“For organising rural women across Southern Africa into a united force defending land, seed and bodily autonomy against corporate and patriarchal dispossession.”

The Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA) is a self-organised, transnational movement of over 178,000 small-scale farmers across eleven Southern African nations, united to defend land, seed and bodily autonomy against corporate agribusiness and patriarchal dispossession. Rejecting the traditional NGO model in favour of a flat, volunteer-led structure, it has built one of the region’s largest autonomous platforms for rural women, recognised as “Guardians of Land, Life, Seed and Love.”

Through feminist agroecology and food and seed sovereignty, RWA challenges corporate control over the region’s food systems while strengthening communities’ resilience to climate shocks. It has established 24 seed multiplication sites and documented hundreds of Indigenous seed varieties, defending traditional seed systems from commercialisation.

Through healing circles and cross-border mutual aid, RWA has turned women long excluded from land ownership into a united, persistent political voice — one that, in the words of its Regional Coordinator, Mercia Andrews, is more “rowdy” than “radical”. That voice helped secure a 2016 Zambian law mandating equal land allocation to women and Eswatini’s landmark 2018 Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Bill.

Biography

The Rural Women’s Assembly is a transnational movement of over 178,000 small-scale farmers across eleven Southern African nations, resisting corporate land grabs and patriarchy to achieve food security and defend bodily autonomy.

Through feminist agroecology, seed sovereignty and grassroots organising, it has turned rural women into an independent political force reshaping land rights and food systems across the region.

The legacy of settler-colonial rule

Southern Africa is a region shaped by a shared history of settler-colonial rule. What distinguishes it from the larger continent is the scale and permanence of European settlement, which led not only to political control but to the outright seizure of farmable land. Across the region, settlers took fertile land and redistributed it among themselves, while local populations were confined to smaller, poorer areas. Men were consequently forced to work in mines or on settlers’ land, leaving women to carry the bulk of subsistence farming. As a result, rural women rely heavily on natural resources and agriculture for their livelihoods, yet are often denied formal land ownership, as well as access to credit, technology and decision-making forums.

RWA’s Regional Coordinator Mercia Andrews explained that Southern African women’s situation is further complicated by the fact that their land sits “in the eye of the needle” of the climate crisis. In 2026 alone, Madagascar was struck by two major cyclones, with storms tracking onto Mauritius, Malawi, Mozambique and South Africa, as the region’s West Coast endures extreme drought. Southern Africa is also experiencing soil and water degradation and biodiversity loss, leading to mass displacement.

Extractive industries and corporate agribusiness in the region compound these environmental barriers. Through legal frameworks like the 1991 Act of the UPOV Convention, corporations claim intellectual property rights over seed varieties, threatening farmers’ ability to freely save, exchange and sell their own seeds. Large-scale land grabs for extractive materials are also linked to a rise in gender-based violence, creating a backdrop of structural violence.

Guardians of land, life, seed and love

The region’s painful colonial history and exploitative power structures have been visible in RWA’s story since the beginning. In 2009, the movement held its first meeting, with 250 rural women from across the region gathering in Limpopo Province, South Africa, to overcome lingering colonial and apartheid divisions between member countries.

Its founders set three goals: to build a new regionalism connecting women across borders, to create a shared platform against crises like food poverty and land dispossession, and to confront the HIV-AIDS pandemic. From this came the movement’s defining structure: a flat, volunteer-led model governed by a Reference Group of three leaders from each of its eleven country chapters. The movement currently operates in Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Feminist agroecology and seed sovereignty

RWA practices feminist agroecology, a holistic approach linking the ecological transformation of food systems to the social relationships that sustain them. Beyond sustainable farming or increasing women’s role in value chains, its core goal is women’s autonomy: securing their access to and control over land, water, seeds and income, ensuring their voice in decision-making, and recognising their Indigenous knowledge and political agency.

It also confronts what sustains inequality in the first place — the gendered division of labour, the unpaid burden of domestic and care work, and the violence and domination that run through households, communities and institutions — toward a food system built on equity and justice at every level. It defends the agricultural commons against what it calls “neoliberal frameworks” and the “NGOisation” that depoliticises rural struggle.

The movement’s agroecology work grew out of a demand from its own members. After an initial focus on rights advocacy, members told RWA, “We’ve heard about our rights, but we do not eat our rights.” In response, RWA began organising an Agroecology School for its members to learn about these holistic strategies. As a result, members have lowered production costs by replacing synthetic fertilisers with natural resources, while building climate resilience through healthier, water-retaining soils and diverse crop systems that withstand extreme weather.

In 2025, the movement further fortified members’ knowledge of their seed and land rights by translating the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP) into local languages. Over 18,000 women participated.

As “seed guardians”, RWA has established seed banks and multiplication sites propagating traditional seed for exchange and sale to members. In 2025, it conducted research documenting 45 cereals, 31 fruits, 64 legumes and 20 tubers across seven countries, with 720 participating women. The findings of this research were shared internationally through a photo-documentary exhibition, “Guardians of Land, Seed and Life”, making rural women farmers visible in their roles as seed savers, guardians of local knowledge and the backbones of local food systems.

