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Indigenous land tenure: challenges and possibilities

Marcus Colchester, Tom Griffiths, Fergus MacKay and John Nelson
Forest Peoples Programme, Moreton-in-Marsh, United Kingdom.

This article gives an overview of the information available on the land rights of indigenous peoples, with a focus on those in developing countries and countries with economies in transition. It summarizes the rights of indigenous peoples in international law, followed by an examination of how these rights are being recognized, or not, in Latin America, Africa and the Asia - Pacific region. The article concludes with a review of the findings of the survey and identifies key issues to be considered in making policy decisions about indigenous land rights, with comments on the advantages and disadvantages of different policy options.

INTRODUCTION

Over the past 20 years, “indigenous peoples” has emerged as a distinct category of human societies under international law and in the national legislation of many countries. The rights of indigenous peoples that are notably distinct are those collective rights that are now recognized for indigenous peoples but that have not, as yet, been widely recognized for other human groups. Accordingly, this study focuses on collective rights related to land tenure (while recognizing that not all indigenous peoples seek collective land rights for all their lands) and summarizes the extent to which these rights are recognized in law and in practice, what are the main obstacles to the effective recognition and administration of indigenous lands, and what are the implications of collective tenure for the promotion of natural resource management, community development, poverty alleviation and the rights and needs of indigenous women.

DEFINITIONS

There is no internationally accepted definition of the term “indigenous peoples”.

The term has gained international currency in the context of international debates regarding the rights of “ethnic minorities”, “tribal peoples”, “natives”, “aborigines” and “indigenous populations”, who have quite evidently suffered, and continue to suffer, discrimination and marginalization as a result of colonialism, and postcolonial projects of nation-building, development and modernization. The term “indigenous peoples” has been adopted by a large number of governments, international agencies and, most significantly, a broad movement of self-identified peoples as the best catch-all term available to incorporate consideration for their rights into international law. Despite, or rather because of, growing acceptance of the phrase and a growing recognition of indigenous peoples’ inherent rights, its use has been objected to by a number of governments, especially in Asia.

The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Convention No. 169, adopted in 1989, applies to both “indigenous and tribal peoples” and thus includes many such peoples from Asia and Africa. It ascribes the same rights to both without discrimination.

Article 1(2) of ILO Convention No. 169 notes “self-identification as indigenous or tribal shall be regarded as a fundamental criterion for determining the groups to which the provisions of this Convention apply”. The principle of self-identification has been strongly endorsed by indigenous peoples themselves and has been adopted in Article 8 of the United Nation’s (UN) Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Chairperson of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations notes that indigenous peoples tend to be those who have close ties to their lands or to a specific territory, seek to maintain their identity and cultural distinctiveness, and have an experience of subjugation, exclusion or discrimination, whether or not it persists (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1986/7; Daes, 1996).

INDIGENOUS RIGHTS AND RIGHTS TO LAND

As reasserted in the UN Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, in 1993, human rights are indivisible. Political, social, cultural, economic and civil rights all interrelate and provide the basis for justice, equity and dignity. Indigenous peoples’ rights are no less indivisible. Rights to land are only one element crucial to their existence and futures. Indigenous peoples view securing ownership, control and access to their lands, territories and natural resources as only one part of their quest for self-determination.

This study’s focus on indigenous land tenure must therefore be seen as incomplete, not just because it cannot claim to be exhaustive in its own terms, but because tenure systems cannot be understood when divorced from their wider context. The functioning of collective land tenure systems is directly affected by the extent to which collectives are given legal recognition, the extent to which indigenous knowledge is respected and the extent to which customary law is allowed to operate. The viability of these “institutions” in turn depends on the degree of self-governance achieved by the collectives, whose coherence also depends on maintenance of social identity and respect for customary forms of decision-making - elements often underpinned by traditional belief systems and “cosmovisions”. The introduction of new religions and values can transform the way customs operate and thus the way land is managed, owned and transferred; and these changes can have variable impacts on different sectors of these societies.

