Like language and religion, a person s relationship to land defines his cultural identity.
Land is far more than a place to build one s house and make one s living.
A father and son walk to their garden plot in an indigenous reserve in the Amazon. The community's land was demarcated with the help of IDB financing. This is why the issue of legal title to land can be so difficult for indigenous peoples and other groups. These communities need legal title in order to more fully participate in the market economy, but land ownership laws often do not reflect their deep-rooted traditions. This was the subject of a study prepared by political economist Roger Plant and anthropologist Soren Hvalkov for a December IDB workshop on land titling and indigenous people.