Building a movement of “rowdy” women

Each year, RWA convenes a Feminist School, a week-long gathering built to develop a feminist consciousness and shared identity across its eleven country chapters. “We are all African eco-feminists, we are pan-Africanists, we have a common philosophy of the RWA,” Andrews said, explaining the importance of having a common philosophy and understanding of the world they are setting out to change. “We are the guardians of land and life and seed. We fight patriarchy.”

The school is complemented by a fortnightly online course that can draw 300 to 400 women across the region at once. Andrews is among the educators, alongside external facilitators and a team built through what she calls a “training of trainers,” so that no school depends on one voice. These gatherings have opened conversations rarely held elsewhere, from sessions on reproductive health and bodily awareness to queerness and sexuality.

RWA’s feminist education is matched by persistent, sometimes “rowdy”, action at the village level. In the South African province Limpopo, when a traditional authority refused a widow land to bury her husband, thirty RWA members loaded his coffin into a hearse, carried it into the chief’s office, and told him: “Since you don’t want this man to rest, we will bring him here to you, so that you can be as restless as he is.” Within the hour, the land was granted.

In Namibia, after government fencing meant to keep elephants from destroying crops went unrepaired for years, members pushed a government vehicle into the elephants’ nightly path. “We want to live in harmony with wildlife,” Andrews recounted, “but if you are not going to help, … we are going to show you what we experience on a daily basis.” The tactic forced an agreement to erect proper fencing. Andrews calls actions like these “weapons of the weak”: small, cumulative victories that build women’s confidence that “they can, as a collective, make gains.”

Affecting policy across the region

In addition to local-level victories, RWA delivers concrete legal change. The movement lobbied to help pass Eswatini’s 2018 Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Bill and a 2016 Zambian law mandating equal land allocation. 

The movement also secured a landmark ruling allowing women in Eswatini to register land in their own name — a right won through the case of one RWA member. When she lost her parents, an uncle seized the family’s land and tried to evict her and her sisters. They refused to leave, continued farming and chased him off whenever he returned, while pursuing a legal case to contest the customary law that barred widows and daughters from inheriting land. After years in court, and with RWA’s support, they won.

RWA has used the same pressure against extractive industries. The movement was part of a coalition that took Shell to court over ocean-floor mining off South Africa’s coast, leading the country’s Constitutional Court to rule for the first time that such mining could cause environmental destruction. 

“We often say to take the legal route is okay,” Andrews said. “But it has to be combined with activism, because if you don’t put pressure… it doesn’t hold too much water. And most importantly, our actions have to inspire and build hope.”

People-to-people solidarity

Healing Circles are one method RWA uses to create safe spaces for women to share experiences of trauma. They grew out of participatory research the movement conducted across eight countries to understand what support rural women could actually access when facing gender-based violence, domestic violence or serious sexual offences. Despite ambitious government promises, RWA found that services were extremely difficult for rural women to reach, so the movement built its own, training community counsellors, known as “GBV champions,” to work in schools and communities and run Healing Circles for women to share their experiences.

The same ethic of solidarity drives RWA’s cross-border mutual aid. Members from Zambia have travelled to Malawi to deliver seeds and provisions after climate shocks; in Mozambique, women from the north travelled south to help rebuild flooded fields. In South Africa, RWA members have repeatedly collected funds, food and other essentials to support women after climate disasters and fires have left people without homes. In Eswatini, members mobilised during the 2021 unrest to support women who had been shot. It is what RWA calls “people to people solidarity”: support built on presence and shared labour, not money alone. 

“We have our own answers,” Andrews said. “We save seeds. We’re the custodians of the food system… People must understand the difference between charity and solidarity.”

Watch Rural Women’s Assembly’s participation in the Defending Peasants’ Rights webinar on 10 December 2025: https://defendingpeasantsrights.org/en/video-of-our-webinar-nothing-about-us-without-us-realising-the-right-to-participation-of-rural-peoples-and-workers-through-undrop/

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Nomadic and transhumant pastoralists face growing threats to their territories, water resources and traditional grazing routes. Land grabbing, privatisation of common lands, restrictive borders and policies that undermine pastoral mobility threaten their livelihoods, cultural practices and ways of life. These challenges also put at risk their vital contribution to biodiversity conservation, sustainable land management and resilient food systems.

UNDROP provides an essential framework to address these challenges. As the only international instrument explicitly recognising the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, it affirms the rights of pastoralists to land and natural resources, food sovereignty, participation in decision-making and the preservation of their traditional knowledge and practices. The factsheet explores how UNDROP can be mobilised to strengthen their struggles and advance the recognition and protection of mobile Indigenous peoples’ rights.

La entrada New Factsheet on the Rights of Mobile Indigenous Peoples and Pastoralists: UNDROP as a legal and political leverage se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

The report points to extreme territorial inequality: 85 per cent of agricultural holdings are smaller than two hectares but control only 9 per cent of cultivable land, while the largest 0.1 per cent control more than half. Dispossession also affects fisheries, pastoral territories and areas targeted by climate, conservation and renewable-energy projects, as well as communities affected by conflict and displacement.