OBSTACLES TO LAND SECURITY

As detailed in the articles in this edition, indigenous peoples face multiple obstacles to maintaining secure rights to their lands, including: racism, social prejudices and entrenched forms of discrimination; inappropriate, assimilationist social policies towards indigenous peoples; lack of legal recognition of indigenous rights in national constitutions, laws and land tenure regimes; inflexible or deficient land administration services; and the lack of resources, capacity, political connections or awareness in indigenous communities to take advantage of existing legal opportunities.

Pressure on indigenous lands is intense. Indigenous peoples’ rights are denied by forestry, mining, oil and gas, dambuilding and agribusiness interests, which seek unimpeded access to natural resources. Conservation schemes have also often led to the forced resettlement of indigenous peoples. Government-sponsored colonization has historically been a major cause of dispossession but has lessened in recent years owing to international campaigns against such programmes and greater awareness of the rights of indigenous peoples and the value of tropical forests. Notwithstanding, pressure on indigenous lands from landless peasants and small-scale miners remains a major threat to the security of indigenous populations. Indigenous peoples’ resistance to dispossession has often been met with violence and human rights abuse (Bodley, 1982; Burger, 1987; Colchester and Lohmann, 1993; Colchester 2000; Verolme et al., 2000). Detailed treatment of these wider issues is outside the scope of this study, but any attempt to secure indigenous peoples’ lands must be developed taking into account the wider context in which indigenous peoples find themselves.

DEVELOPMENT OPTIONS

Indigenous peoples stress that their own notions of development differ fundamentally from the notions of economic progress that evolved principally in western Europe and North America. Development is seen first and foremost as a matter of achieving security - in terms of access to land and resources, institutional recognition and self sufficiency - before being about increased access to markets and trade (Colchester, 1992; Chase-Smith, 1996; Gray, 1997). Maintaining social relationships and building on custom and traditional knowledge are seen as central elements of community development and not ancillary or secondary objectives. These perspectives weave together social, economic and environmental objectives into a single and coherent whole.

This is not to romanticize or overlook the conditions in indigenous communities where standards of health, hygiene, income and education often fall far below those enjoyed by national majorities. Most indigenous spokespeople readily admit the need for, and actively seek, improvements in their conditions of life. However, they seek to achieve these improvements without prejudice to other valued aspects of their ways of life, which give their life meaning and dignity. Such aspirations are entirely in line with the recently agreed “right to development” adopted by the UN.

Indeed, in response to a five-year dialogue with indigenous peoples, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) also adopted a policy on indigenous peoples, which accepts the validity of these distinctive visions of development:

The UNDP Human Rights Policy recognizes the rights of distinct peoples living in distinct regions to self-determined development and control of ancestral lands. This embraces a concept of development that incorporates indigenous peoples’ own aspirations, spirituality, culture, social and economic aims.

(UNDP, 2001)

INSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGES AND PROCEDURES FOR RECOGNIZING INDIGENOUS TENURE

Despite recent gains in the recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights in particular countries and development projects, indigenous communities still face serious obstacles to the titling of their lands. As the following articles in this edition note, these obstacles are particularly severe in Asia and Africa, where the advantages of recognition of indigenous peoples’ collective rights to land have yet to be widely appreciated. However, even in Latin America, significant obstacles to the recognition of indigenous tenure rights remain.

In Brazil, indigenous communities still suffer land invasions and endure intimidation by henchmen hired by powerful landed interests (Survival International, 2000). In Colombia, assassinations of indigenous leaders pushing for extensions to resguardo (reserve) lands are still commonplace (ALMACIGA, 2001). In Guyana and Suriname, the general legal framework still fails to recognize indigenous tenure and livelihood regimes that involve a combination of cultivation, hunting, fishing and gathering. In many countries, rural development strategies are still devised and implemented with little or no indigenous participation (IWGIA, 2001: p. 96).

