Tenure in Forest Lands: Global Challenges and Unfinished Business

1. Tenure in Forest Lands: Global Challenges and Unfinished Business Augusta Molnar, RRI Land Tenure TG-World Bank November 20, 2007

2. Two main points to convey in limited time slot • Tenure reform in the forest is an unfinished agenda • New pressures and demands make decisions in forest lands extremely important but interl community and policy makers are not prepared to act Ejido Noh Bec-- post H. Dean

3. Forest tenure is in transition-why? Forest Tenure Shifts since 1986 WHAT IS THE STARTING POINT? • The state is the owner • Industry has the most power (small-scale is considered illegal extraction) • Usufruct rights, access rights, and rights to trade are limited for forest dwellers 1980 - 1990 the traditional model collapsed • ¿why?extreme poverty, illegal logging, end of the primary forest, interest in conservation, decentralization, pressure ‘from below 2015 ??

4. Forest Tenure is an unfinished agenda Findings of the LLSL scoping effort (Ears to the Ground) • Tenure recognition of ancestral domains and territories of Indigenous Peoples • Devolution of authority to local governments and to forest users, including traditional settlers and newcomers • Industrial concession models combined with limited allocation of forests to CFM in the less productive areas -- abject poverty in some countries • Environmental standards determine recognition of use or tenure rights of colonists or new settlers

5. Incomplete reforms in the forest areas • Indigenous peoples have reserves or territories but incomplete reform has created a new “open access” • Environmental regulations govern access and use and many uses are still “illegal” or determined by an “environmental agency” • Individually ownership and use (agriculture) within communal areas not recognized or approved • Cost of complying with regulation beyond outside the reach of recognized owners--not eliminating poverty • Conservation and ecosystem service models (and now REDD) are promoting arrangements at scale and focused on government or private sector • Social movements in flux post-reform; chaotic internal organization; legal pluralism; customary systems

6. Resource Curse, Dutch Disease...

7. ... or Failure of Governance • Countries with focus on export of primary forest commodities under-perform in governance indicators (ITTO Producer Countries) • ITTO Producer Countries lag behind other developing countries in growth (previous slide)

8. Forests, Economic Growth and Development HistoryProblems Not Unique to Developing Countries • Europe and North America – underwent similar transitions • Developing countries - in transition from colonial and imperial era • Need to question development models and direction of development assistance

9. Key Forces Shaping Future (1) • Growth of the BRICs • Growing Demand from Developing Economies • Energy: Big Changes and Big Unknowns • Forest Industry and Trade: From North to South, and back North?

10. Source: Economist; iAfrica Key Forces Shaping Future (2) • Declining Relative Authority of Central Governments • Increased Access: Information, Transparence, Empowerment • Continued Poverty: More Pain, More Peril • Continued Threat and Changing Nature of Violent Conflict • Climate Change: More Heat and More Uncertainty

11. Emerging Consensus Lessons learned from the challenges: • Need to rethink and reform public forest domain • Centrality of recognition of rights, of tenure, and improvement of governance in forest landscapes Failure to implement those changes would mean: • Greater violations of human rights; • Reinforce poverty and spatial inequalities • Render mitigation schemes inequitable and inefficient • Enhanced conditions for protracted conflicts in forest areas • Conservation will become more contentious • Reversion to resource curse

12. Trade Offs and Tensions • Equity versus scale and economic growth • Strengthened forest rights vs. entrenched interests • Conventional conservation vs. forest rights • Efficiency vs. equity in carbon and environmental service markets • Addressing symptoms versus facing fundamentals

13. General Directions • Recognize the challenge, the opportunity and the urgency • Rethink forest development and prioritize the strengthening of rights, voice and governance in all forest development interventions • Look beyond the conventional “forestry” and “development” sectors and encourage the active participation of all relevant players • Base donor strategies on a realistic reflection of what is and is not working and from whose perspective

14. Specific Actions (1) • Actively promote the recognition of local rights and the broader strengthening and clarification of forest ownership and access • Assist communities to map and negotiate their forest areas • Assist governments in recognizing land claims, resolving land conflicts, and rethinking the organization of the public forest domain -- social audits needed • Develop alliances with low-income producer organizations and their associations and support their capacity building

15. Specific Actions (2) • Craft tenure and rights-friendly institutional arrangements at the global and national levels • EITI expanded to forestry sector and implmented • Phasing of reforms and transition needs to be better understood by decision-makers • Review certification and voluntary partnership agreements for pro-poor standards/approaches • Clarify the property rights to ecosystem services and devise new climate regimes in a manner that supports the recognition and strengthening of tenure rights

16. Specific Actions (3) • Make tenure work by reforming policies and regulations to level the playing field for communities and small-holders and their enterprises and providing enabling support • Give rights of citizenship to the many indigenous peoples and other residents of the forests • Remove regulatory barriers and encourage voluntary compliance • Level the playing field in forest markets • Design practical and enforceable standards for responsible corporate and industrial practice

17. Specific Actions (4) • Devise and implement economic and environmental strategies that are consistent and goals of strengthening tenure and rights • Carry out social audits of government and donor investment and grant projects • Revisit conservation models and natural resource extraction in the forests and “marginal lands” • Redirect governments subsidies away from industrial plantations

18. THANK YOU • www.rightsandresources.org • Augusta Molnar • amolnar@rightsandresources.org