FAO pub. Report, role of land tenure in forest policy making, legal aspects - forestry under private land ownership, in state forests, in forests held on communal land.

This tool is intended to help countries evaluate their forest tenure systems, particularly those that facilitate participation of non-state actors in forestry, including co-management regimes, community forestry, smallholder forestry, large holder forestry, or company concessions granted on State lands. It uses the internationally endorsed Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (VGGT) as its basis. Forest tenure review may be conducted in the context of policy or legal reform, to inform Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) policy formulation, to improve understanding of a specific tenure system that is under-performing, or to strengthen performance of the various participatory forestry arrangements in country. The assessment tool can provide a very comprehensive understanding of tenure and governance related drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, and ways to address them.

As new mechanisms for "reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation" (REDD) are being negotiated in international climate change talks, resource tenure must be given greater attention. Tenure over land and trees--the systems of rights, rules, institutions and processes regulating their access and use--will affect the extent to which REDD and related strategies will benefit, or marginalise, forest communities. This report aims to promote debate on the issue. Drawing on experience from seven rainforest countries (Brazil, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guyana, Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea), the report develops a typology of tenure regimes across countries, explores tenure issues in each country, and identifies key challenges to be addressed if REDD is to have equitable and sustainable impact.

Who has rights to forests and forest resources? In recent years governments in the South have transferred at least 200 million hectares of forests to communities living in and around them . This book assesses the experience of what appears to be a new international trend that has substantially increased the share of the world's forests under community administration. Based on research in over 30 communities in selected countries in Asia (India, Nepal, Philippines, Laos, Indonesia), Africa (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana) and Latin America (Bolivia, Brazil, Guatemala, Nicaragua), it examines the process and outcomes of granting new rights, assessing a variety of governance issues in implementation, access to forest products and markets and outcomes for people and forests . Forest tenure reforms have been highly varied, ranging from the titling of indigenous territories to the granting of small land areas for forest regeneration or the right to a share in timber revenues. While in many cases these rights have been significant, new statutory rights do not automatically result in rights in practice, and a variety of institutional weaknesses and policy distortions have limited the impacts of change. Through the comparison of selected cases, the chapters explore the nature of forest reform, the extent and meaning of rights transferred or recognized, and the role of authority and citizens' networks in forest governance. They also assess opportunities and obstacles associated with government regulations and markets for forest products and the effects across the cases on livelihoods, forest condition and equity. Published with CIFOR

This working paper presents the status of forest tenure in contemporary Indonesia; it explores how forest tenure reforms emerge and the options for formal approaches to securing customary rights in Indonesia. It also presents an overview and analysis of Indonesia's legal and institutional framework for tenure reform. Forest tenure reforms in Indonesia have evolved through dynamic, interactive, collaborative processes that have involved both State and non-State institutions. Both the processes and the products (such as policies and programs) of forest tenure reforms in Indonesia, such as the 1999 reforms that resulted in social forestry schemes, have not been effectively implemented in Indonesia due to the: onerous process of obtaining a permit; lack of direction and motivation of staff within implementing agencies in supporting social forestry; limited capacity and resources among both communities and implementing agencies to comply with the technical requirements to process the permit; and macro-level economic prioritization of extractive activities that concentrate benefits in the corporate sector. Moreover, women and marginal members of indigenous peoples and local communities have been largely left out. However, recent developments such as Constitutional Court Ruling No. 35/2012 defined land and forests within customary territories as private entities, and not State land and forests. Furthermore, recent government initiatives for recognizing existing agroforestry practices within kawasan hutan by granting land title or bringing them under social forestry schemes are important developments that can help to resolve conflicts. Finally, the government's ambitious target of bringing 12.7 million ha of State forest area under community management, deregulation of some of the steps for obtaining a social forestry permit and the involvement of non-State actors in tenure reform processes have the potential to further strengthen local people's rights and security over land and forests, if properly supported and implemented.

Since the 1970s and 1980s, community-based forestry has grown in popularity, based on the concept that local communities, when granted suffi­cient property rights over local forest commons, can organize autonomously and develop local institutions to regulate the use of natural resources and manage them sustainably. Over time, various forms of community-based forestry have evolved in different countries, but all have at their heart the notion of some level of participation by smallholders and community groups in planning and implementation. This publication is FAO’s fi­rst comprehensive look at the impact of community-based forestry since previous reviews in 1991 and 2001. It considers both collaborative regimes (forestry practised on land with formal communal tenure requiring collective action) and smallholder forestry (on land that is generally privately owned). The publication examines the extent of community-based forestry globally and regionally and assesses its effectiveness in delivering on key biophysical and socioeconomic outcomes, i.e. moving towards sustainable forest management and improving local livelihoods. The report is targeted at policy-makers, practitioners, researchers, communities and civil society.