Women’s Land Rights: The Missing Key to Climate Action

Mar 8, 2025 | Lily Maxwell-Lwin
Common Dreams
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This year’s International Women’s Day theme, #AccelerateAction, calls on the world to address the structural barriers slowing progress. If we are serious about climate, we must start at the root of the problem: land access.
 
Land is not just a means of survival; it is one of our most powerful tools to combat climate change and nature loss. Healthy soil sequesters carbon, retains water, supports biodiversity, and—crucially—underpins food production. When land is degraded—through deforestation, overexploitation, or poor management—it shifts from being a carbon sink to a source of emissions, disrupting local water cycles, accelerating desertification, and sparking food insecurity. This degradation has direct consequences, such as the catastrophic flooding that hit Valencia last year, where altered landscapes and poor land stewardship exacerbated extreme weather impacts.