Tsunami Raises Land Rights Questions

In addition to involving affected communities in decision-making, attention to land and resource rights will be a critical issue in post-tsunami rehabilitation and development. The International Land Coalition, in consultation with its intergovernmental and civil society partners, is identifying key issues that merit careful consideration in planning processes. These include:

• Usufruct rights of people who rely on coastal access, e.g., for fishing or fish processing, should be identified and retained.

• Incentives can be provided to protect fragile common areas such as mangroves and shorelines, which need to be restored and stabilized in the wider environmental and economic interest.

• Some people have lost citizenship and other official documents, so alternative means are needed to claim or provide proof of their user and ownership rights.

• There are cases where women have survived and are now heads of households, but their land rights formerly rested with their husbands. It will be critical for livelihood security that women's resource rights are made secure.

• There exists the potential for abuse through land grabbing, particularly by powerful interests, including through selective application of laws and regulations.

• The future inheritance rights of children, now too young to claim their rights, need to be given attention.

• In cases where there are no family survivors, lands could be identified and used to improve the livelihoods of other landless families.

• There are cases where people did not have secure rights to land before the tsunami. Where they are able to return to their former lands, security of tenure should be improved so that re-development will provide a more sustainable future.

• Community-based mapping and dispute resolution can be used to identify pre-existing rights and address tenure conflicts.

• Civil society organizations that work directly with affected communities often have valuable knowledge of traditional land rights and emerging tenure-related issues, and should be considered as key development partners.

The International Land Coalition (ILC), hosted at IFAD, is an alliance of intergovernmental agencies, governments and civil society organizations that focuses on access to land for poor men and women.