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.     

Cutting the web of interests: Pitfalls of formalizing property rights

Property rights to land can be thought of as a web of interests, with many different parties having a right to use, regulate, or manage the resource, which may be based on a range of customary institutions or local norms as well as state law. These interests often play a critical role in livelihoods, social relations, and ecological functions. The formalization of property rights has historically led to a cutting of this web, creating more exclusive forms of rights over the resource. Drawing from case studies in Kenya the paper emphasizes the risk of excluding legitimate claimants in formalization processes that focus on individual titling. By collapsing all rights within individuals, such programs have negated the distinct multiple claims by women, youths, and seasonal users, among others. We examine ways in which formalization processes can secure diverse claims, and highlight the need for a better understanding of the social and ecological implications of existing land tenure before they are undermined by formalization.     

Collective action in China’s recent collective forestry property rights reform

China’s recent collective forestry property rights reform (CFPRR) is regarded as the third Land Reform and has been implemented to accelerate China’s rural restructuring. In departing from previous top-down policy changes, the CFPRR has focused on local collective practices and actions. It indicates a shift in China’s rural governance, away from direct intervention towards support for local collective actions. Based on a case study of Hongtian Village, the origin of the CFPRR, this article analyses the process of insinuating collective action and the impact that this has had in creating a new cultural understanding and acceptance of collective forestry property rights. In contrast to the relative insecurity of tenure that can accompany many reforms of the governance of common pool resources, the paper suggests that the success of the ‘Hongtian model’ mainly lies in high levels of process engagement by local people and effective interaction between villagers and the government. While not addressing all the issues associated with the inefficiency of the previous collective approach to forestry, the paper suggests that there are many transferable lessons to be learnt from the CFPRR, both within and beyond China.     

中国耕地产权与价值研究——兼论征地补偿

研究目的:规范并界定中国耕地的产权体系及各权利内涵,探讨各耕地权利的价值构成,分析征收耕地的补偿标准。研究方法:逻辑分析法,比较借鉴法,实证法。研究结果:耕地产权体系包含耕地的生产收益权、生存保障权、农地发展权、粮食安全权和生态安全权,各权利价值在不同的社会经济条件下有不同体现;征地补偿应逐步体现耕地各产权价值。     

改革开放以来集体林权制度改革的分权演化博弈分析

在维护国家生态安全和农户生计等方面,中国集体林发挥着不可或缺的重要作用。改革开放以来,中国政府启动了多轮集体林权制度改革,本文采用分权多中心决策主体演化博弈理论,研究了集体林权制度变迁的动态过程。分权多中心决策主体的观念改变是集体林权制度改革的前提,分权多中心决策主体采取功能、权力、自适应学习和同构等形式,开展了集体林权制度改革的重复演化博弈,中央政府为多轮集体林权制度改革的主要介入者,集体林权制度改革所呈现的间歇性均衡和多重均衡是分权多中心决策主体持续演化博弈的结果。     

Responses to climate change and farming policies by rural communities in northern China: A report on field observation and farmers’ perception in dryland north Shaanxi and Ningxia

To address land degradation and rural poverty the Chinese government has put in place a series of land conversion programmes in the Loess Plateau area in northern China. In addition to problems arising from unsustainable land use, water resource availability driven in part by climatic forcing is also a threat to livelihoods in this region. To understand climate impacts on farming practice in poor areas of China, field observation and village reconnaissance took place in the summer of 2009 in three selected counties of Shaanxi and Ningxia Province, northern China. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with householders in rural communities aiming to explore the impacts of recent climate and environmental changes and the role of land management practices on individual and community livelihood incomes as well as individual understanding and engagement with these concepts. The findings were complemented with secondary agricultural, economic and climatic data from the study regions. Respondents argued that land conversion programmes improved income potential, sustainability of livestock grazing and environmental quality in the region. However, water availability was thought to increasingly limit agriculture and human wellbeing in some of the regions with water resources becoming notably scarcer. Understanding of climate change as a concept varied amongst farmers potentially hampering the ability to adapt existing farming practices to maximise livelihood incomes sustainably. Positive effects of the government's land management schemes were unevenly distributed within villages and amongst regions, often linked to a lack of knowledge transfer and shared resources resulting in marginalised households and/or communities. Off-farm labour (in many cases relating to young adult rural to urban migration) appears a crucial source of income for households in the study region. Respondents in Ningxia expressed reservations about the future prospect of productive farming if the water availability continued to diminish.     