Where countries have undertaken constitutional reforms to safeguard indigenous land rights, there are still numerous obstacles to implementation. In the Philippines, indigenous communities face major financial obstacles to securing their lands under the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act, as the costs of carrying out land surveys have to be borne by the communities. Some communities are even reclaiming their territories piecemeal, to bring the survey costs down to levels that they can afford. Moreover, even where indigenous communities have been awarded legal titles, government agencies may lack resources and capacity to protect such titled lands from encroachment. In Costa Rica, for example, 49 percent of the area of indigenous reserves is occupied by illegal settlers. In particular reserves, as much as 85 percent has been settled by outsiders (Ardito, 1996: p. 67). In short, despite progress in legal protections for indigenous territories, such laws are often not enforced on the ground. In many cases, because of a lack of training, local communities are unable to use legal measures to counter the predatory activities of illegal businesses on their lands.

Despite commitments to secure indigenous land tenure, few governments have well-funded national-level demarcation and titling programmes for indigenous peoples. In most countries, indigenous affairs bureaus are a low priority for governments and consequently they suffer repeated budget cuts, which limit their capacity to fund land titling and restitution programmes (IWGIA, 2001: pp. 149, 162). In 2000 and 2001, Latin American indigenous organizations in several countries were again obliged to stage mass protests to urge their governments to honour past commitments and speed the titling process. In the meantime, indigenous land issues continue to be treated in a piecemeal way within wider infrastructure and rural development projects. These isolated projects are often at odds with wider macroeconomic and agrarian policies.

Since the 1980s, governments have increasingly adopted market-oriented land policies as part of neoliberal reforms. Land policies have halted agrarian reform and set the goals of establishing efficient land markets, modernizing cadastres and progressive tax revenue structures, and securing private property titles. In Latin America, four countries enacted legislation that removed blanket protections prohibiting the sale of indigenous lands in the 1990s: Nicaragua (1990), Mexico (1992), El Salvador (1992) and Peru (1993). In the Russian Federation, slow progress with legal measures to promote land security is also blamed on government prioritization of extractive industries. The mining lobby was also responsible for legal challenges to the law for the recognition of indigenous land rights in the Philippines. These marketbased policies have so far failed to achieve poverty reduction among indigenous and peasant smallholders, whose small land parcels or legal landlessness constrain their ability to obtain loans from private credit facilities. There is evidence that these market-based approaches have actually increased real landlessness in many rural areas (Mozdzer and Ghimire, 2001).

Land policies continue to apply a narrow productivist focus within strategies geared towards processing and registering individual property titles. The logic here is that more efficient markets will squeeze out unproductive and inefficient farm units and so boost agricultural production. Indigenous tenure is only recognized insofar as the overall policies contain protective clauses to safeguard existing communal titles. A recent survey of land titling in Latin America, carried out for the Inter-American Development Bank, found that land policies have failed to build on customary tenure regimes. Despite protective clauses, land privatization has increased pressure on indigenous lands (Plant and Hvalkof, 2001: p. 55). The survey also revealed that although social scientists working for transnational agencies may promote interventions based on communal tenure and ethnodevelopment, economists design agrarian programmes with no indigenous components. In Kenya, national programmes to promote livestock development have undermined pastoralists’ communal tenure systems, privatized land holdings and increased poverty and land scarcity (Davis, 1992).

These conflicting approaches to land issues often occur within the same country and in the same development institution (Davis, 1992: pp. 64 - 66). As a consequence, indigenous involvement in the formulation of land policies has been of mixed quality. Although there are positive examples, such as the Guatemala Land Administration Project (see the article by Griffiths), other land administration programmes have failed to ensure adequate indigenous participation. If effective participation does occur, it is often late in the preparation phase or not until the implementation of the policy. Lack of early participation requires reactive measures to correct policy gaps where indigenous land tenure needs have been overlooked. In Peru, the National Indigenous Commission has urged the government to reform its land administration programme in full collaboration with indigenous peoples’ organizations to agree improved technical methods and policies for land demarcation and titling (Comisión Especial Multisectorial para las Comunidades Nativas, 2001).