The report calls for stronger, binding measures to protect territorial rights, including legal recognition of collective and customary territories, restitution and compensation for dispossession, and stronger rights for rural women. It also recommends limits on land and water concentration, agrarian reform and redistribution, legally binding human-rights instruments to regulate business enterprises, and meaningful consultation and, free, prior and informed consent for development and climate-related projects.

Read the full report below:

La entrada New Report by the UN Working Group on UNDROP on territorialities of land and sea se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

The seed is the first link in every food chain. However, what for millennia was a common good safeguarded by farming communities is today at the centre of a global dispute between human rights, food sovereignty and intellectual property.

A new report presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council argues that the international governance of seeds is increasingly shifting towards commodification, corporate concentration and the criminalisation of ancestral practices such as saving, exchanging or selling farmers’ seeds.

The document, entitled The Right to Seeds: Custodianship, Enclosure and Resistance, was prepared by the Working Group on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas. It was presented by Shamlali Guttal, Chair of the Working Group, who also presented the report on the official visit to Ghana carried out from 5 to 14 May 2026.

The diagnosis is unequivocal: seeds are progressively being transformed from biocultural heritage into commodities subject to intellectual property regimes, commercial certification and corporate control.

From common good to private property

The report identifies two opposing models. The first views seeds as common goods that underpin food sovereignty, biodiversity and the collective rights of rural peoples. The second regards them as economic assets subject to patents, plant breeders’ rights and global trade rules.

According to the Working Group, the balance between the two visions has clearly shifted in favour of the latter.

During the presentation of the report, Shamlali Guttal recalled that seeds are not simply commodities for peasants and Indigenous peoples.

“Seeds are the beginning of every meal, the memory of every harvest and the hope of future life. They are a living heritage, developed over generations through selection, exchange and adaptation to different soils, ecosystems and climates”.

Guttal also stressed that Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants recognises the right of peasants to save, use, control, protect and develop their own seeds. Consequently, States have an obligation to respect, protect and fulfil that right.

International rules on intellectual property, trade agreements and certification systems have imposed growing restrictions on those who save, exchange or sell seeds outside commercial circuits. What for centuries constituted an ordinary farming practice is beginning to be treated as a legal infringement in numerous countries.

The concentration of the global market

The privatisation of seeds is advancing alongside an unprecedented concentration of the industry. The report states that four companies — Bayer, Corteva, Syngenta and BASF — control more than half of the global commercial seed market.

This concentration does not only affect prices. It also directs genetic research, shapes agricultural policies and favours homogeneous varieties designed for intensive agricultural systems dependent on fertilisers and pesticides.

This erodes agricultural diversity and increases farmers’ dependence on large companies supplying seeds and inputs.

In response to this trend, the report highlights the importance of seed systems managed by farmers themselves. In some regions of Africa and Asia, these systems provide up to 90% of the seeds used for food crops.

During her intervention, Guttal explained that these traditional systems are the main reservoir of agricultural genetic diversity and constitute a fundamental basis for food sovereignty and resilience in the face of climate change.

The International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture recognises farmers’ rights and establishes a multilateral system for access and benefit-sharing. However, the Working Group warned that these commitments are implemented unevenly and that resources allocated to the benefit-sharing fund remain insufficient.

When saving seeds becomes a crime

One of the most alarming aspects of the report is its description of a growing process of criminalisation of traditional seed-related practices.

In different countries, farmers have faced legal proceedings for exchanging, reusing or selling planting material saved on their farms. The report documents cases in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe, with sanctions including heavy fines and even prison sentences.

Plant variety protection regimes, particularly those inspired by the 1991 Act of the UPOV Convention, expand breeders’ exclusive rights over reproductive material. In some countries, restrictions may extend to practices as commonplace as saving seeds from one harvest for use in the next.

The document also warns of the growing use of surveillance technologies, genetic markers, drones and satellite imagery to detect alleged infringements involving protected seeds.

For the Working Group, there is an obvious paradox: while peasant systems continue to provide between 70% and 90% of the seeds used in numerous countries, it is precisely these systems that face the greatest legal restrictions.

Guttal also warned about the expansion of patents on genetic sequences and the use of information obtained from digital databases.

“Genetic sequences can be registered or patented without the physical seed having been used. This practice may allow genetic resources to be used without respecting benefit-sharing obligations”.

The invisible custodians

The report pays particular attention to the role of rural women. It identifies them as the main custodians of genetic diversity and as responsible for the selection, conservation and transmission of knowledge about seeds in much of the world.

However, agricultural policies and regulatory frameworks often render this contribution invisible. The privatisation of seeds and the imposition of certification systems disproportionately affect women, as they restrict practices that are fundamental to their economic and food autonomy.

The erosion of traditional systems does not only entail the loss of biodiversity. It also reduces the scope for action of those who have historically sustained food security at local level.

For this reason, the Working Group calls on States to guarantee equality for rural women in seed governance through secure land tenure, effective representation in decision-making bodies and recognition of their traditional knowledge and their role as the principal custodians of seeds.

Biodiversity under threat

For the UN, the dispute over seeds is inseparable from the global ecological crisis. The accelerating loss of plant genetic diversity is emerging as one of the most concerning signs of contemporary industrial agriculture.

