Assessing the relationship between land tenure issues and land cover changes around the Arabuko Sokoke Forest in Kenya

Land as an essential resource is becoming increasingly scarce due to population growth. In the case of the Kenyan coast, population pressure causes land cover changes in the Arabuko Sokoke Forest, which is an important habitat for endangered species. Forest and bushland have been changed to agricultural land in order to provide livelihood for the rural population who are highly dependent on small-scale farming. Unclear land rights and misbalanced access to land cause uncontrolled expansion and insecure livelihoods. Secure land rights are crucial to improve living conditions for the local smallholders. Socio-economic and land tenure conditions were assessed in a study area close to Malindi in south-east Kenya to understand the human-induced changes in land cover. A combination between biophysical and socio-economic methods was used to identify the relationship between land cover change, land tenure and other socio-economic factors. Analyses in Geographic Information System (GIS) were chosen to examine in historical photographs and recent satellite imagery land cover changes between 1954 and 2017. This analysis was combined with quantitative questionnaires conducted on-site in 2017 and 2018 to identify factors influencing the land cover changes and especially to analyze the effects of land tenure on sustainable land use to reduce further land conversion. Moreover, this study statistically investigated the impact of land tenure issues on the tree population of the respective land plots using non-parametric tests as well as dependency analyses. We found significant relationships between the income of the interviewees and the tree population on land plots. It also appears that the fragmentation of land cover on a plot differs between respondents who have inherited their land and respondents who have purchased their land.     

An assessment of the implications of alternative scales of communal land tenure formalization in pastoral systems

Pastoralism faces diverse challenges, that include, among others, land tenure insecurity, that has necessitated the need to formalize land rights. Some governments have started regularizing rights for privately owned land, but this is complex to implement in pastoral areas where resources are used and managed collectively. Our aim was to assess how the scale of communal land tenure recognition in pastoralist systems may affect tradeoffs among objectives such as tenure security, flexibility, mobility, and reduction of conflicts. We used a participatory scenario-building approach to investigate alternative scenarios of land tenure recognition in southern Ethiopia where a new communal land tenure system is in the early stages of implementation. Through key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and a workshop, respondents analyzed the likely outcomes of communal land tenure recognition at different scales. Our findings suggest that there is a good chance of success when the tenure policy is embedded onto customary structures. All scales have some shortcomings, but Reera seems best, yet pastoralists preferred the Dheeda which despite its challenges, is the best for maintaining flexible mobility. There are multiple uncertainties and complexities, which suggest the for multi-pronged approaches and various support mechanisms when implementing a formal land tenure system in these areas.     

Tenure,land rights,and farmer investment incentives in China

The goal of this paper is to understand the nature of the property rights associated with China's land tenure systems and to study the impact of these property rights on agricultural production efficiency. The results show that land tenure and associated property rights in rural China affect the production behavior of farmers. The most robust finding is that the right to use land for long periods of time encourages the use of land-saving investments. While the results show that land tenure affects agricultural production decisions, the difference between collective and private plots, however, is small compared to the private plot - communal productivity gap that existed in the pre-reform period.     

Land Tenure,Tenure Security and Farm Efficiency: Panel Evidence from the Philippines

This article tests the relationships among formalised property rights, land tenure contracts and productive efficiency in farming. Using four rounds of panel data from 230 rice farms in the Philippines, we measure the effects of land tenure arrangements on farm efficiency using a stochastic production frontier model. We test for the allocative efficiency of observed land rental markets. We also test how land tenure security affects farmers' investment decisions. Results suggest that, despite the presence of formalised titles, the rental market remains inefficient at allocating land. In contrast, the unformalised tenure contracts used by farmers appear to provide tenure security.     

Perennial grain crops in the West Soudanian Savanna of Mali: perspectives from agroecology and gendered spaces

Perennial grain crops may play an important role in environmentally sound and socially just food systems for Africa. We study the future possibility of integrating perennial grains into Malian farming systems from the perspective of agroecology, and more specifically using a gendered space approach. We interviewed 72 farmers across the sorghum-growing region of Mali. We found that perennial grains offer a vision for transforming human relations with nature that mirrors the resource sharing of customary land tenure, including patterns of extensive and intensive land use in time and space. Women interviewees identified a broad set of potential advantages and challenges to perennial grain production. Advantages include reduced labour, saving seed, and improving food security. Women farmers were concerned about livestock, water access, and resource limitations. We argue that perennial grains may increase access to land and natural resources for women farmers. Perennial grains may improve soil quality, reduce labour early in the rainy season, and provision more resources from fallow lands. Pastoralists stand to benefit from improved pastures in the dry season. We conclude that investments are needed to develop viable crop types in consideration of the complexity of West African farming systems and the local needs of women farmers and pastoralists.     