In conjunction with market-based land policies, international financial institutions continue to promote national economic development based on exportbased agriculture, the withdrawal of the state and increasing natural resource exploitation. Throughout the region, governments in partnership with the private sector, development agencies and transnational development banks are consolidating resource extraction infrastructure with pipelines, roads and electricity grids (Amazon Watch, 2001; Vidal, 2001; IWGIA, 2001: p. 113). At the same time, transnational energy networks and intergovernmental agreements on energy are laying the foundations for regional integration and intensified resource extraction. Timber, hydrocarbon and mineral concessions continue to advance into forest territories - often affecting isolated indigenous groups. Both indigenous and non-indigenous commentators therefore observe that although decades of indigenous struggle have eliminated cultural and education policies of assimilation, indigenous peoples are now faced with another homogenizing policy based on market integration (e.g. Tresierra, 1999: p. 151; Viteri, 2001: p. 125).

Indigenous peoples therefore criticize transnational agencies and governments for having contradictory policies. Whereas land titling and ethnodevelopment projects may have positive impacts, these gains are undermined by macroeconomic and structural reforms, which are intensifying pressure on indigenous lands and resources, deepening poverty and limiting the government’s capacity to address indigenous issues and regulate natural resource use (Griffiths, 1999). Policy analysts point out that the poverty alleviation impacts of agrarian programmes have been limited owing to wider macroeconomic policies that have degraded the land and resulted in further land concentration (Dorner, 2001: pp. 100 - 101).

Across the world, subsoil rights are held by the state and so indigenous communities are confronted with mineral and hydrocarbon extraction on their territories with little legal power to object to or control such activities. Natural resource legislation often disregards, supersedes or undermines indigenous land tenure protections. Indigenous peoples complain that forestry, biodiversity, and mineral and water resource laws are drawn up without their participation (Colchester et al., 2003).

Recent surveys by indigenous peoples’ organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and transnational agencies have also found that government departments responsible for developing national forest programmes and national biodiversity action strategies still lack adequate participatory mechanisms to take indigenous peoples’ concerns and needs into account in national land-use planning (GEF, 1998: p. 47; FAO, 1999; Verolme et al., 2000).

The regional surveys undertaken for this study reveal a consistent pattern of legal, technical, economic and political impediments to securing indigenous land tenure and livelihood security.

Legal obstacles

Institutional, technical and policy obstacles

Economic obstacles

Political and cultural obstacles

Many of the obstacles listed above derive from deep discrimination stemming from previous policies of the colonial and nation-building periods (Iturralde, 2001; Stavenhagen, 2001; Urteaga, 2001). These structures of discrimination have proven static and difficult to reform. Nonetheless, indigenous peoples themselves are drawing on their new constitutional rights and international law to challenge threats to their land security and cultural integrity. Indigenous peoples’ organizations have forged alliances with national and international NGOs to submit land claims to national courts, constitutional tribunals and the public prosecutor. A body of jurisprudence is now growing that demonstrates governments have a duty to “take action” to demarcate indigenous lands and protect their collective rights (MacKay, 1999; CDES, 2001; CPESCOICH, 2001). Indigenous communities are also gaining experience in making claims to international courts and tribunals through the Organization of American States, the World Bank’s Inspection Panel and similar fora. On the ground, indigenous organizations are seeking formal commitments by government agencies to guarantee the practical protection of indigenous territories from encroachment by outsiders (e.g. Proyecto Serjali, 2001).

COMMUNAL TENURE, LEGAL PERSONALITY AND SELF-GOVERNANCE

Collective land ownership offers many advantages to administrators. By recognizing relatively large areas of land as collective tenures, administrators are freed from the burden of surveying, registering and compiling cadastres of a multitude of smallholdings and then keeping track of them as they change hands. By also recognizing a measure of self-governance within collective tenures, the burden on the administration is further reduced, as adjudication of disputes, land inheritance and land management can be left to customary authorities and dispute resolution mechanisms. The advantages of such “indirect rule” have been recognized since early Roman times. These “economies of scale” for administrators vary hugely from one locale to another depending on the way states recognize collective tenures and the degree to which they recognize customary institutions and self-governance. This survey has not managed to identify detailed studies that have appraised collective tenurial regimes from this point of view.

