SECURING COMMON PROPERTY REGIMES IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD

SECURING COMMON PROPERTY
REGIMES IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD

Synthesis of 41 Case Studies on Common
Property Regimes from Africa, Asia, Europe
and Latin America.

FRANÇAIS

ESPAÑOL

EXAMPLES OF REFORM AND INNOVATION

This section provides a sense of what is being done at different levels to protect local and community access to the commons. Strengthening the security of access to the commons has taken different forms, including the development of new laws and policies, decentralization of state authorities, support to customary institutions, and initiatives of collective action and local organizing. Other innovations seek to develop new socio-economic institutions or improve the environmental sustainability of how the commons is used. In all these cases, the redistribution of power has been a fundamental element.

Collective Action and Organizing

The most common forms of response to pressures and threats to the commons are collective action and community organizing. Some form of collective action was seen in nearly half of the cases, often with the goal of adapting and creating more supportive local arrangements, including the renegotiation of power arrangements between communities, the state and other actors. The link between collective action and community empowerment is seen most clearly in cases where common property users face external competition for resources (e.g., cases from Indonesia , Peru and Scotland ).

In addition to increasing the leverage and collective strength of communities, collective action may contribute to adaptations and innovative approaches to addressing specific challenges, including socio-economic innovations, environmental innovations and, as discussed in the previous section, mechanisms for conflict management.

In the case study from Saigata , India , when deforestation became a threat in the 1970s, migrant farmers established local discussion groups that were intended to determine the causes of fodder and fuelwood scarcity. These groups identified consumptive uses that were contributing to forest degradation and organized Dandaar skits in traditional theaters to disseminate information on self-restricting consumption of forest resources. A forest protection committee was also formed in 1976 which regulated forest access and use (Ghate 2005).

Leasehold forests in Nepal create new commons for the poorer sections, and have helped the poor and especially women gain leverage to undertake other empowerment activities. Land-poor women and men can restore and make degraded forests lands productive again, meeting the goals of sustainability and poverty reduction, with micro-finance helping women who have less access to credit relative to men. However, better off and upper caste groups have tried to undermine this initiative e.g., by grazing; livestock and damaging crops in leasehold areas or uprooting tree crops planted in leasehold areas (Shrestha 2005).

Partnerships between communities and non-governmental organizations or project-related institutions are increasing support to local collective action. In Indonesia , in order to protect their access and use of the commons, Nyuncung villagers created communication forums with neighbouring villages that shared similar threats. This forum on people's forests formed a united front against the extension of the national park. Together with a local NGO, the local communication forum introduced a zoning of forest use, ranging from strict conservation areas, through regeneration/restoration areas, through to open areas that could be used for cultivation. This zoning of forest use is intended to secure Nyuncung villagers' access rights while protecting and conserving forest areas (Galudra 2005).

In the case of Peru 's campesinos communities, renting out of some common pasture lands to community members who lack sufficient individual land, or who need to leave fields fallow for some period generates incomes for communities. However, in other cases, these commons areas can be used freely by campesinos employing a rotation system to control degradation. In Niger , the Takieta forest reserve is the only source of common forest in an area otherwise occupied by farms. While the reserve is state-owned and managed on paper, de facto it is common land. The introduction of new activities such as honey/fish/fuel wood production and forest rehabilitation in addition to older activities introduced by the forestry service in the sixties, such as seedling production, tree planting and forest rehabilitation, have been important in conserving and protecting the forest commons.

Legislative and Policy Reforms

As discussed earlier, the majority of cases do not identify the existence of state laws and policies that provide adequate recognition for and support to common property regimes. At least 11 cases proposed that reforms be undertaken, in order to provide a legal and policy framework that is more supportive of common property regimes.

Three of the cases - from Scotland , South Africa and Uganda - discuss recent reforms that have taken place and that provide some form of legal recognition by the state for common property. In Scotland , the Crofters Holding Act of 1866 had provided crofters (tenant farmers) in Scotland with rights to land and legal protection against being cleared off the lands. The recent Land Reform Bill of 2003 now provides crofting towns with rights to purchase their lands or to continue renting on the conditions they gain approval from the community, form an association and identify a development plan. While the community buyout of land in Laid Township has not yet taken place, informal negotiations are still taking place between the residents and the current landlord (Seki 2005).

