Tenure is a critical element for the prosperity of people living in forest areas and ensuring the long-term sustainability of forest ecosystems. But it is an area in which a major gap exists in many countries whose legal systems and forest management institutions fall short in their recognition of community-based tenure based on traditional occupancy and stewardship.
Securing forest tenure lays the foundation for effective programs across sectors (e.g. forestry, agriculture, energy, mining, and climate change). In the context of the role of forests in climate change mitigation, research indicates that securing forest tenure is linked to lowering deforestation rates and ensures the success of the United Nations REDD+ strategies and programs.
Yet the world's most biodiverse and carbon-rich forests are often found in low and middle-income countries where forest ownership rights and arrangements are ill-defined, contested, or insecure because of limited government presence and capacity. Since tenure systems are often based on customary and collective rights, the questions of who owns the forests, who claims them, who has access to them, and how to manage overlapping use and access right, are deeply contested in many forest regions of the world.
Scientists, global leaders and thinkers, and First Nations peoples around the world continue to stress that we must listen to Indigenous voices and local communities to achieve balance with our earth and our climate. Securing forest and community tenure and tenure of fragile ecosystems lays the foundation for effective programs across sectors. Global Land Alliance has a dedicated “Community-Based Resource Management” program. Recent projects illustrative of our values and goals include:
Spotlight on Recent Community-Based Resource Management Projects:
Opportunities Assessment on Collective Tenure Rights in 18 Countries
The Forest Carbon Partnership Fund (FCPF) Management Team (FMT) commissioned a study to better understand opportunities to advance collective land tenure security in the context of REDD+. Global Land Alliance joined a consortium consisting of the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) and McGill University to conduct this study. GLA team completed initial literature reviews and interviews with key stakeholders across all 18 Carbon Fund countries and now sought expert opinions to further the identification and prioritization of promising pathways and opportunities to advance the legal recognition of collective land and forest tenure rights in the same countries. The research was used to develop recommendations on strategic opportunities that can be leveraged in the context of national and subnational emission reduction strategies and initiatives. Countries included in this study are: Chile, Costa Rica, Cote D'Ivoire, Dominican Republic, DRC, Fiji, Ghana, Guatemala, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Madagascar, Mexico, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Peru, Republic of Congo, Vietnam. Read report here.
Supporting Local Land Governance: Land Use Mapping and Community Sample Surveying in Lombok, Indonesia
Global Land Alliance and Cadasta Foundation jointly supported Yayasan Puter Indonesia (Puter) in 2020 to conduct a Land Use Mapping and Community Sample Survey initiative in Labulia Village in the Jonggat Sub-District of Lombok Indonesia. This is ahead of the district government’s efforts to complete a Village Boundary Setting/Resource Mapping activity, which has been postponed due to COVID19. These initiatives build upon the work initiated under a Millennium Challenge Corporation and Millennium Challenge Account Indonesia Compact, which concluded in 2018. We hope the activity can serve as a model to support the decentralization efforts of land governance by the Government of Indonesia, and their Program to Accelerate Agrarian Reform (One Map Project) supported by the World Bank, by collecting data on land use and land tenure from a participatory and local level. The results of the community sample survey and land use mapping initiative that took place in late 2020 were published in an article by Global Land Alliance here.
Forest Tenure Assessment Tool - Pilot Study
GLA was a techical advisor on the Forest Tenure Assessment Tool (FTAT) pilot study in Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Myanmar. The FTAT aims to assess community forest tenure security in specific contexts (national and sub-national) by providing methodological guidance and working with key stakeholders to score 42 indicators of the 9 key elements of forest tenure articulated in the Analytical Framework. Through this process policymakers and stakeholders develop an accurate understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of forest tenure in a given context, are able to track progress over time, and identify policy, action and investment opportunities to strengthen tenure security. The FTAT helps make the case for both “why” to undertake forest tenure reforms as a part of national development policies, and to focus on the “how” of specific areas of intervention
Analysis of Laws Affecting Indigenous and Local Communities’ Rights and Access to Freshwater in a set of Focus Countries
Global Land Alliance and The Nature Conservancy began a partnership to complete an analysis of legal access to freshwater rights and resources in Colombia and Ecuador, as well as prepared and scoped for a full analysis to take place in early 2020 in Gabon, Angola and Brazil. The analysis sought to advance understanding of who has rights to access, withdrawal, management, exclusion, alienation, and due process with regards to freshwater resources, and whether those rights have both substance (i.e., the right exists) and assurance (i.e., is consistently applied and enforced).
Securing Forest Tenure for Rural Development: an Analytical Framework
Global Land Alliance co-contributed and co-authored an Analytical Framework as a product of a World Bank initiative on Securing Forest Tenure Rights for Rural Development, which seeks to enhance the World Bank’s capacity and effectiveness when dealing with land rights issues in forest areas. The overall objective of the initiative is to provide information and guidance—to client countries, indigenous peoples and local communities, World Bank managers and staff, and other donors—to strengthen forest tenure security in forest landscapes as a foundation for rural development. The scope of this work is defined by the two key dimensions: forest landscapes and community-based tenure. The framework is meant to provide a solid foundation for the development of tools to assess forest tenure security strengths and gaps, as well as links with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Learn more here
UAV Technical Demonstration with Forest County Potawatomi
GLA, in collaboration with professors from the University of Florida’s Geomatics Department and the Forest County Potawatomi Community Land Information Department, conducted a hands-on, technical demonstration in northern Wisconsin in June, 2018; exchanging ideas on the potential benefits of utilizing Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in assessing the Community’s natural resources and physical infrastructure. Faced with competing interests and uses of the land and natural resources, the Forest County Potawatomi recognize the importance of efficiently collecting up-to-date information and modernizing land information management systems with their goal to ‘conserve and develop our common resources and to promote the welfare of ourselves and our descents’. The purpose of the technical exchange was to look at the use of UAV (drone) technology to quickly image and map Community resources ‘where and when needed’. Learn more about the exchange here.
