Popular concern about tropical deforestation largely drove the rapid growth in forestry assistance in recent years. Nevertheless, forestry assistance has had limited impact on forest clearing and much of it has gone to address other problems. To reduce inappropriate deforestation requires a combination of a multi-sectoral approach, greater regulation, and payment for environmental services. Aid officials have been partially unwilling and partially unable to adopt these approaches.

Until now, the international community has made tireless efforts to get public attention and political action on issues of desertification, land degradation and drought (DLDD) with limited success.

Thus, the mobilization of political will and arousal of public interest and attention around the issue of climate change in particular puzzled activists and decision-makers alike, at least in the DLDD community.

WEBSITE ABSTRACT: This thematic study explores the possibilities for strengthening the recognition of customary tenure in Vietnam. It begins with an overview of customary tenure in Vietnam, particularly in upland forest areas where customary systems still prevail. In upland areas, forest land allocation policies have been underway since the 1990s to claim back forest land from unproductive state-owned forest enterprises (SFEs) for redistribution to local forest users.

Legal processes can help improve the lives of the poor in developing countries e.g. through establishing fair rules on international trade and securing land access in rural Africa. For this to happen, poorer actors – whether individuals or states – must have equitable access to the legal system, including a fair say in law-making processes, and access to effective enforcement institutions.

La paz, Bolivia
30 de noviembre del 2016
Argumentos para fortalecer la propiedad colectiva de la tierra en Sudamérica
Juan Pablo Chumacero R.
 
Economista, con especialización en estudios latinoamericanos. Ha trabajado durante 14 años en la Fundación TIERRA, siendo su Director Ejecutivo entre 2012 y 2014. Actualmente trabaja como investigador en el IPDRS.
 

Although the historical focus on tenure reforms has resulted in some important improvements in the livelihoods of forest communities, it has not prevented them from suffering social exclusion and impoverishment.

Environmental governance in the context of climate change and land use is examined with the aim of specifying the conditions under which the incorporation of effective public participation in the governance process can be achieved. This is done through an examination of the preferences of the actors involved, an analysis of the land use issues in climate change governance in Thailand, the extant institutional arrangements for public participation, the difficulties of implementing effective public participation, and possible ways of mitigating these challenges.

WEBSITE INTRODUCTION: This thematic study presents a country-level overview of customary tenure arrangements in Lao PDR. It examines the extent of customary tenure and land formalization in the country, key policy changes that have impacted on customary arrangements, the degree to which customary land is recognized legally and in practice, and explores opportunities for better recognition. Customary tenure covers a wide range of land types and resources, and provides livelihood security for a majority of the Lao rural population, particularly ethnic minorities and women.

WEBSITE INTRODUCTION: This book examines large-scale land acquisitions, or ‘land grabbing’, with a focus on South-East Asia. Thematic papers and detailed case studies put this phenomenon into specific historical and institutional contexts, analysing transformations in livelihoods, human rights impacts, and potential remedies.

WEBSITE INTRODUCTION: This paper aims to provide keys that will help us understand contemporary land dynamics in these four countries. In order to do so it highlights their similarities and differences, both in the long history that shaped today’s local land situations and in more recent reforms implemented in the context of greater economic openness. The first part of the paper sets the cultural and historical context, with an overview of the diverse ways that the political authorities and different groups within the region have related to land.

Over the last decade, forests have played an important role in the transition from war to peace in Cambodia. Forest exploitation financed the continuation of war beyond the Cold War and regional dynamics, yet it also stimulated co-operation between conflicting parties. Timber represented a key stake in the rapacious transition from the (benign) socialism of the post-Khmer Rouge period to (exclusionary) capitalism, thereby becoming the most politicized resource of a reconstruction process that has failed to be either as green or as democratic as the international community had hoped.