对中国集体林区产权改革诸问题的认识

集体林产权改革必须尊重历史,尊重广大基本群众对土地和民生的基本诉求,切实维护他们对土地基本的权力,核心是公平,而不是效率,效率上的改革企图只能在局部成功。应当清醒地认识到这次改革目标是有限的。为此提出了4点建议:(1)尽快彻底取消林业税费。(2)加强林业产权制度、基层森林管理模式、利益分配机制的综合研究和试验。(3)林业部门主动放弃“森林”和“环境”等主导名词,而代替为“林农”、“林业”和“林区”“三林问题”新的话语。寻求少数林区作为改革试点,探索林区社会福利事业生成路径和管理模式,用以购买农民的森林所有权和林地的使用权,探索集体林区森林国有化改革的道路。(4)寻求多样化、有弹性的林业改革发展道路。     

农村 “三权”抵押贷款融资对农户生计策略的影响基于重庆城乡统筹试验区5区县562户调查数据

目的 农村“三权”抵押贷款融资会改变农户生计资本的储量和组合形式,从而使得农户的生计策略发生变化,进而影响其生计结果。研究农村“三权”抵押贷款融资对农户生计策略的影响,为政府更好地精准扶贫,完善农村金融创新制度提供实证依据,具有必要性和现实意义。方法 文章以重庆城乡统筹试验区5个县（市、区）562户农户问卷为样本数据,通过建立Probit回归模型来分析农村“三权”抵押贷款融资对农户生计策略的影响。结果 农村“三权”抵押贷款融资政策实施后,研究区农户务农的比例下降,当地打工的比例有所上升,外出打工和个体经营成为他们的主要生计策略;参与农村“三权”抵押贷款融资的农户进行务农和外出打工的概率显著低于没有参与的农户;参与农村“三权”抵押贷款融资农户进行当地打工和个体经营的概率显著高于没有参与的农户。结论 当地政府在继续推广农村“三权”抵押贷款融资的同时,应帮助农户了解和认知参与农村“三权”抵押贷款融资的相关政策,提高农户“三权”抵押贷款融资的参与度,并且对“三权”抵押贷款机制进行拓展,使其能够用于更多的产业发展,为农户提供更多的当地就业机会;同时,当地政府应加强致力于教育发展和大力度营造良好的外部基础设施环境,并利用当地区域产业优势资源合理引导农户寻求适合自身情况的生计发展模式,实现农户脱贫致富及其生计可持续发展。     

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.     

Extra-legal land market dynamics on a Guatemalan agricultural frontier: Implications for neoliberal land policies

Neoliberal land policies such as land administration seek to improve property rights and the efficiency of land markets to boost rural economic production. Quantitative studies of pre-existing land markets can help planners to tailor these policies to local conditions. In this article we examine an extra-legal land market currently being modernized by a World Bank-sponsored land administration effort. Specifically, we use a hedonic-type revealed preference model and household survey data to estimate the factors affecting extra-legal land prices along an agricultural frontier in Petén, Guatemala. Our model indicates that land value is significantly affected by land attributes including location, tenure status, presence of water, distance to roads, and distance to landowners’ homes, and that land prices in the northwestern Petén are estimated to have risen on average 26.5% per year between 1977 and 2000. We contend that this rate of increase provides a strong incentive for colonists to speculate in land rather than invest in state sanctioned property rights. We conclude that if frontier development programs, such as land administration, are to become attractive to settlers in Petén and elsewhere, they must compete favorably with economic incentives associated with land speculation, or alternatively, target landowners who are not interested in playing the land market.     

Changes in property-use relationships on French farmland: A social innovation perspective

Land issues are a major constraint for resource management, whether it relates to urban planning, environmental protection or agricultural development. There is presently a proliferation of initiatives by a diversity of actors, that produce notable changes in terms of land tenure. A few studies have described some of them in France, without analysing the change mechanisms. Moreover, land tenure is often difficult to understand given its complexity and its multiple dimensions. Here, we propose an analysis of land tenure changes with the lens of property-use relationships (PUR), through a social innovation framework. This allows us to analyse the collective action at the heart of change. The analysis rests upon two case studies selected for their multiscale character, and as two different entries to scrutinize land changes: the “Terre de Liens” movement, a new actor stemming from civil society; and the “rural land lease subject to environmental clauses”, a recent authorized instrument of tenancy contract. These land tenure changes are important although circumscribed because they involve all actors’ spheres and scales and create new frameworks. These changes contribute to express societal demands through new lessor’s management right. Where the parties to the PUR share a common reference framework and the same agricultural development objective, the conditions set out in the PUR seem guaranteed. If they do not, a mutual acculturation process seems necessary – beyond the contractual terms – to enable a compromise between the management rationales of a protected area in one hand, and a farm on the other hand.     