Uganda 's Land Act, passed in 2002, provides a governance framework for common property. It recognizes customary rights and ownership, which includes communal ownership of resources. The Wildlife Act of Uganda also recognizes rights of use of the commons and allows these to continue. Devolution to local governments via the Local Governments Act provides district councils with authority for the environmental conservation; district councils may further devolve control of local hunting and fishing to lower bodies (Obaikol 2005).

In South Africa , the 2004 Communal Land Rights Act (CLRA) provides for the registration of tenure rights to community members. While more difficult questions are yet to be answered (e.g., distributional issues, ownership structure and governance of resources), community tenure rights may provide a basis to address threats that are causing communities to lose their lands. The case from Ekutheleni, though, emphasizes that this will only be achieved if a middle ground is identified between local tenure systems and state land administrative practices, which thus far has proved difficult to find. Without this change, the new legislation has thus far failed to offer new solutions to Ekutheleni residents (AFRA 2005).

Changes to the legal framework may also create an "enabling environment" for rural peoples to take part in decision-making that affects them, including policy processes that concern the commons. The 1997 Thai constitution, for example, requires the state to support peoples' participation in natural resource management and relevant decision-making. This provision is now being used as a basis for advocating policies that recognize local property rights systems ( Kitewachakul 2005).

The cases studies also noted that rural people's organizations and NGOs increasingly play a significant role in advocating for policy and legislative reform to recognize and strengthen common property regimes. Cases from Argentina, Kenya, Peru and Uganda all identified reform campaigns that are being driven by civil-society networks, including efforts to work with rural communities and rural peoples' associations to identify key land tenure concerns and develop proposals legislative reform (Burneo 2005, Karangathi 2005, Kosovsky 2005, Obaikol 2005).

Decentralization and Empowerment of Customary Authorities

As described in Section 2 of this paper, forms of decentralization and devolution, including through the empowerment of local customary institutions, are another form of response to the pressures confronting common property regimes. In Ethiopia , even though land belongs to the state, administrative powers and authority have been decentralized to local ethnic authorities and regions gaining power to manage their own affairs. The constitution fully recognizes customary and religious law; important customary institutions and authority were revived. In addition councils of Somali elders, Guurti , (and of the Afar) are being formed within regional governments. There is now significant interaction between customary institutions that regulate access to the commons and regional and state authorities.

Decentralization has seen an improvement of communication among community members, smaller neighborhood meetings for conflict resolution. It has also been relevant for conflict resolution because increased conflicts among different ethnic communities were linked to declining effectiveness of customary mechanisms in the wake of the state. In Niger , decentralization, based on the new Code Rurale , began in the 1990s. This has increased possibilities for local experimentation with community based CPR management. (1)

The rural district council's act of 1998 in Zimbabwe devolves natural resource management authority to rural development councils, which are the lowest level of administrative body with power to manage budgets and to remit to local communities. However, under the traditional leaders act, village leaders are also responsible for making sure that communal lands are allocated in accordance with the community land act, which governs communal land system (with title vested in the president as representative of the state).

While devolution is seen as important, it may often be complicated by the conflict between traditional and modern institutions, which lack clarity on their roles and responsibilities. Where traditional leaders still command respect on civic and cultural issues, and could continue to form a basis for promotion of sustainable, community-based NRM.

Government plays an active role in reinforcing the self-governance structure of the organizations and does not participate in the management responsibility of the irrigation organizations that, in turn, self-govern their resources based on their built-up irrigation institutions, social customs, trust, and reciprocity (Sarker 2005).

These examples illustrate the importance of adequate support to decentralization or devolution processes, such that local communities or customary authorities are able to perform the tasks and responsibilities for which they are being empowered. This support may come from the state (as in the case of irrigation systems in Japan ), from NGOs or other civil-society groups (as in the case of conflict management in Benin , described in Section 5), from international organizations (as in the case of Takieta Forest in Niger , described in Section 2), or from a combination of different sources.

(1) For more information on Niger 's Code Rural and other tenure innovations see Mwangi and Dohrn, Forthcoming.

Land, Dignity and Development