Land and resource tenure rights in the context of new global development agendas

Conveners: Robin Biddulph, Margareta Espling and Lasse Krantz, the Unit for Human Geography / the Land Rights Research Initiative, University of Gothenburg.

Contact: margareta.espling@geography.gu.se

Both the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the recent Paris Climate Change Agreement contain goals and targets with implications for the use and management of land and other natural resources such as forests. In developing countries these often provide the basis for a substantial portion of the livelihoods of local rural populations. The active participation of these often poor populations in achieving SDGs is therefore vital both to the effectiveness of the reforms and for reasons of social protection. However, recent research has shown that while as much as 65 percent of the world’s land area is held by rural communities under customary tenure, as little as about 10 percent of this area is actually recognized in statutory law as belonging to those communities. Securing the rights of local people to their land and other natural resources is thus a fundamental requirement for implementing new global development agendas.

The purpose of this panel is to provide an opportunity for researchers, policy makers, and practitioners engaged in land and resource rights-related issues to exchange information about their work and discuss how the land rights of the rural poor in developing countries could be better secured and what contributions research could make in this context. A particular focus will be the emerging “community-based tenure” approach, which supports statutory recognition and protection of local land and resource rights at the level of the community as a collective landholding unit, exemplified by ongoing reforms in Tanzania and Mozambique.

23 Aug., 14:00–15:30, Seminar Room U26

• Community rights to land and forest, influencing conditions for climate adaptation in the uplands of Thailand and Vietnam. Malin Beckman, Swedish University of Agriculture Sciences (SLU).
• Implementing community-based tenure in practice: experiences from Mozambique. Lasse Krantz, University of Gothenburg.
• How has the Tanzanian state coped with the demands of the Village Land Act? A literature review. Robin Biddulph, University of Gothenburg.
• Climate change adaptation and mitigation through improved tenure security for small-scale agricultural producers. Jesper Karlsson, FAO and Matthew Fielding, SEI.

Abstracts

Community rights to land and forest, influencing conditions for climate adaptation in the uplands of Thailand and Vietnam. Malin Beckman, Swedish University of Agriculture Sciences (SLU).

In this paper we discuss how three interacting processes are affecting the possibilities of upland households and communities to adapt to climate change; a) the international and national policy focus on forest conservation for carbon storage, including programs like REDD; b) the increasing commercialization and market orientation of rural livelihoods, and increasing competition for land and forest resources; c) the increasing levels of climate related hazards and stresses, from floods, storms, drought and temperature extremes, affecting local livelihoods. There is a large institutional diversity in local forest management arrangements in Thailand and Vietnam. With the international climate agenda new institutional considerations are introduced. Tenure relations are changing as formal and informal markets for forest land are becoming increasingly “hot”. Thailand has a strong community forest movement, despite the lack of formal rights, and they are becoming more active in arguing for community tenure rights. In Vietnam, government policy has historically undermined community forest traditions, but is now seeking to revive such practices as part of forest protection policies. The paper discusses how tensions around tenure rights and different interests in the management of forest land affects upland villager’s possibilities of adapting to increasing levels of climate related stress. We argue that policies of sectoral division between protected forest and increasingly commercial orientation of agriculture are undermining local flexibility and options for climate adaptation. The study is based on qualitative fieldwork in five provinces in Thailand and Vietnam in 2012-2013. 

Implementing community-based tenure in practice: experiences from Mozambique. Lasse Krantz, University of Gothenburg.

According to recent estimates about 80 percent of Africa’s land area is owned and managed by local rural populations under some kind of customary communal tenure system, though national governments only recognize formal, legal rights of communities to a fraction of these lands. While some of this land is individually possessed agricultural land, the bulk consists of non-farm forest or rangeland managed as common property resources by communities. There is today a growing consensus of the importance of securing local people’s rights to a much larger proportion of this land. This is important for human rights, food security and climate change mitigation reasons. While the conventional approach to formalizing property rights to land is individual land titling, this approach has proven to be less suitable to conditions in regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa. Here some countries are therefore experimenting with an alternative approach, i.e., community-based tenure, where rights to own land or manage land and other natural resources are secured at the level of the community as a collective landholding unit. Mozambique is one of countries in Africa which has adopted this approach in its land legislation. This paper analyses experiences from implementing this approach in practice, based on a field study in Niassa province in Northern Mozambique. Three issues are highlighted as especially problematic in this context: the identification of the community as a collective landholding unit, the question of traditional authorities and internal governance of these communities, and, finally, what happens after the community land delimitation has been completed.

How has the Tanzanian state coped with the demands of the Village Land Act? A literature review. Robin Biddulph, University of Gothenburg.

The evolutionary theory of land tenure suggests that land rights change in a broadly predictable trajectory through a process driven by land gradually becoming a scarce resource. The policy conclusion conventionally drawn from this theory is that attempts by the state to register and title individualized, exclusive ownership rights should not pre-empt the demand for such rights, but should rather respond to such a demand once it emerges. The reforms in Tanzania, beginning with the 1995 Land Policy and the 1999 Village Land Act, have been more ambitious than this. They have sought to create a highly flexible, decentralised system which recognizes, on the one hand, complex, layered land tenure arrangements associated with low population densities and extensive and varied land use, and, on the other hand, provides for state-authorized, individualized, exclusive ownership rights where these are demanded. This approach puts a heavy demand on the state in the form of village level authorities, sub-national bodies (not least courts) and national authorities. In contrast to national programmes of systematic land registration which have one standardized product which is delivered en masse using standardized methods, the Tanzanian reform requires authorities at all levels to respond to a variety of shifting and sometimes conflicting demands. This paper reviews two decades of scholarship that has examined the Tanzanian case. It asks how state authorities at all levels have responded to the demands placed upon them by the reform, and by the variety of stakeholders engaged in struggles for land in the country.

Climate change adaptation and mitigation through improved tenure security for small-scale agricultural producers. Jesper Karlsson, FAO and Matthew Fielding, SEI.

Increased demand for land and land derived goods and services place tenure at the centre of responses to interrelated challenges such as climate change and poverty.  This article focuses on strengthened land tenure rights of small-scale agricultural producers as a critical factor in the viability of climate-smart agriculture. Agriculture is both a major contributor to emissions and a sector that is highly exposed to climate change impacts. Many proven strategies are available for mitigation and adaptation, but they often require longer-term investment such as planting of perennials and purchase of equipment for low tillage. To be viable, climate-smart agriculture must involve those who derive their livelihoods from agriculture, notably the rural poor. Collectively, rural populations are the biggest investors in primary agriculture in developing countries. Yet, they constitute the majority of the world’s poor. Their land tenure rights are often precarious, and the risk of dispossession makes it difficult to predict returns on investment. Tenure insecurity is an obstacle for adoption of agricultural practices that contributes to carbon sequestration and long-term productivity. It also makes it difficult for poor small-scale producers to effectively participate in carbon finance under the UNFCCC. Conversely, poorly implemented carbon finance schemes risk to lead to infringement of rights. Strengthening of land tenure systems that consider a broad array of rights and responsibilities as well the factors that drives land use change and demand for land at the local, national and global levels, are needed to motivate and enable small-scale producers to invest more in climate smart agriculture and contribute to sustainable development in general.