Land Governance and Climate Crisis: Land Tenure Instruments and Adaptation and Mitigation Policies in Brazil

• Grant number: 25/26130-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: April 01, 2026
• End date: March 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Geography - Human Geography
• Principal Investigator: Bernardo Mançano Fernandes
• Grantee: Lorena Izá Pereira
• Supervisor: Hannah K Wittman
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia (FCT). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Presidente Prudente. Presidente Prudente , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of British Columbia, Vancouver (UBC), Canada
• Associated to the scholarship: 24/18158-4 - Agroecology, Climate Change, and Responsible Land Governance: An Analysis from the State of São Paulo, Brazil, BP.PD

Abstract

This research project examines the intersections between land governance policies and climate change policies, highlighting the centrality of land in debates on mitigation and adaptation. Land use can both exacerbate climate change and foster strategies for adaptation, mitigation, and coping with its impacts. Moreover, land use is directly connected to the dynamics of land markets, particularly in a context where the climate crisis drives the diversification of investment portfolios through the expansion of processes such as land grabbing and the growth of energy transition and carbon credit markets. The study focuses on the Brazilian case, considering that the Pacto pela Transformação Ecológica assumes the need to accelerate territorial and land-use planning, as outlined in the country's Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). It seeks to advance theoretical and methodological contributions by analyzing land policies within the context of climate change, examining how land governance instruments and practices intersect with mitigation and adaptation strategies, and how such policies shape processes of territorial use and control. The project argues that a land governance model centered exclusively on the regularization and titling of agrarian reform settlements - without integration with broader territorial defense policies - is insufficient to produce effective outcomes in addressing climate change and in fostering a just territorial ordering. (AU)