Human rights

Advancing the rights of rural people

What's at Stake

The production of many commonly traded goods—coffee, chocolate, tea, bananas, palm oil, and timber—often involves human rights abuses. While progress has been made in recent years, thorny problems such as child labor, forced labor, poor working conditions, low wages, gender inequality, and the violation of Indigenous land rights are still embedded in many supply chains.

All resources for Human rights

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Project Profile: Achieving Conservation and Improving Livelihoods through the Sustainable Management of Community-Based Forest Operations in Cameroon

Thanks to the exceptional richness of its forest ecosystems, Cameroon occupies the fifth rank in Africa in terms of biodiversity.

Although overall deforestation rates in the region are still lower than those in parts of the Amazon and southeast Asia, they have accelerated over the past few years, driven by the establishment of large-scale agricultural and mining operations. With the aid of government agencies, large firms have been seizing swaths of land in forested areas that were traditionally...... Continue Reading

Project Profiles
July 6, 2016

SAN/Rainforest Alliance Impacts Report 2015

In this first-ever SAN/Rainforest Alliance Impacts Report, we summarize the effects of SAN/Rainforest Alliance farmer training and certification through an exhaustive review of nearly two dozen scientific studies and the audit data from over 200 certified farms and farmer groups. After presenting a global snapshot of the scope and geographic distribution of certified farms, the […]

Impact Study
December 17, 2015

Striking the Balance: Adapting Community Forest Enterprise to Meet Market Demands

Mexico is characterized by a strong community forestry sector. The Mexican Revolution (1910-1917) introduced an agrarian reform process implemented in successive waves during the 20th century. Over a period of 70 years, lands nationwide were titled to two types of rural communities—ejidos and indigenous communities—which now collectively hold an estimated 60.3 percent of the national […]

Case Study
December 3, 2015

Developing Indigenous Community Forestry Enterprises: Where Tradition Meets the Market

This report is the second of ten case studies produced as part of a community forestry project in Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru. The study chronicles work undertaken with indigenous Miskitu communities in the Kruta-Caratasca basin, at the extreme eastern tip of Honduras, to manage and market batana oil, a non-timber forest product that […]

Case Study
June 30, 2015

Forestry and Enterprise Development Among the Indigenous Mayangna of Awas Tingni, Nicaragua

This report is the first of ten case studies produced as part of a community forestry project in Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru. The study focuses on the indigenous Mayangna of Awas Tingni, located in the North Atlantic Autonomous region of Nicaragua, an area where the Rainforest Alliance has been working since 2007. The […]

Case Study
June 29, 2015