生态补偿对水源地农户可持续生计能力的影响研究——基于改进的DFID生计分析框架

目的 为检验生态补偿在水源地农户可持续生计能力发展方面的实施效果。方法 文章在调整DFID生计分析框架的基础上,改进基于生计资本测量农户可持续生计能力的方法,并利用该方法评价生态补偿前后东平湖水源地农户可持续生计能力变化情况。结果 （1）从整体上看,实施生态补偿政策以来东平湖水源地保护区农户生计可持续性得到显著增强,可持续生计能力从补偿前的0.302增至补偿后的0.323,但当地农户可持续生计能力仍处于较弱水平,需要进一步加强;（2）从生计资本来看,补偿后人力、社会、信息、物质、自然、金融、环境资本指数值分别为0.384、0.459、0.508、0.450、0.016、0.258、0.901,自然、金融、人力资本存量较低是当地农户生计可持续发展的短板;（3）值得注意的是,补偿后信息资本与物质、金融、环境资本之间的相关性显著提高,而自然资本与物质、人力资本之间的相关性显著降低,表明水源地农户的生产方式正逐步由传统农业向现代化农业或非农行业过渡。结论 当地政府应致力于提高自然、金融、人力资本存量,实施多样化的生态补偿方式,积极引导水源地农户寻找替代生计。     

From male to joint land ownership: Women's experiences of the land tenure reform programme in Rwanda

During the post‐genocide period, the Government of Rwanda embarked on a land tenure reform programme that culminated in a land registration and titling process in 2009. This paper intends to capture women's experiences in relation to this programme. The empirical data were collected in Musanze District using a household survey, semi‐structured interviews, and focus group discussions. The main findings reveal that there is support of the general idea that women should benefit from the land tenure reform in Rwanda. However, there is some criticism towards parts of the land laws, and women have limited actual knowledge about land‐related laws. With land titles, women mostly have a say on the land use decisions requiring each of the spounses' legal consents but not on the daily management of land and its produce. Finally, the paper reports the persistence of social norms and culturally biased gender ideologies affecting the effective implementation of land‐related laws and policies. Therefore, the paper underscores the need to build the implementation of new laws and policies on a good understanding of customary practices to strengthen women's land rights in Rwanda.     

Influence of livelihoods on climate change adaptation for smallholder farmers in the Mekong Delta Vietnam

Farmers in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta face a wide range of climate-related and hydrological factors which threaten rice production. Smallholder farmers must adapt to climate change to sustain rice production as their central and most important livelihood activity. A sample was stratified across agro-ecological areas in the Delta affected by flooding, alluvial soils, acid sulphate soils, and saline water intrusion and by derived farmer typologies. A rural livelihoods approach was used in focus group discussions and in-depth interviews to identify and enumerate enabling and constraining adaptation factors. Smallholders experienced diverse natural hazards such as floods, abnormal rains, high temperatures, water scarcity, and salinity intrusion specific to the agro-ecological areas. Adaptation was constrained by labour shortages, water quality, topography, access to combine harvesters, transportation infrastructure, dryers and household savings. Adaptation was enabled by farming techniques and experience, cooperative groups, water quantity, access to information, and ability to purchase agro-chemicals through credit. Small farmers (< 1?ha) were more constrained than large farmers (> 1?ha) who had an expanded livelihood asset base. A range of policy implications are discussed, but adaptation is not just about technological fixes but requires overall improvements in a range of human, social and financial components.     

Farmer Initiatives and Livelihood Diversification: From the Collective to a Market Economy in Rural China

This paper explores how, despite relatively undifferentiated economic, cultural and land tenure conditions, some farmers in a rural area of Hebei Province, north-east China, have managed to devise innovative livelihood activities that provide them with better living standards than the majority of villagers. The research concludes that the dynamics of farmer innovations emerge from a variety of factors: the building of effective social networks and sources of information, 'enlightenment' deriving from small-group interactions, and the construction of trust relations, self-help and cooperation. These factors belong to the sphere of social resources rather than to those of natural, physical, human or financial assets. Hence it is social components that constitute the mobilizers of change in regard to farmers' livelihood development.     