The report states that approximately three quarters of crop genetic diversity was lost during the 20th century, as local varieties, adapted to their territories, were replaced by an increasingly limited number of commercial varieties.

The expansion of genetically modified organisms and new gene-editing technologies also increases the risks of genetic contamination and private appropriation of resources historically developed by farming and Indigenous communities.

The document records cases of contamination of native maize and cotton varieties with unauthorised genetically modified material in Latin America. It also reports lawsuits against farmers who had not knowingly planted patented seeds, but whose fields contained plants originating from such material.

The report also warns of new forms of biopiracy associated with the digitisation of genetic sequences. Thanks to these technologies, companies and institutions can register and patent biological characteristics derived from traditional varieties without physically accessing the original seeds.

This practice weakens benefit-sharing mechanisms and may facilitate the appropriation of knowledge developed by farming and Indigenous communities.

For this reason, Guttal called for new genomic techniques to be subjected to independent risk assessments and traceability and labelling requirements before any deregulation process.

Seeds, territory and conflicts

The defence of seeds cannot be separated from the defence of land. The report stresses that traditional systems depend on living territories where communities can cultivate, exchange and pass on knowledge between generations.

For this reason, forced displacement, land grabs, large-scale agribusiness projects, armed conflicts and environmental degradation constitute direct threats to the right to seeds.

The loss of territories also means the loss of knowledge, locally adapted varieties and community exchange networks that underpin the resilience of food systems.

In this regard, the Working Group recommended that, in situations of armed conflict, occupation or other crises, farmers’ seeds and related infrastructure be recognised as civilian assets essential to the survival of the population.

Peasant resistance and judicial victories

In response to these trends, the document records numerous experiences of resistance. Cooperatives, community seed banks, seed-exchange fairs and participatory plant-breeding programmes continue to sustain an essential part of global agricultural biodiversity.

Guttal stressed that these initiatives should not be treated as marginal activities, but as public goods deserving the same support as formal seed-breeding programmes.

The Working Group also highlights several legal and policy experiences. Among them is the African Model Legislation for the Protection of the Rights of Local Communities, Farmers and Breeders, developed through the ARIPO Arusha Protocol, which offers a human-rights-compatible alternative to the 1991 UPOV model.

Indian legislation expressly protects farmers’ right to save, use, exchange and sell seeds saved on their farms, alongside breeders’ rights.

In Brazil, the Food Acquisition Programme directs public procurement towards traditional and agroecological seeds.

The report also records several judicial victories. In 2021, the Supreme Court of Honduras declared the national plant variety protection law unconstitutional, invoking Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants.

In Kenya, both the Supreme Court and the High Court have recognised the constitutional protection of customary farming practices involving the exchange of seeds. In November 2025, the High Court held that “sharing seeds is not a crime”, a decision whose significance, according to the Working Group, extends beyond the country’s borders.

These experiences show that another form of seed governance is possible, based on human rights, food sovereignty and the conservation of biodiversity.

A dispute over the future of food

Beyond the agricultural question, the report raises a fundamental political question: who controls the resources that make food production possible?

The Working Group’s conclusion is unequivocal. Seeds cannot be reduced to simple commodities. They constitute the material basis of fundamental rights such as food, health, culture and a healthy environment.

Treating them exclusively as objects of private property not only threatens biodiversity and food sovereignty, but also deepens the economic dependence of millions of farmers around the world.

For this reason, the Working Group urges States to recognise and protect peasant seed systems, strengthen agroecology and guarantee the right of rural communities to save, exchange, develop and sell their own seeds.

In the words of Shamlali Guttal, protecting seeds also means protecting the communities that have cared for them for generations: their rights, their territories, their knowledge and their ability to cope with climate change and other crises.

In other words, returning seeds to their original status: the living heritage of peoples rather than a commodity of the markets.

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(Geneva, 16 September 2026) — La Via Campesina, supported by CETIM and FIAN International, is in Geneva from 12 to 19 September to participate in the 63rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UN HRC), which is taking place from 7 September to 7 October 2026.

This 63rd session is particularly important for us, as peasants, because UN Member States will consider the renewal of the mandate of the Working Group of Experts on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas. The Working Group’s three-year mandate, established in 2023, is coming to an end in October.

It is therefore crucial that the Member States of the Human Rights Council support and vote in favour of renewing the mandate.

Why is UNDROP important to us?

UNDROP is very important to us because we fought for its adoption to protect the rights and role of peasants and other people working in rural areas. They are the people who feed populations, preserve biodiversity, protect ecosystems, and sustain local economies and cultures.

UNDROP provides an internationally recognised human rights framework that supports measures such as comprehensive agrarian reform, the protection and strengthening of traditional seed systems, and the promotion of local food production. It strengthens the legitimacy of States in adopting policies that protect peasants and support food sovereignty.

The Declaration is also an important voice for countries and communities whose economies remain largely rural.

As Elizabeth Mpofu, a peasant farmer from Zimbabwe, explains:

“Rural communities and peasants produce more than 80% of the food we consume. Not only that, we, particularly women, are the backbone of local food markets, supplying a diversity of foods that does not come from supermarkets or stores. This frees our governments to focus on other urgent social, physical and economic development needs. Through our peasant seed systems, we have created vibrant rural economies, generated employment for millions of people, and educated our children.