Land tenure security for women: A conceptual framework

While strengthening women’s land rights is increasingly on national and international agendas, there is little consensus on how to understand women’s tenure security. Analyses of women’s land rights often use very different definitions of land rights, from formal ownership to women’s management of plots allocated to them by their husbands. This paper identifies aspects of women’s tenure that should be included in indicators. It then provides a conceptual framework to identify the various dimensions of women’s land tenure security and the myriad factors that may influence it. To be able to compare women’s tenure security in different places, we need information on the context, the threats and opportunities facing tenure security, and the action arena that includes both the people who play a role in promoting or limiting women’s tenure security and the resources used in doing so.     

Land tenure security and its implications for investments to urban agriculture in Soweto,South Africa

Land tenure regime is considered one of the most crucial assets determining viability of urban agriculture, especially in terms of investments. Many authors have built on traditional agricultural theory that only land ownership and (formal) secure land tenure can incite investments into farming, thus stressing the need of secure land tenure for more prosperous urban agriculture. However, these statements are often built on weak or nonexistent empirical evidence. This research aims to contribute to the discussion on land tenure for urban agriculture by mixed-method exploration of the above-mentioned theory. Additionally, we propose a farming investment index which measures the level of investments by using non-monetary information obtained from respondents. The results of our study show that land tenure security for urban farmers is often seen as a rather narrow concept, focusing only on legal tenure security but omitting its other dimensions such as perceived and de facto tenure security. Nevertheless, all three dimensions of tenure security positively influence investments to urban agriculture.     

Lineage and land reforms in Malawi: Do matrilineal and patrilineal landholding systems represent a problem for land reforms in Malawi?

Based on government statistics and interviews with villagers across Malawi this article argues that customary matrilineal and patrilineal land tenure systems serve to weaken security of land tenure for some family members as well as obstructing the creation of gender-neutral inheritance of lands. Data from the National Census of Agriculture and Livestock 2007and the 2008 Population and Housing Census are used to characterize marriage systems and landholding patterns of local communities. Marriage systems correspond to customary land-tenure patterns of matrilineal or patrilineal cultures. The differences between the two ways of land holding represent a challenge for land reforms aimed at unifying rules for land tenure and land devolution. Drawing on an analogy of the resilience of the patrilineal land holding system in Norway, we argue that it will be difficult to remove the preferential rights of lineage members directly. We recommend that, instead of creating a unified national system, existing land rights should be formally recognized and circumscribed by fair procedures. A well-designed landholding system should aim to ease the transitions of diverse customary tenure systems towards the requirements of a modern large-scale society.     

新一轮集体林改对不同类型农户林业生产投入的影响研究

基于连续跟踪调研获得的9省区18县市1497个样本农户8年的长期平衡面板数据,采用扩展生产函数,分析了集体林产权制度改革主体改革及其配套改革对不同类型农户林业生产投入的影响。结果表明:⑴实施集体林产权制度改革主体改革增加农业兼业户、非农兼业户和非农户单位面积林业劳动力和生产费用投入,但降低了纯农户的林业投入;⑵森林保险对纯农户单位面积林业劳动力和生产费用投入的影响比农业兼业户、非农兼业户和非农户积极;⑶林权抵押贷款对农业兼业户、非农兼业户和非农户林业投入的影响优于纯农户。因此,政策在深入推进的过程中,需因地制宜、因户制宜,最大限度地考虑不同类型农户的利益。     

More Than Socially Embedded: The Distinctive Character of 'Communal Tenure' Regimes in South Africa and its Implications for Land Policy

This article analyzes debates over tenure reform policy in post-apartheid South Africa, with a particular focus on the controversial Communal Land Rights Act of 2004. Land tenure systems in the 'communal areas' of South Africa are described as dynamic and evolving regimes within which a number of important commonalities and continuities over time are observable. Key underlying principles of pre-colonial land relations are identified, which informed the adaptation and modification of tenure regimes in the colonial era and under policies of segregation and apartheid, and continue to do so today. Exploring the policy implications of this analysis, the article suggests that alternative approaches to that embodied in the Communal Land Rights Act are required. The most appropriate approach is to make socially legitimate occupation and use rights, as they are currently held and practised, the point of departure for both their recognition in law and for the design of institutional frameworks for administering land.     