Collective tenures do, however, also present quite distinctive problems of their own. Lack of clarity in the law about which institutions own land and who is authorized to negotiate on behalf of the collective with third parties have led to misunderstandings, have facilitated manipulation by outside interests and have also allowed the mismanagement of communal resources by indigenous factions, individuals and elites, who may take advantage of the mismatch between market opportunities and indigenous land management systems to advance their personal interests at the expense of the wider group. Our survey has encountered this problem even where lands are effectively inalienable. In Papua New Guinea this has occurred because lease - lease-back arrangements have allowed factions to dominate land use for personal gain, and in the Philippines and Brazil because customary centralized chieftaincies were not adapted to market conditions and have thus permitted chiefs to enter into contracts with outsiders without community mechanisms to achieve broad consensus. National laws and local customs may prohibit land alienation but not provide comparable controls over sales of timber and minerals. In Africa, interethnic customary regimes have also led to marginal social groups being excluded from access to land and resources as populations increase and market pressures intensify competition for land.

COMMUNAL TENURE AND GENDER IMPLICATIONS

Generalizing about the relationships between indigenous tenure regimes and the rights and interests of indigenous women is highly problematic because customary systems are so diverse and afford such different rights to women in different circumstances. Many Amazonian peoples provide very secure rights to women, for example, and commonly consider shifting cultivation plots, even though they have been cleared by men, to be women’s property once they have planted the area with crops. Many Dayak groups in Borneo consider descent and inheritance cognatically, giving equal rights to men and women in securing rights to communal lands. By contrast, some tribal groups in India and Africa consider fields that are ploughed by men to be the property of men, to which women gain access through marriage or male kin. Commonly, indigenous women do play central roles in food production, preparation and distribution and tend to make decisions about crop choice and cultivation methods, which favour food security and self sufficiency over cash production (Maxwell and Wiebe, 1998: p. 23).

Government programmes aimed at transforming indigenous livelihoods have had a severe impact on indigenous women. United States policy towards indigenous peoples in the second half of the nineteenth century, for example, dismantled collective land systems and parcelled out allotments to indigenous households with titles being granted to male heads of families. Indigenous women were disenfranchized by the process and expected to become subordinate housewives (Debo, 1940; Carter, 1999). Lack of understanding of customary systems of land tenure and traditional systems of inheritance, land rights and residence have undermined development projects. For example, in the Republic of the Congo, efforts by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) to promote agricultural development and rural cooperatives actually led to decline in farm income, the marginalization of women and the replacement of matrilineal forms of inheritance with patrilineal ones, echoing the social changes that were also induced by the slave trade in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Harms, 1981; Desjeux, 1987).

Laws establishing indigenous peoples have been found to discriminate unfairly against women, such that whereas indigenous men in mixed marriages retain their legal entitlements, indigenous women do not. The Indian Act in Canada was amended in the 1980s to remove this discrimination but, for example, in Guyana, indigenous women in mixed marriages lose their rights of access and use of natural resources on state lands.

Insofar as it is true that indigenous men tend to produce more for the market whereas indigenous women prioritize production of subsistence and self sufficiency, the monetization of indigenous economies, and the shift in values towards cash, leads to women losing prestige and authority in these communities. In general, in Africa, women enjoy less secure access to land and resources than men and therefore tend to suffer disproportionately from land pressures and market-driven changes. These tendencies are exacerbated in those areas where indigenous women are given less formal education, are therefore less literate and so are marginalized from market transactions and administrative procedures. By contrast, the decline in the importance of hunting in the denuded hills of northern Thailand has also negatively affected male self-esteem and contributed to the high rates of drug addiction and anomie found in indigenous communities (Von Geusau, 1986).