My story is the story of billions of rural women who play an important role in the social reproduction of labour and in fighting hunger, malnutrition, unemployment and poverty around the world.”

Our mission in Geneva

Our mission here is to keep up the advocacy work we began almost thirty years ago when we launched this process of recognizing the rights of peasants at the international level.

The LVC delegation will meet with and engage the missions of UN HRC Member States, advocating for the renewal of the mandate of the Working Group of Experts on UNDROP.

The Working Group is essential to ensuring continuity in international efforts to advance the implementation of UNDROP. It supports dialogue, cooperation and capacity-building among States, independent experts and UNDROP rights holders.

The Working Group also ensures that the realities and struggles of peasants and other people working in rural areas continue to be represented within the UN system. Its work strengthens the struggle for peoples’ food sovereignty.

Defending the Right to Seeds

While in Geneva, LVC delegates will participate in and contribute to a Side Event and a Public Conference on the Right to Seeds. These events will take place following the presentation of the UNDROP Working Group’s report on the Right to Seeds to the UN Human Rights Council today.

The Right to Seed report can be accessed here

The Right to Seeds is central to the struggle for peasant rights, food sovereignty and agroecology. Peasant seed systems, built through generations of knowledge, exchange and collective stewardship, are essential for protecting biodiversity, sustaining local food systems and strengthening the autonomy of rural communities.

For La Via Campesina, renewing the mandate of the Working Group is not simply about maintaining a UN mechanism. It is about ensuring that the voices, rights and struggles of peasants remain visible and recognised within the international human rights system.

Globalise the Struggle! Globalise Hope!

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Purpose:To inform the Working Group on the rights of peasants for their visit to Paraguay

Deadline: 14 September 2026

Background

The Working Group on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, established pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 54/9, will conduct a country visit to Paraguay from 16 to 27 November 2026, at the invitation of the Government of Paraguay.

The visit will make an independent, impartial and objective assessment of the progress made in the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas (UNDROP) in Paraguay. The Working Group will issue a detailed end of mission statement on 27 November 2026 and present a final report the UN Human Rights Council in 2027.

The Working Group invites individuals and organizations, including peasants, small-scale fishers, rural workers, civil society organizations, activists, and academics, to share information on the issues below to help prepare for the visit.

Key questions and types of input/comments sought

All submissions are welcome. The questions below are a guide, not an exhaustive list. Please answer only those most relevant to your life, work or experience.

1. What progress has Paraguay made in protecting the rights of peasants, rural communities and rural workers? Please share good practices, laws, or policies.
2. What are the main challenges to implementing UNDROP and protecting the rights of peasants and rural workers in Paraguay? What lessons learned can you share?
3. What legislative, judicial, administrative, or policy measures has Paraguay adopted, or failed to adopt, to realize the rights of peasants and rural workers as laid out in UNDROP? Are there any measures you consider progressive or regressive?
4. What are social, economic, political and environmental challenges that affect peasant communities, Indigenous peoples, and rural workers?
5. What are the main trends and actors that have influence over the livelihoods of peasants and rural workers, as well as over their access to land, water, and natural and productive resources?
6. What issues specifically affect rural women and girls?
7. What challenges do workers engaged in agriculture, aquaculture, forestry and artisanal fishers face in Paraguay?
8. Which locations, organizations, or communities should the Working Group visit to see these issues first-hand?
9. Please share any relevant reports, research, or other documents.

How inputs will be used?

The Working Group greatly appreciates the effort that goes into making such contributions and looks forward to reviewing all submissions.

Please feel free to circulate this call for inputs widely in your networks.

Confidentiality of inputs

All submissions received will be published on our website unless requested otherwise, and will inform the preparation of the country visit and the consequent report.

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Issued by: Special Rapporteur on the human right to a healthy environment

Deadline: 21 August 2026

Purpose: Inform the preparation of my thematic report to the 64th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Background

Environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) play a critical role in protecting the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment and all other human rights. Their work contributes directly to protecting ecosystems and biodiversity, advancing a safe climate, improving air quality, protecting water and watersheds, promoting healthy and sustainable produced food, and achieving non-toxic environments. Environmental human rights defenders’ work is fundamental for the advancement of the procedural elements of the right to a healthy environment; access to information, public participation, and access to justice. These are recognised human rights and fundamental pillars of the rule of law, democratic governance and peaceful societies.

The role of EHRDs is especially vital today, as humanity faces the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and toxic pollution, aggravated by systemic inequalities and discrimination. Around the world, EHRDs are actively identifying and implementing alternative viable solutions to the triple planetary crises, with solutions that span from protecting fragile ecosystems on land and in the ocean- to advancing renewable and sustainable energy. This helps in achieving accountability while supporting States to fulfill their obligations. Whilst there has been an increased recognition of the crucial role of EHRDs by institutions, overall, the risks, violence and repression these defenders keep facing are increasing in all regions. These risks are reflected by the closing of civic spaces, stigmatization, harassment, surveillance, strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), criminalization, threats, attacks, and even assassinations and forced disappearances.