Land tenure and management reforms in East and Southern Africa – the case of Botswana

Since attainment of independence, almost every country in East and Southern Africa has introduced some kind of land reform aimed at reconciling indigenous land tenure practices and those introduced by colonial regimes. The reforms have centred on modification of tenurial rules on access, ownership, administration and transfer of land rights coupled with land redistribution and/or restitution in some countries. With the exception of a few countries, such as Botswana, land reforms have largely remained on statute books with little to show on the ground. The paper gives an overview of land reforms in East and Southern Africa, taking Botswana as a case study. It notes that although Botswana has largely been successful in implementing land reforms, it is currently experiencing land tenure problems, especially in peri-urban settlements and inner city low-income areas, despite government's enhanced control over local land administrative structures. The paper ends with suggestions on how to contain the current problems.     

农地整治区农户生计脆弱性指数评估研究*——基于湖北荆门和宜昌的实证研究

[目的]农地整治能通过多种有效途径改善农户的生计资本。以农地整治的角度切入来研究农户生计脆弱性的变化规律,探究农地整治对农户生计脆弱性的影响,为探索改善农户生计的可持续性提供理论借鉴。[方法]以农地整治对生计资本的直接改善为出发点,基于可持续生计分析框架,根据IPCC关于脆弱性的解释,建立农地整治区农户生计脆弱性评估框架体系,其主要涵盖农户面临的自然风险、生计资本以及适应策略3方面,通过熵权法确定指标权重。基于湖北省荆门、宜昌两地区的394户农户调查问卷,运用生计脆弱性评估框架计算得到农地整治前后农户生计脆弱性指数,同时,针对荆门、宜昌两地区分别进行评估研究。[结果](1)农地整治前后农户生计脆弱性指数分别为-0.223和-0.423,在整治之后农户生计脆弱性显著降低。(2)生计脆弱性指数变化的影响因素存在地区性差异。荆门地区整治前后的生计脆弱性指数变化依次受旱地情况、耕地灌溉情况、村庄绿化设施、农田水利设施的变化量等因素的影响;宜昌地区整治前后生计脆弱性指数变化依次受农田水利设施、村庄道路通达、村庄绿化设施、田间道路、耕地灌溉情况、水田情况、旱地情况的变化量等因素的影响。[结论]为提高农户福利水平,降低其生计脆弱性,建议农地整治的规划与实施要进一步关注农户生计问题,特别重视相关自然资本和物质资本的改善,同时不同实施地区要从贡献因素排序出发,实现提高农户生计脆弱性改善的目的。     

中国农村集体建设用地使用权流转政策的梳理与展望

研究目的：梳理并展望当前中国农村集体建设用地使用权流转政策。研究方法：理论评述与现状分析结合。研究结果：在分析中国农村集体建设用地使用权流转政策背景的基础上,从流转的限制条件、价格确定、收益分配以及宅基地、商品房开放及直接入市6方面综合归纳了中国农村集体建设用地使用权流转的基本政策,并分析得出当前存在所有权主体悬空且归属不清、使用主体限制严格且权能残缺不全、法制建设滞后且现行法规规定相互矛盾这三个主要问题。研究结论：为进一步促进、完善中国的农村集体建设用地使用权流转提出明确集体土地所有权主体和集体建设用地使用权的权能、做好征地制度改革工作、建立集体建设用地评估制度、做好用途管制和土地集中统一供应工作、建立农村土地金融制度、建立集体建设用土地流转登记制度等多项相关政策建议。     

Are urban land tenure regulations in Namibia the solution or the problem?

Land tenure in Namibia is regulated by a variety of Acts, some of which date back to as far as 1937, and some of which are yet to be approved by Cabinet. This variety of Acts makes it difficult to evaluate the performance of land administration as a whole, and the appropriateness of coercive instruments with regards to urban land tenure in particular. In this article we evaluate how urban land tenure regularization practices are conducted in Namibia, and to compare new formal procedures, designed to address problems of efficiency and efficacy, to older existing procedures, supposedly not efficient or effective. This evaluation uses a theoretical framework of Pritchett and Woolcock [Pritchett, L., Woolcock, M., 2004. Solutions when the solution is the problem: arraying the disarray in development. World Development 32 (2), 191–212], which deals with public service delivery and transaction-intensive services. Applying this framework for a comparative analysis of 5 different land subdivision practices – each relying on a different land-related act – we conclude that the degree of regulation and regularization is perhaps not so much a solution for urban land tenure problems but more of a problem in itself.