D+C Development and Cooperation (No. 2, March/April 2002, p. 8 - 11)

For the last seven years, the German Foundation for International Development (DSE) has focused seminars, training courses and conference on issues such as land reform, access to land, and land tenure. A major international conference was held in Bonn last year on innovative agrarian reforms for sustainability and poverty reduction. What have been the experiences from the international policy dialogues and training courses with Natural resource managers and policymakers?

"In many countries protected areas such as primary tropical forests are zones of access for those who don’t obtain access to land elsewhere in the country. If we want to reduce the pressure on protected areas we have to improve the access to land outside these areas"... was the comment of a Latin American National Park manager during a DSE seminar on land tenure, legal issues and protected areas held in 2000.

The DSE-ZEL (Centre for Food, Rural Development and the Environment) has focused on land tenure issues in seminars, training courses and conferences for the last seven years, highlighting the relation between access to land tenure, security and sustainable land use. At the same time the burning issues of social equity, poverty reduction and the need for increased land productivity had been on the agenda, for example at the Bonn Conference 2001 on "Access to Land".

It became evident in all DSE programmes on "land use planning for rural development", "integrated watershed management" and "management of protected area systems" with participants from Asia, Africa and Latin American that secure access to land is a core issues for rural households to improve their livelihood and one of the precondition for sustainable land use. These programmes are for two target groups: (i) decision makers who are responsible for the legal and policy framework of sustainable management of natural resources, and (ii) professional staff, who are planners and managers of land, water, forests and wildlife at local level. In total, some 900 participants took part in seminars and training courses organised by the ZEL-Centre at Zschortau and in conferences organised by the ZEL-Centre at Feldafing.

Discussions during these
programmes showed:

• The issue of land tenure is basic, but equally important are property and user rights of water, trees, pasture and wildlife and they need to be considered in the discussion on land tenure to become more holistic: "natural resources tenure"
• In all countries, land tenure systems have a long history, reflecting political and social developments. During periods of political transition the restoration of "old" rights enters into conflict with existing land laws and user rights. For example, in the restoration of old land rights of the formerly marginalized population groups (blacks, coloureds) became a burning issue in South Africa after the fall of the apartheid regime.
• In many Latin American countries the land rights of the original "Indian" population were legalised by reformist governments even before the 500th birthday of the "discovery" of America. However, the different types of indigenous land rights vary from country to country and some of the indigenous people are in a rather weak position to defend their rights against aggressive invasion by colonists, gold washers or oil companies. An example is the Huaorani Reserve in the Amazonian lowland of Ecuador: The Huaorani’s land rights did not include the subsoil, so national and international oil companies could use this legal loophole for their interests. The oil exploitation caused massive environmental damages in the ecosystem which was declared a reserve with the intention to serve as resource base for the Huaorani people.

The restoration of traditional rights needs more than declarations of reserves or territories to be effective, it needs the political will to guarantee and protect these rights. If successfully protected the restoration of indigenous land rights helps to balance social injustices. But it may also create new injustices and how will it affect natural resources uses? The following example from Bolivia shows some of the difficulties with indigenous land rights.

• Traditional formal or informal property and user rights have widely been neglected or ignored in the establishment of protected areas (national parks, biosphere reserves, protected forests, etc.), resulting in serious conflicts in and around protected areas. There are many rural tribes and communities who can claim older land (use) rights. On the other hand, there are difficulties to decide how to deal with existing populations as well as with subsequent encroachers within park limits: should they be granted titles or not? Can land (natural resource) uses and/or land sale be restricted? Is resettlement with fair compensation a feasible and socially acceptable option? How to ensure that communities will comply with rules and regulations with regard to nature conservation goals?

