forest tenure reform: new community rights in the age of climate change
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Forest Tenure Reform:New Community Rights
in the Age of Climate Change
Anne M LarsonSenior Associate, CIFOR
Workshop: Taking Stock of Smallholder and Community Forestry
Montpellier, FranceMarch 24-26, 2010
Outline of presentation
I. Intro to REDD & communities
II. Research and methods
III. Obstacles to reforms– Statutory rights– Implementation– Access to benefits
IV. Lessons for REDD & communities
I. Intro to REDD & communities
• What is REDD(+)? (strategies for reducing emissions from DD and enhancing C stocks)
• REDD & communities: (1) could leave out, (2) have positive effects on communities or (3) have negative effects
• Right to forests, rights to Carbon, decision-making (rules) about forests
Tenure rights: • REDD is likely to require secure tenure (PES experience, logic of
international markets/ investments)– If communities do not have secure tenure, who will get rights?– If rights are “secured”, who will get them?
Rule-making: • Who makes the rules for meeting REDD requirements?
• Comparative case study, policy advocacy research in over 30 sites in 10 countries
• Countries and sites chosen: – Where a statutory tenure change in favour of communities had
recently occurred or was about to occur– Where there was potential to influence policy
• Rights-based approach in the sense that “local people” were (usually) advocating for tenure rights
• Dynamic study of reform processes• Highly contextualized at various scales: local (single
community), groups of communities, regional, national
II. Research and methods
III. Obstacles to reformA. Statutory rights
• Extent, permanence and security of rights (through what legal mechanisms?)
• Quality and quantity of forests granted
• Rules for resource use• Rights for some may
exclude others with customary claims
III. Obstacles to reformB. Implementation processes
• Foot-dragging by the state (state interest in the resources on those lands?)
• Logistical difficulties (ex. demarcation)• Competing claims (legitimate and not, the role of
the state)• Governance challenges (elite capture,
unaccountable authority)• Time…
III. Obstacles to reform C. Access to benefits
• Accompanying measures (capacity building, access to markets)
• Licenses and permits, complex bureaucracies
• Discretionary powers of forest officers
• Costs, lack of credit• Markets
III. Obstacles for reform: Summary
IV. Lessons: Communities & REDD
Attention to tenure in REDD to date• ‘… many R-PINs suggest a very limited analysis (and in some cases
understanding) of the existing situation with regards to conflicts over tenure and potential obstacles to reform and implementation. Issues such as … the nature of customary practices and indigenous rights are not consistently addressed. Furthermore, few countries address the need to clarify carbon rights within existing tenure systems.’
• ‘Given the strong consensus amongst participating countries that improving tenure security is critical for REDD, a deeper and more practical discussion of how these issues may be resolved will be needed….’ (Davis et al. 2009).
IV. Lessons: Communities & REDD
REDD risks for communities
Tenure rights
• without secure rights, increased risk of REDD failure
• risk of elite capture • risk of conflict• risk of inequity in benefits• with or without secure rights,
who benefits?
…Failure of the state to defend and secure rights for communities
Rules for forest use
• who makes the rules• who enforces them• how do they restrict livelihood
activities• are losses adequately
compensated• who is affected most
…Tendency to centralize decisions, top-down rules
IV. Lessons: Communities & REDD
Questions…• Will states share REDD benefits with
communities? • Will they facilitate community participation?• Will states defend communities against
competing interests? Against elite capture?• Will states protect community livelihoods over
potential national income from C sales?• Will states simply make the rules and expect, or
force, communities to follow them?
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