing intensifying competition over land resulting from increased demand for food, urbanisation, land degradation, and infrastructure development, there was broad consensus that without robust and inclusive land governance, progress on these fronts will remain elusive.
In this vein, the World Bank outlined its ongoing efforts to strengthen land governance, including securing tenure, digitising systems, and facilitating access to land for infrastructure development. There was also unanimous recognition of the urgent need to decarbonise the global energy system if we are to stay within safe climate limits. However, the land-intensive nature of green energy production, especially as it increasingly expands into territories customarily held by indigenous peoples, is deeply concerning. With this in mind, securing land rights – particularly for vulnerable communities – was identified as a priority to avoid land conflicts and ensure equitable benefit-sharing.
Similarly, with many critical minerals located in regions with weak governance frameworks and limited recognition of indigenous rights, the impacts on indigenous peoples and their lands was a recurring concern. To address this, responsible investment was emphasised as an essential strategy, framed around several core principles, including recognising tenure security as a precondition to project development, ensuring Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) throughout the project lifecycle, and positioning communities as co-developers rather than passive recipients. Participants also stressed the importance of transparency in contracts, financial flows, and the establishment of grievance mechanisms.
Discussions at the conference also focussed on efforts to align climate policy with land governance. Despite growing global recognition – reflected in multilateral frameworks such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – challenges remain in integrating land tenure into climate policy. To address this, two prevailing proposals were explored: redirecting efforts towards traditional knowledge, customary land management practices, and the role of indigenous rights in climate and biodiversity solutions, the value of which is increasingly being acknowledged; and the adoption of new global indicators on land use and tenure, which countries must be required to monitor and report on progress.
The growing market for climate mitigation initiatives, particularly carbon offset projects, was another hot topic during the conference, with discussions underscoring the need to establish sequencing reforms, national carbon frameworks, and resilient land tenure systems before such projects are initiated.
Land rights and carbon markets: A complex interplay
The role that land tenure systems play in shaping outcomes of land-based carbon offset projects was the central argument of the For the planet and people? Reducing risks in land-intensive climate mitigation investments panel discussion organised by the Land Matrix together with TMG Research. Since carbon rights are typically tied to existing land and forest rights, the degree to which customary rights are legally recognised profoundly affects both the risks and potential benefits for indigenous peoples and local communities (IP & LCs). Particularly concerning is the transfer of carbon rights through land acquisitions – such as concessions and purchases – which may override or diminish other legitimate land claims.
Within this context, the Land Matrix has begun systematically tracking land-based carbon offset projects that involve LSLAs, revealing that over 8 million hectares have already been acquired in the Global South since the year 2000 for such purposes – exceeding a quarter of the scale of the earlier “global land rush” (~30 million hectares). These deals focus on conservation, wetland restoration, and reforestation/afforestation initiatives, and while this may seem promising, from the perspective of climate mitigation and based on the experiences of the past, projects involving LSLAs in countries with weak land governance could in fact pose significant social risks for local communities.
Through this exercise, the Land Matrix has identified clear regional trends in land-based carbon offsetting, determining that the largest land areas associated with such projects are found in Brazil, the Republic of Congo, Peru, and Indonesia. In many of these countries, land governance is weak. Further, communities lack effective and widespread legal recognition of both land and carbon rights – particularly in the Congo Basin and Indonesia, where historical concession regimes dominate. One important suggestion put forward to address this was the use of emerging models that centre on community-led or community-inclusive projects, in contrast to private-sector-led acquisitions, which holds enormous potential to deliver better outcomes on social co-benefits.
Specifically, to ensure land-based carbon markets deliver both climate and social outcomes, two urgent priorities must be tackled: legal reform to strengthen recognition and protection of community-based tenure and carbon rights; and stronger carbon standards, mandating meaningful consultation, FPIC, and equitable benefit-sharing.
Without addressing the “sequencing problem” – where carbon markets outpace legal and institutional reforms – the risks of land grabbing, community marginalisation, and weak accountability will persist.
Relevance for the Land Matrix
The importance of data, research, and evidence was a cross-cutting theme throughout the conference. Reliable data is essential for understanding land-related trends, identifying governance gaps, and supporting advocacy. Initiatives such as LandMark were highlighted for their role in mapping indigenous territories and increasing visibility. However, challenges remain, particularly in addressing data gaps on customary tenure, spatial planning, and the impacts of investments related to the energy transition.
In this regard, the conference discussions revealed several areas of strategic relevance for the Land Matrix. Notably, emerging efforts to map mining footprints and link them to corporate disclosures align closely with its objectives. For example, the Land Matrix has the capacity to integrate spatial data or collaborate with other initiatives tracking the physical footprint of land-based investments, complementing its existing focus on contractual data and deal documentation. Further, as demand for carbon offsetting grows, close monitoring of land acquisitions through independent initiatives may become essential – not only to ensure that climate action delivers environmental benefits, but also to safeguard equitable and fair participation of IP & LCs.
Moreover, the Land Matrix’s emphasis on tracking consultation processes and transparency in land deals supports the call for meaningful and enforceable FPIC and greater public access to investment terms. Strengthening transparency around financial flows and project outcomes could enhance the initiative’s value, while exploring mechanisms to incorporate or link financial data would be a valuable next step.
In addition, combining Land Matrix data with other tools – such as remote sensing, corporate reporting platforms, human rights trackers, and environmental observatories – could enable more holistic assessments of land investment impacts. Likewise, the initiative’s data on the shareholders involved in land acquisitions can help trace the networks and drivers behind large-scale land transactions, particularly those tied to the energy transition and carbon markets.
As international frameworks such as the CBD begin to adopt indicators on land use and tenure, there is a clear opportunity for the Land Matrix to align its methodologies with these reporting needs. Supporting the inclusion of community-generated data and facilitating global reporting could be an important contribution.
About the authors
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.
Christoph Kubitza is a research fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) in Germany and the research coordinator of the Land Matrix Initiative. He previously held research positions at the University of Goettingen and Humboldt University Berlin and has worked as a consultant for several CGIAR Research Centres. His research focuses on the economic and social impacts of land-use change and large-scale land acquisitions in middle- and low-income countries, as well as the effects of innovation and technology adoption in smallholder farming systems.