People and groups in marginalized situations, including Indigenous Peoples, peasants, coastal and fisher peoples, people of African descent, women and girls, children and youth, older persons, LGTBQ+ and people living in highly polluted areas are especially in vulnerable situations. EHRDs on the ground face higher risks, aggravated by conflict, war, and illegal economies, while increased risks for journalists, lawyers, and even scientists working for a healthy environment, have also been documented .

To further understand the situation that EHRDs are facing around the world, and to find effective measures for their protection is urgent and important per se but also for solving the triple planetary crises. Understanding the situation requires considering differentiated impacts that EHRDs are facing by region, sector, gender, age, among others, towards the protection of their rights, and for effectively implementing the right to a healthy environment.

Objectives

In this report, the Special Rapporteur examines the situation of environmental human rights defenders, working in the context of the triple planetary crises, focusing on how violations against them also affect the realization of the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. The report will outline the obligations of States and non-State actors, under international law and human rights law, to protect EHRDs, as well as States’ duty to protect the environment and the climate system, preventing further harms. In doing so, the Special Rapporteur aims to contribute to the understanding of the situation of EHRDs from an individual and a collective perspective, acknowledging that while many of EHRDs are leading and implementing individual actions, these are commonly part of broader community or collective efforts.

The Special Rapporteur will provide concrete recommendations to States and other stakeholders to ensure the protection of environmental human rights defenders and the effective implementation of the right to a healthy environment, including in relation to collective measures from an intersectional approach.

Key questions and types of input/comments sought

Key Information and Contributions for the Report

The Special Rapporteur invites submissions from States, civil society, Indigenous Peoples, people of African descent, peasants, children and youth, small scale fisheries, academics, businesses and others on the following:

1. Regarding the situation of Environmental Human Rights Defenders

Please contribute with information describing:

• Specific risks faced by environmental human rights defenders, including Indigenous Peoples, women and girls, children and youth, peasants, coastal communities, rural communities, journalists, lawyers, scientists, LGTBQ+, and people living in highly polluted areas, among others. Please describe impacts of these risks and attacks on their communities, collectives, work, and environmental protection outcomes, as well as specific considerations applicable to regions or sectors that might be relevant.
• The use of legal measures to restrict, limit or obstacle the work of EHRDs, including impacting the civic space, use of SLAPPs, the use of criminal law, or other mechanisms to create a ‘chilling effect’.
• Kinds of impacts, including psychosocial impacts of threats, violence, and repression on environmental human rights defenders. Please detail the ways in which these attacks may generate or exacerbate internal conflicts within communities, organizations, and social movements.
• Factors that might be contributing to the worsening situation of environmental human rights defenders.

2. Policies, legislation and other existing measures of State and non-State actors for the protection of EHRDs

Please contribute with information related with :

• Policies, regulations and practices adopted by States, businesses and/or financial institutions to identify, mitigate, mitigate, prevent, prosecute and remedy for risks and impacts on EHRDs, including in the context of high-risk sectors such as extractive industries, agribusiness, energy, and infrastructure, as well as information on barriers to accountability and access to justice. Please mention whether mechanisms consider individual and collective protection and include examples of the implementation of these;
• Examples of actions taken by non-State actors to ensure meaningful engagement with affected or potentially affected EHRDs as individuals, collectives and communities, including Indigenous Peoples and other groups in vulnerable situations, and measures to avoid contributing to threats, reprisals, or conflicts. Include information of how these actions have succeeded or failed, and redress processes, established by non-State actors that are relevant to the protection of EHRDs, including their accessibility, effectiveness, implementation in practice.
• Grievance mechanisms, and redress processes, established by non-State actors that are relevant to the protection of EHRDs, including their accessibility, effectiveness and implementation in practice.

3. Other effective measures for protecting Environmental Human Rights Defenders

Please provide information regarding:

• Concrete examples of effective measures beyond legal frameworks or policies, to ensure a safe and enabling environment for environmental human rights defenders, including measures for individual, collective and/or communities’ protection.
• Explanation if these measures consider an intersectional approach and how it is implemented, as well as the process to conceive, plan and implement such measures.
• Examples of structural measures for the effective protection of EHRDs ensuring a safe and enabling environment for the implementation of their work.

How inputs will be used?

We appreciate your efforts to submit your valuable inputs for this report, and your collaboration and support for the implementation of this mandate. If there is information that you have previously sent to other special procedures or human rights mechanisms that may be relevant, we urge you to flag these to avoid duplication and more effectively coordinate. 

Please email your responses in Word format (subject: Planning and the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment to hrc-sr-environment@un.org. Unless specifically requested otherwise and provided they are in line with UN norms and standards, submissions may be posted on the Special Rapporteur’s homepage at the OHCHR website and may be referenced in the reports. In view of consent and privacy issues, contributions containing names of alleged victims will be considered but not published online.

For additional information on the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human right to a healthy environment | OHCHR.