Household Tree Planting in Tigrai,Northern Ethiopia: Tree Species,Purposes, and Tenure Security

Trees on farms have multiple roles in rural livelihoods, providing significant economic and ecological benefits. Trees on farms also constitute vital components in mixed crop-livestock-tree systems. In this paper, we analyze household tree planting and tenure security and explore the most important determinants that enhance the propensity to plant trees, using a cross-sectional household-level dataset from a sample of 200 households in the highlands of Tigrai, northern Ethiopia. Specifically, we employ a sample selection model that simultaneously takes into account the two decisions of tree growers (whether or not to plant tree and how many) to analyze the effect of tenure security on tree planting. We also use a multinomial logistic regression model to analyze the most important determinants contributing to a household’s decision of planting of particular tree species. We find that, among other things, tenure security enhances the propensity to plant trees as well as the amount of tree planting. Findings also suggest that households consider a diversity of attributes in making decisions to plant specific trees. These results can be used by policymakers to promote on-farm and homestead tree cultivation of private households in the study area by strengthening tenure security and considering households’ choices of specific tree species based on their attributes.     

Sustainability and Land tenure: Who owns the floodplain in the Pantanal,Brazil?

In seeking to achieve poverty alleviation and environmental conservation, public policy has often centred on guaranteeing land titles to local peoples. However, such approaches have brought unintended outcomes, replacing small-scale economies and natural areas by intensive exploitation of resources with no clear improvement in local people’s wellbeing. To understand this, we go beyond a general political ecology framing to consider relations between sustainability and land tenure, focusing on the intersection of economics, ecology and anthropology to understand how land tenure, property and use play out on the ground. We draw together different concepts including bundle of rights, de facto and de jure resource use, property regimes, density-dependence and non-equilibrium theory. The significance of this three-discipline view is illustrated through a case study of the Pantanal wetland, Brazil, where conservationists, the government and the local population contest ownership of the Paraguay River floodplain. Government sought to address conflicts around tenure and access through a narrow view of property, which failed to encompass the overlapping layers of land tenure, property and use on the ground and only served to create further legal battles. This article concludes that a more complex view combining the three perspectives is needed in the case of the Pantanal, and in other cases of contested property rights, in order to resolve conflicting claims and foster sustainability. We dissect both the power plays involved between different groups competing for control of a valuable resource, and the legal frameworks which can and should provide checks and balances in the system. The more nuanced grasp that emerges of local systems of tenure and access, of how these diverge from western property concepts, and of their environmental implications favours a better understanding of local realities, allowing for better management policy and consequently contributing more effectively towards poverty alleviation and environmental protection.     

农地非农化的经济学分析

农地非农化是城市化和工业化发展的必然产物，本文在分析农地非农化实质的基础上，探讨了农地转用价格过低的原因，认为要充分考虑到农地的生态价值、社会价值、选择价值以及产权意义上的价值，把农地的正外部效应充分内化，修正扭曲的农地资源价格体系，在一定程度上可以抑制非农用地的数量。并且运用农地非农化土地一级市场的模型，认为存在农转非市场失灵，政府要在多目标决策的前提下进行干预，通过提高价格来降低农地市场供给曲线的弹性，从而起到控制农地非农化的数量。     

Encountering the state through legal tenure security: Perspectives from a low income resettlement scheme in urban India

Tenure security systems—which determine who lives where and under what terms and conditions—are processes of governance that make and effect the relationship between those who confer tenure security and those on who tenure security is conferred. Yet, in dominant analyses of land and housing tenure security, and in policy recommendations for property rights and legal tenure security in developing countries, governance implications are overlooked in favour of analyses of the relative merits of different tenure systems mainly in terms of security, livelihood and economic impact. Using interview data and observations from a resettlement scheme in Ahmedabad, India, this paper empirically examines citizen-state relations in the context of a major shift from de facto (in practice) to legal tenure security and asks how do citizens who have recently come to live under legal tenure security encounter the state and make sense of it. I find a bureaucracy of tenure security that exerts control over low income citizens largely through fear. However, such control is incomplete and acts of resistance suggest an emerging ‘paralegal’ space to renegotiate tenure rules. I conclude by examining the findings through a conceptual framework that explains the relationship between state power and legal tenure security. I also discuss the need for greater scrutiny of the political effects of urban land and housing tenure systems on poor people.     

