Protecting Community Lands and Resources

Protecting Community Lands and Resources
Author: Rachael Knight
Publisher:
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2012-06-25
Genre:
ISBN: 9780985815103

This report details the communities' various experiences undertaking the land documentation activities and summarizes the initial impacts of these efforts under the following subject headings: conflict resolution and prevention (encompassing boundary harmonization and demarcation); intra-community governance (encompassing by-laws/constitution drafting); and conservation and sustainable natural resources management (encompassing land and natural resource management plan drafting). It then briefly reviews the obstacles confronted relative to the administrative components of the process. The report next outlines findings relative to the optimal level of legal intervention necessary to support communities' successful completion of community land documentation processes as well as what endogenous factors may impact a community's success. The report then details findings concerning how best to facilitate intra-community protections for the rights of women and other vulnerable groups during the land documentation process. It concludes by setting forth findings and recommendations intended to inform policy dialogue, help nations to refine and improve the implementation of existing community land documentation processes, and provide useful insights for countries seeking to develop laws and policies for community land documentation. One central finding is that the community land documentation process is a valuable opportunity to resolve local land conflicts. Governments and civil society actors should leverage the process to support communities to address inter- and intracommunity land disputes, which may undermine perceived tenure security and foster local or regional unrest. A second central finding is that while the data and observations from Liberia and Uganda indicate significant changes in the study communities resulting from community land documentation efforts, in Mozambique very little change was noted. The primary difference between the processes followed was the inclusion in Liberia and Uganda of extended, iterative, and participatory processes of cataloguing, debating and adopting community by-laws/constitutions and plans for natural resources management. The research indicates that the community by-laws/constitution-drafting process was likely the primary driver of many of these impacts. Under this analysis, it becomes clear that governments and civil society actors should structure community land documentation processes to proactively address intra-community governance, with special emphasis on leveraging the process to: ! Improve community land administration and management; ! Create mechanisms to hold leaders downwardly accountable to their constituents; ! Strengthen and protect the rights of women and other vulnerable groups; ! Foster conservation and sustainable natural resources use; ! Align community norms and practices with national law; and ! Promote local-level democracy. The report also concludes that community land documentation may be a more efficient method of land protection than individual and family titling, and should be prioritized in the short term.

Protecting Community Lands and Resources

Protecting Community Lands and Resources
Author: Rachael Knight
Publisher:
Total Pages: 26
Release: 2012-12-15
Genre:
ISBN: 9780985815127

In recent years, governments across Africa, Asia and Latin America have been granting vast land concessions to foreign investors for agro-industrial enterprises and resource extraction. Often, governments make concessions with a view to furthering development and strengthening the national economy. Yet in many cases, these land concessions dispossess rural communities and deprive them of access to natural resources vital to their livelihoods and economic survival. Even when communities welcome private investment, projects are often undertaken in ways that lead to environmental degradation, human rights violations, loss of access to livelihoods, and inequity. Liberia currently has one of the highest land concession rates in Africa. Between 2004 and 2009, the Liberian government either granted or re-negotiated land and forestry concessions totaling 1.6 million hectares--over 7% of the total national land area. Today, even with a moratorium on public land sale in place, private investors continue to seek and acquire land concessions throughout the country: in 2010 alone, more than 661,000 hectares were granted to two foreign corporations for palm oil production. A recent 2012 report finds that currently, "Land allocated to rubber, oil palm and forestry concessions covers approximately 2,546,406 hectares, or approximately 25% of the country." In the coming years, if concession grants are not carefully controlled, the amount of land still held and managed by rural Liberians will significantly decrease. This will have adverse impacts on already impoverished rural communities. In Liberia, strong legal protections for community lands and natural resources and a clear, simple, and easy-to-follow legal process for the documentation of customary community land rights are urgently necessary. Community land titling processes, which document the perimeter of the community according to customary boundaries, are a low-cost, efficient, and equitable way of protecting communities' customary land claims. Such efforts protect large numbers of families' lands at once, as well as the common lands and forests that are often the first to be allocated to investors, claimed by elites, and appropriated for state development projects. Importantly, formal recognition of their customary land claims gives communities critical leverage in negotiations with potential investors. To support the Liberian Land Commission's efforts to strengthen the tenure security of customary land rights, the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) and the International Development Law Organization (IDLO) undertook a two- year study entitled the "Community Land Titling Initiative" in Rivercess County, Liberia.5 The first study of its kind worldwide, the intervention's goal was to better understand both the type and level of support that communities require to successfully complete community land documentation processes, as well as how to best facilitate intra-community protections for the land rights of vulnerable groups.