La entrada Call for Input: Environmental human rights defenders and the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

*Image: El mundo campesino. Elena Rusca

By Elena Rusca, June 25th, 2026

Interview with Geneviève Savigny, a member of the UN Working Group on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP)

Geneva, June 25th, 2026 — Elena Rusca

As food, climate, and geopolitical crises intensify, small-scale farmers—who feed the majority of humanity—remain among those most vulnerable to poverty, dispossession, and violence. Since 2018, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP) has provided an unprecedented framework for protecting their collective rights, their seeds, their lands, and their knowledge. But its implementation remains fragile. Geneviève Savigny, a member of the Working Group on the UNDROP, analyzes the agricultural, seed-related, and political challenges facing the world’s rural areas today—from West Africa to Latin America.

UNDROP: A Historic Text Born of Peasants’ Struggles

Adopted in 2018 by the United Nations General Assembly, the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas is one of the most ambitious instruments of the international system. The result of nearly twenty years of mobilization led by La Vía Campesina, it seeks to protect those who produce most of the world’s food but who remain the most vulnerable to poverty, expropriation, violence, and political marginalization.

UNDROP recognizes rights that are rarely explicitly stated in other international texts:

• the right to land,
• the right to seeds,
• the right to water,
• protection against evictions,
• participation in decision-making,
• collective and customary rights,
• and the recognition of peasant knowledge.

To ensure its implementation, the Human Rights Council established a Working Group in 2023 composed of five independent experts. Geneviève Savigny, a farmer and former member of the Peasants’ Confederation and La Vía Campesina, is a member of the group.

An international working group to defend the rights of peasants

— How was your working group formed?

G. Savigny: “The working group was formed by the Human Rights Council after a resolution was adopted in the fall of 2023. We were selected during the winter, and there are five of us. Personally, I am a farmer and a former member of the Peasants’ Confederation and La Vía Campesina. The others are Carlos, an anthropologist and professor in Colombia; David, a law professor in Armenia; Shalmalee, former director of the NGO Focus on Global South; and Uche, a Nigerian law professor working in the United States.”

— How do you work, specifically?

G. Savigny: “Our group holds two annual five-day in-person sessions, usually one in Geneva and another in New York. This year, we decided to replace the second session with country visits. We just completed a visit to Ghana, and another is scheduled for November in Paraguay. Each time, two members of the group go, along with our staff.”

— What do you do during these visits?

G. Savigny: “We meet with representatives from various ministries related to agriculture and food, and then with representatives of farmers, fishermen, herders, and rural women. In Ghana, the meetings had to be arranged through the government or local authorities so we could meet with village chiefs. The goal is to understand how farmers’ rights are being implemented, what the strengths are, and what can be improved. We then draft a report that will be presented in the fall.”

Participation: An Essential Right, Yet Difficult to Exercise

— You published a report on the right to participation. What were your conclusions?

G. Savigny: “Participation is truly indispensable for ensuring that the situation of rural men and women is taken into account and addressed appropriately. But there is still much to be done, including for practical reasons: translation, distance, and the difficulties of traveling to centers of power.

As for women, there is a particular challenge in freeing themselves from domestic chores and daily work in order to participate in decisions that affect them. This adds an extra layer of difficulty in a rural world where work is very demanding and often isolating.”

Seeds: A Crucial Challenge in the Face of Multinationals

— This year you are working on the right to seeds. Why is this so important?

G. Savigny: “Article 19 of the UNDROP specifies that farmers must have the right to maintain farmer-based seed systems: to save, reproduce, exchange, and sell seeds. The state must also support the existence of this system. This is not always the case, as there is a very dynamic, even aggressive commercial system in place, depending on how you look at it.”

— Do GMOs play a role in this issue?

G. Savigny: “Yes, of course. With technological advances, we now have much easier and faster ways to create GMOs. To facilitate their distribution and commercialization, seed companies no longer want them to be called GMOs, but rather NGT—New Genomic Techniques. They want it to be recognized that these traits could occur naturally, so there would be no need to label them.

But there are patents filed on them! And there is a fear that patented traits—which are not labeled—might appear naturally in farmers’ plants that they have been selecting for years.”

— What does this mean for farmers?

G. Savigny: “The patent on the CRISPR-Cas system, for example, belongs to a single company. There is an ever-increasing concentration of rights that determine whether or not seeds can be multiplied. In response to this, many seed laws impose strict rules for the certification and commercialization of seeds, which contradicts farmers’ right to seeds.

Farmers must assert this right, and governments must realize that—even for the sake of biodiversity and plant resilience—the small-scale breeding carried out by local farmers must not be halted. There is an entire system that must be preserved if we want to maintain significant biodiversity and crop diversity.”

Land and Territory: Collective Rights Yet to Be Recognized

— They are also working on the issue of land. What is the main challenge?

G. Savigny: “We’re working on Article 17 of the declaration, which addresses the rights to land and territory. Interestingly, UNDROP highlights the importance of collective and customary rights. This is important because that’s where the problem lies in many places: since there are no clear property titles, the situation becomes informal.”

— And in Switzerland, how do you view access to land?

G. Savigny: “I believe the right to land serves to illuminate new paths. Secure access to land is needed, not necessarily ownership. I hope that in Switzerland we can develop leasing arrangements or forms of collective ownership that provide security for those who cultivate the land.

