In some countries, communities might own the land but trees belong to the government. For example, in Indonesia, land rights are ferociously fought over not only because a large part of the forests have never even been surveyed but also because the state owns the forests and therefore the carbon credit that they could derive from protecting it. Analysts even fear that REDD could result in increased land grabbing and consequently forced evictions, as marginalized people will be pushed away by companies trying to measure and assess the forests they inhabit and live off.
In Peru, REDD puts twenty million hectares of indigenous territories at risk for which the populations inhabiting the land have no legal recognition. Amidst the adoption of REDD, the Peruvian government has passed legislation nationalising the Amazon, while indigenous peoples claim it belongs to them. The government’s actions have led to protests where between forty and eighty-five people were killed in 2009.