Protecting the Land

Protecting the Land
Author: Julie Ann Gustanski
Publisher:
Total Pages: 612
Release: 2000
Genre: Architecture
ISBN:

A conservation easement is a legal agreement between a property owner and a conservation organization, generally a private nonprofit land trust, that restricts the type and amount of development that can be undertaken on that property. Conservation easements protect land for future generations while allowing owners to retain property rights, at the same time providing them with significant tax benefits. Conservation easements are among the fastest growing methods of land preservation in the United States today. Protecting the Land provides a thoughtful examination of land trusts and how they function, and a comprehensive look at the past and future of conservation easements. The book: provides a geographical and historical overview of the role of conservation easements analyzes relevant legislation and its role in achieving community conservation goals examines innovative ways in which conservation easements have been used around the country considers the links between social and economic values and land conservation Contributors, including noted tax attorney and land preservation expert Stephen Small, Colorado's leading land preservation attorney Bill Silberstein, and Maine Coast Heritage Trust's general counsel Karin Marchetti, describe and analyze the present status of easement law. Sharing their unique perspectives, experts including author and professor of geography Jack Wright, Dennis Collins of the Wildlands Conservancy, and Chuck Roe of the Conservation Trust of North Carolina offer case studies that demonstrate the flexibility and diversity of conservation easements. Protecting the Land offers a valuable overview of the history and use of conservation easements and the evolution of easement-enabling legislation for professionals and citizens working with local and national land trusts, legal advisors, planners, public officials, natural resource mangers, policymakers, and students of planning and conservation.

Protecting the Places We Love

Protecting the Places We Love
Author: Breece Robertson
Publisher: Esri Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2021-07-06
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9781589486164

Protecting special places in danger of being changed forever requires urgent action. It's time for bold conservation strategies to boost land protection around the world. Bold conservation goals require strategic action. In Protecting the Places We Love: Conservation Strategies for Entrusted Lands and Parks, conservationist and geospatial designer Breece Robertson applies her conservation experience, real-world examples, and myriad resources to deliver a vision for success and clear guidance for conservation groups large and small to achieve their goals. The goals of these strategies are familiar: support species, habitats, and natural resources and healthy, livable communities that are climate resilient and socially cohesive, all without high costs. Robertson's tools, many of them free, feel quickly accessible, effective, and adaptable to a new or existing conservation strategy. Readers finish this book feeling confident about integrating existing practices with geospatial data and modern applications. With the smart analysis and targeted action explained in Protecting the Places We Love, readers will better identify places needing protection and better understand how to leverage partnerships, inspire, educate, and engage communities and donors, and produce better results. See the vision and learn to: create maps that tell compelling stories to stakeholders and the public analyze park system equity and access and show the economic benefits map, model, and analyze land characteristics to enhance biodiversity, connectivity, and climate resilience use maps and data to gain insights for fundraising, program initiatives, policy, advocacy, finances, and marketing. Protecting the Places We Love is perfect for citizens, and for conservation advocates and professionals at small to medium-sized land trusts, conservation organizations, and park agencies. Examples from land protection organizations all over the globe provide field-tested approaches to improve strategic effectiveness. Robertson provides a vision, strategies, and resources that can take your conservation efforts to the next level.

Protecting Community Lands and Resources

Protecting Community Lands and Resources
Author: Rachael Knight
Publisher:
Total Pages: 28
Release: 2012-12-15
Genre:
ISBN: 9780985815134

In northern Uganda, common grazing lands are central to village life. While nominally used for grazing livestock, communities also depend on their grazing lands to collect basic household necessities such as fuel, water, food, building materials for their homes, and traditional medicines. Yet growing population density, increasing land scarcity, weak rule of law, and the 1998 Land Act's legalization of a land market have created a situation of intense competition for land in northern Uganda. The growing land scarcity has contributed to higher rates of land grabbing, boundary encroachments onto neighbours' lands, intra- and inter-family land disputes, and rampant appropriation of common lands. As a result of these trends, there is a high rate of tenure insecurity in northern Uganda, a prevalence of intra-community land conflict, and a rapid loss of the common grazing lands that community members rely upon for their subsistence and survival. To understand how to best address these trends, the Land and Equity Movement in Uganda (LEMU) and the International Development Law Organization (IDLO) set out to investigate how best to support communities to successfully follow legal procedures to formally document and protect their customary land claims. This effort, the Community Land Protection Initiative, was carried out in Oyam District in northern Uganda from 2009 to 2011. The first study of its kind worldwide, the intervention's goal was to better understand the type and level of support that communities require to successfully complete community land documentation processes, as well as how to best facilitate intra-community protections for the land rights of women and other vulnerable groups.

Governing tenure rights to commons

Governing tenure rights to commons
Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
Total Pages: 100
Release: 2018-06-04
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9251094837

Governance of Tenure Technical Guide This guide aims to support states, community-based and civil society organizations, the private sector and other actors in implementing the standards and recommendations of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure. The guide offers twelve strategies in three areas of action: the legal recognition and protection of tenure rights to commons, their effective implementation by states and rights holders alike, and the support of communities to enjoy their rights.