There’s a major problem: an entire generation is reaching the end of their working lives with meager pensions and few resources. Sometimes they don’t want to pass the land on to younger people. It’s a widespread social problem. If we want high-quality food production, we must also solve the problem of access to land.

Buying land is prohibitively expensive. And we have to be careful because in some countries, even in Europe, it’s corporations that are buying up the land.”

Latin America: A “Peasantization” Under Attack but Essential

— For our Chilean readers, what is your perspective on “peasantization” in Latin America?

G. Savigny: “In Latin America, I believe ‘peasantization’ is essential. Together with indigenous peoples, they form the core of an agricultural sector that is, at the same time, under intense attack from the rise of highly intensive industrial agriculture.

This is reinforced by free trade agreements aimed at increasing exports of products and raw materials. What the farmers there say is that this does not serve to protect them.

It’s a region I don’t know perfectly well, but it seems so rich and diverse. From a cultural standpoint, it is rural and indigenous. In Latin America, artisanal production methods remain very important. Food quality also comes from being able to eat fresh vegetables everywhere.”

— Is it also a struggle against transnational corporations?

G. Savigny: “Of course. Small farmers must be supported; transnational corporations must be held in check, because they have a natural tendency—I think it’s even their business model—to expand, consolidate, and maximize profits. But there must be limits, because otherwise, it’s destructive both environmentally and socially.”

The UN’s “special procedures”: explaining the mandate

— Can you explain what the special procedures are?

G. Savigny: “Working groups are part of the special procedures, as are special rapporteurs. They focus on a particular aspect of human rights, such as the right to food or the right to water. We are a working group: instead of a single special rapporteur, there are five of us, which reflects the diversity and breadth of the issue.

Our role is to implement the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, the UNDROP. It is a text adopted in 2018 by the UN General Assembly that comprises twenty-eight articles summarizing the rights necessary for peasant activities.

It defines what constitutes a peasant, the obligations of States, non-discrimination, women’s rights, the right to resources, the right to participation, to information, to education, and so on—all detailed in a manner tailored to the rural context.”

The Working Group will present its reports on land and seeds this coming September in Geneva. These documents, which will be submitted to the UN General Assembly, should shed crucial light on the issue.

La entrada Without land, without seeds, there is no future for farmers se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

The protests have unified an impressive coalition of peasant, rural and urban workers. At the heart of this mobilization are powerful peasant organizations, as the Tupac Katari Federation, the Bartolina Sisa Federation of Indigenous peasant women, and the Unified Syndical Confederation of Peasant Workers (CSUTCB), who have mobilized throughout the whole country to resist, counteract and claim the respect of their fundamental rights. 

This current struggle is testament to the formidable political force of peasant organizations in the country. The protests are not simply about land or fuel subsidies; they represent a profound rejection of a dominant political and economic model perceived as violating peasants’ rights, food sovereignty principles and marginalizing rural and Indigenous communities. 

We invite you to read the three following declarations of solidarity with the struggle of the Bolivian people:

CLOC-Via Campesina https://viacampesina.org/en/2026/06/bolivia-cloc-la-via-campesina-rejects-the-divisive-and-polarizing-actions-promoted-by-rodrigo-paz/

Bartolinas Sisas Federation (Bolivian member of LVC) https://viacampesina.org/en/2026/06/bolivia-the-bartolina-sisa-organization-reaffirms-unity-denounces-government-attempts-at-division-and-co-optation/

CETIM https://www.cetim.ch/bolivia-solidarity-with-popular-struggles-for-food-sovereignty-and-social-justice/

La entrada Solidarity with Bolivia’s peasant and Indigenous organizations se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.

The study examines the growing trend of agrarian counter-reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean and their impact on land rights secured through earlier agrarian reform processes. It shows how recent legal, institutional, and administrative changes are contributing to renewed land concentration and increasing pressure on peasants, Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant communities, and other rural populations. The report also maps the main forms these counter-reforms take (legal reforms, land financialisation, corporate-led green grabbing, and state-led dispossession) and explores their implications for territorial justice and rural development.

It analyses current patterns of land concentration across the region, highlighting how long-standing inequalities are being reinforced by financialisation and large-scale land acquisitions, with these structural conditions providing the backdrop for contemporary counter-reforms. Drawing on case studies from Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador, as well as Caribbean countries, it explores a range of legal and institutional measures that have weakened land protections, including administrative reclassification, deregulation, restrictive territorial policies, accelerated expropriation procedures, the criminalization of land-related conflicts, and the revocation of land titles.

It further identifies broader regional trends and assesses them in light of international human rights standards, arguing that these reforms reflect a wider shift in land governance that favours economic concentration while eroding protections recognised under international instruments, especially the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP).

The study concludes by highlighting a pressing contradiction of the current agrarian moment: while significant progress is being made in formally recognising the rights of rural peoples, the administrative, procedural, and economic mechanisms needed to make those rights effective are being steadily weakened through a global legal architecture that places land, territories and natural resources as mere financial assets.

Listen to the podcast on this study (Spanish only):

Read the full study here:

La entrada Agrarian Counter-Reforms: Anatomy of a Dispossession in Progress se publicó primero en Defending Peasants' Rights.