Impact of land tenure on land use in low-income countries

The role of land tenure in agricultural development has been a subject of intensive research, particularly within the context of land and agrarian reform. The complexity of the world's major land tenure systems is well recognized and no attempt is made here to go beyond an overview as this paper limits itself to the impact of land tenure on land use in low income situations. Present land use is determined by a host of factors, of a physical/biological and socioeconomic nature. In applying land evaluation, the question it is necessary to ask is to what extent, when and where land tenure conditions act as a considerable constraining factor impeding a more optimal use of land resources. Even in what used to be low-population density areas (such as Sub-Saharan Africa) it appears that the frontier phase is becoming exhausted and the intensification of agriculture proceeds; it becomes imperative to examine land tenure in relation to land use implications. It is shown that so far a multi-disciplinary approach has often been lacking in treating land tenure and related issues.     

Land tenure (in)security and crop-tree intercropping in rural Xinjiang,China

The relationship between land tenure security and long-term land-related investment is of great importance especially given the current flux in property rights systems of agricultural land in China. This paper empirically examines the role of land tenure security in farmers’ crop-tree intercropping decisions, and is based on a comparative analysis between contract land and wasteland holders in rural Xinjiang, China. Data from a survey, carried out in 2008 among 352 households in Awati County in Xinjiang, is used to estimate the factors that affect the adoption of crop-tree intercropping. The results indicate that, for those households that only have contract land, land tenure security positively affects their adoption of crop-tree intercropping. However, for those that hold both contract land and wasteland, land tenure security negatively impacts upon their adoption of crop-tree intercropping on wasteland, as the crop-tree intercropping on wasteland can increase the perceived tenure security of wasteland. The results also suggest that the comprehensive effect of labor organization on intercropping is moderate as a result of the presence of counteracting effects.     

农地非农化的经济学分析

农地非农化是城市化和工业化发展的必然产物.在分析农地非农化实质的基础上,探讨了农地转用价格过低的原因,认为要充分考虑到农地的生态价值、社会价值、选择价值以及产权意义上的价值,把农地的正外部效应充分内化,修正扭曲的农地资源价格体系,在一定程度上可以抑制非农用地的数量.运用农地非农化土地一级市场的模型,认为存在农转非市场失灵,政府要在多目标决策的前提下进行干预,通过提高价格来降低农地市场供给曲线的弹性,从而起到控制农地非农化的数量.     

Property rights in a very poor country: tenure insecurity and investment in Ethiopia

This article provides evidence from one of the poorest countries in the world that the institutions of property rights matter for efficiency, investment, and growth. With all land state‐owned, the threat of land redistribution never appears far off the agenda. Land rental and leasing have been made legal, but transfer rights remain restricted and the perception of continuing tenure insecurity remains quite strong. Using a unique panel data set, this study investigates whether transfer rights and implied tenure insecurity affect household investment decisions, focusing on trees and shrubs. The panel data estimates suggest that limited perceived transfer rights negatively affects the long‐term investment in Ethiopian agriculture, contributing to the low returns from land and perpetuating low growth and poverty.     

Configuring land tenure caused by fixed residence according to the societal control system of North Korea: Focus on forestry carbon trading

The failure in addressing tenure rights in North Korea could be a severe obstacle to introducing forestry carbon trading since it becomes difficult for the land occupant to serve as a supporter to maintain the carbon pool. North Korea is one of the few countries in the world, holding a people’s registration system. North Korean citizens use lands allocated by the State for their entire life because they are not free to move their residences. The article indicates that the people’s registration card is solid evidence for fixed residence and stable land tenure. The card could be used as evidential documents to compensate carbon credit owners in compliance with the international standards for land tenure recognition. This article established a solid evidential foundation to introduce land tenure in North Korea.     

Fragmented Territories: Incomplete Enclosures and Agrarian Change on the Agricultural Frontier of Samlaut District,North‐West Cambodia

In Cambodia, the interactions between large‐scale land investment and land titling gathered particular momentum in 2012–13, when the government initiated an unprecedented upland land titling programme in an attempt to address land tenure insecurity where large‐scale land investment overlaps with land appropriated by peasants. This paper is based on a spatially explicit ethnography of land rights conducted in the Samlaut district of north‐west Cambodia – a former Khmer Rouge resistance stronghold – in a context where the enclosures are both incomplete and entangled with post‐war, socially embedded land tenure systems. We discuss how this new pattern of fragmentation affects the prevailing dynamics of agrarian change. We argue that it has introduced new forms of exclusion and a generalized perception of land tenure uncertainty that is managed by peasants through the actualization of hybrid land tenure arrangements borrowing from state rules and local consensus. In contrast with common expectations about land formalization, the process reinforces the patterns of social differentiation initiated by land rent capture practices of early migrants and pushes more vulnerable peasants into seeking wage labour and resorting to job migration.