This paper analyzes whether national laws acknowledge indigenous peoples and other rural communities in 100 countries as owners of waters that arise within their lands. Results derive from information collected by LandMark to score the legal status of community land tenure. Findings are positive; half of all countries recognize communities as lawful possessors of water on their lands. Three quarters permit communities to manage the distribution and use of water on their lands.

This study examines the preliminary impacts of Indonesia's decentralization process on the administration and management of forest resources in Ketapang District, West Kalimantan. The case study is based on field work carried out in mid-2000, using a rapid appraisal methodology. The report covers the impacts of decentralization in three areas, in particular: customary adat communities, oil palm and rubber plantations, and conservation issues related to Gunung Palang National Park.

In Indonesia, rapid deforestation is affecting local populations’ access to forest, yet little information is available about the impacts of deforestation on highly forest-dependent populations. To better understand these potential impacts, this document reports on economic and cultural uses of the forest for three villages in the Sub-District of Pujungan in East Kalimantan, using data from household suveys conducted in 1996.

Malinau District, established through partition in 1999, is the largest district in East Kalimantan and contains some of its largest tracts of forest. With decentralization, the district has sought to generate revenues from its forests, but these efforts have been handicapped by a concurrent lack of institutional capacities to manage rapid forest exploitation and conflicts over claims. Timber extraction and utilization permits (Izin Pemungutan dan Pemanfaatan Kayu or IPPK) have been the main instrument for revenue generation, with 39 IPPK covering 56,000 ha.

We believe that law should in principle assist vulnerable communities in changing power relations. Law is fundamentally a ‘neutral’ set of rules that constrains power by requiring decisions and actions of those in power to comply with legal rules, rights and obligations. Unfortunately, we have seen the powerful appropriate law as a tool for only protecting and strengthening their interests.

 Writ­ten sub­mis­sions on the Regulation of Agricultural Land Holdings Draft Bill made to the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform 

Kenya is the most recent African state to acknowledge customary tenure as producing lawful property rights, not merely rights of occupation and use on government or public lands. This paper researches this new legal environment. This promises land security for 6 to 10 million Kenyans, most of who are members of pastoral or other poorer rural communities. Analysis is prefaced with substantial background on legal trends continentally, but the focus is on Kenya’s Community Land Act, 2016, as the framework through which customary holdings are to be identified and registered.

...The main purpose of this paper is to examine legal measures taken to recognize
indigenous groups and provide for their ongoing operation; the paper starts, therefore, from an
underlying assumption that indigenous groups have continued relevance to the needs and wishes
of the people who operate within them. Nevertheless, while it is beyond the scope and purpose of
the paper to explore this complex issue in any depth, it may be useful to present – however briefly
– some of the arguments made for and against the preservation of indigenous groups. In the

ABSTRACT:
"Is there a ‘best practice’ model for the legal recognition of customary tenure?
If not, is it possible to identify the circumstances in which a particular model
would be most appropriate? This article considers these questions in the light
of economic theories of property rights, particularly as illustrated by the
World Bank’s 2003 land policy report. While these theories have their flaws,
the underlying concept of tenure security allows a typological framework for