Social and environmental aspects
of Land tenure

For many politicians and reformers the discussion is focused on the social function of land. Hence, land reforms are designed to improve this function. However, for natural resources managers and nature conservationists, the question is also: can land tenure systems favour the environmental (ecosystems) functions towards a sustainable land or natural resource use. The experience of DSE participants shows that the sustainability of land use depends not only on the type of tenure regime:

• Private property is not a guarantee for sustainable land use: there can be conflicts between individual and national interests, there is risk of land speculation, there is insecurity of private ownership if the state intervenes, and last not least, there is lack of knowledge on sustainable land use and lack of technical and financial services. The land reform on private property can also be used by the ruling party to pursue it’s own agenda.
• The management of communal property is a favourite playground for outsiders, especially NGOs, yet not always in line with local needs. Title registration of communal lands is insufficient, the question of controlled representation of the community unclear, especially in societies situated in a phase of transition from traditional to modern ways of life. Powerful leaders often grab land or give concessions to timber companies for their individual benefits, unless there is effective control by strong local organisations and responsible traditional leadership.
• The state holds vast areas of land for the purpose of conservation: for example national parks, state forests, water reservoirs, coastal areas, or sites for natural resources exploitation. Yet within governments there is corruption and conflicts between sectors with different interests. Both can result in degradation of state land, for example when timber companies get forest concessions in protected areas by bribing high-ranking forest officers, or when the State Oil Company explores fields within a protected area. There is hardly any country with a Ministry of Environment that is more powerful than the Ministry of Energy and Mining where decisions on land policy is usually influenced by the economic interests group.

What is DSE doing?
What is the impact?

Access to land has many dimensions, including access to information and institutions that have a mandate for natural resources planning and management. Planning procedures at national and local are often complicated, time consuming and costly. Sector planning is rarely harmonized towards integrated natural resources planning. Hence, information on land laws, policies and planning procedures is a key issue and a framework condition for successful integrated planing. The DSE programmes address important actors of rural areas who are dealing with land related issues to make them aware about concepts of land reform, land policy and the land development instruments. They are land officers, agricultural, forestry and natural resources or land use planners, rural extension staff, protected area managers, district and province administrators, NGO development specialists.

Also development projects are now focusing on land issues. International financing agencies support land titling, the establishment of cadastral maps and agrarian courts. Informal conflict management mechanisms are set up und information campaigns on existing laws help farmers to understand their legal rights and the procedures necessary for getting land titled. The success of these measures depends on the capacities within the relevant institutions in order to (i) implement these activities and (ii) to contribute to informed decision making at policy level towards a legal framework that favours sustainable land use in a specific social, economic and political context. The DSE-ZEL is conducting seminars that focus to enhance the know-how on Land Tenure and Legal Issues, Conflict Management and the integration of tenure issues in planning processes.

Need for participatory planning

Land reforms that are top-down or follow sectoral approaches typically fail. The responsible institutions are often acting on their own without a binding coordination with departments that have a mandate for agriculture, water/irrigation, forestry, or infrastructure. Therefore, the need for integrated and participatory planning is highlighted and applied in practical planning exercises in DSE programmes with a strong focus on the integration between various sectors and the participation of different stakeholders.

For example, the DSE-ZEL conducted with local partners field-based training on Community-based Land Use Planning in Zimbabwe, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Africa, Laos, Vietnam, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador where traditional, formal and informal rights as well as local needs were given due consideration in the development of local land use plans.

Communal land and sustainability

Private ownership is seen by many as the only way to achieve sustainability. Experience shows that communal land can be managed in a sustainable way, if long-term user rights are permitted, if clear rules and regulations are established and enforced by strong local organisations, and if the knowledge and management capacities of these local organisations are enhanced. A critical role has local government and, therefore, DSE-ZEL programmes often address these groups. The CAMPFIRE programme in Zimbabwe has proven that such concepts can work under a favourable framework. Similar concepts are now established in many Southern African countries and the DSE-ZEL conducts seminars on Collaborative Wildlife Management with partners in Eastern and Southern Africa to discuss, practise and disseminate viable solutions of sustainable resource use on communal land.