In an opinion piece that appeared in the Reuters Sustainability online portal, Nestlé Executive Vice President José Lopez writes that Indigenous land rights must be addressed before any economic development project proceeds. In the piece, Lopez cites a recent study by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) of almost 73,000 natural resource concessions in eight tropical forested countries, which found that more than 93 percent of these developments involved land inhabited by Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Secure land rights, he concludes, will create value for all actors along the supply chain.

Read the full op-ed, “Shedding a light and engaging on land rights,” on the Thomson Reuters Sustainability blog.