Given these very different situations, the generalized call by the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women to afford women individual land titles to avoid them being kept in dependency seems inappropriate. Some customary tenure regimes afford considerable security to indigenous women and individual titling may worsen rather than better their lot. A case-by-case approach, in which the pros and cons of tenurial reforms are carefully weighed up by the communities concerned, with the full participation of indigenous women, would seem to be the safest route forward (cf. DfID/ODI, 1999).

SELF-DEMARCATION AND MAPPING

One of the most significant developments of the past 30 years has been the proactive initiatives undertaken by indigenous peoples with supportive NGOs to map and demarcate their own lands. Using a wide variety of technologies and methods, indigenous communities from the Arctic to the Amazon and from the Americas to Papua New Guinea have been making their own maps of their lands as a way of confronting the imposed land-use plans of government and establishing the complexity and validity of their own visions of land. Techniques used have varied widely, from simple sketch mapping and communitylevel discussion groups, to highly technical surveys involving qualified cartographers and registered surveyors. Some of the most progressive techniques involve training community members in the use of global positioning system devices so that they are able precisely to “waymark” locations of cultural, economic and historical significance. Importing such georeferenced data into simple global information system grids along with scanned-in base maps allows indigenous communities to own and control the content of maps without compromising on technical quality. Community experiences with these techniques have proven their value not just for validating indigenous knowledge and securing indigenous rights but also as mechanisms for overcoming interethnic rivalry, promoting intergenerational transmission of customary law (and lore) and promoting land-use planning.

Choice of the techniques has varied depending mainly on national laws and political contexts as well as the degree of autonomy sought by the mappers. In some countries, such as Peru and the Philippines, independent surveys, verified by government surveyors, are accepted as a basis for land claims and the registration of land titles. In other countries, such as Guyana and Sarawak, governments have refused to survey indigenous lands, leaving the communities no choice but to carry out independent surveys themselves. Such maps have proved crucial in the subsequent assertion of land claims through the courts or, where government agencies have proved open to discussion, have provided a sound basis for the renegotiation of indigenous land claims, as in South Africa (Poole, 1995a,b, 2004; Colchester, 2000; Eghenter, 2000).

Although some governments have proved hostile to these initiatives, even going so far in the case of Sarawak to make such mapping illegal, in general there has been a widespread appreciation that “social mapping” techniques provide an important means by which indigenous people can enter into dialogue with decision-makers and land-use planners on a more equal basis (UNFF, 2001).

COMMUNAL TENURE AND SUSTAINABLE NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Since the 1978 Jakarta Forestry Congress, an appreciation of the need for a peoplecentred approach to natural resource management has steadily gained ground.

Forest management systems that give rights to communities have been widely promoted but only recently has the realization grown that effective community-based management requires tenure reforms and not just shared or devolved management (Colchester, 1992; Wily and Mbaya, 2001; Sarin, 2001).

Conservation agencies have also begun to accept the value of community-based conservation. In 1994, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) revised its protected area categories to accept that protected areas could be owned and managed by, inter alia, indigenous peoples and since then new policies and guidelines advocating a respect for indigenous peoples rights. In 1996, following several years of intensive engagement with indigenous peoples’ organizations, the World Wide Fund for Nature-International adopted a “Statement of Principles on Indigenous Peoples and Conservation”, which endorsed the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, accepts that constructive engagement with indigenous peoples must start with a recognition of their rights, upholds the rights of indigenous peoples to own, manage and control their lands and territories, and to benefit from the application of their knowledge (WWF, 1996). In the same year, the World Conservation Congress, the paramount body of the World Conservation Union, adopted seven different resolutions on indigenous peoples that, inter alia, recognize indigenous peoples land rights (IUCN, 1997). In 1999, the World Commission on Protected Areas adopted guidelines for putting these principles into practice (Beltrán and Phillips, 2000).

A series of regional conferences organized by the Forest Peoples Programme and the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, in collaboration with regional indigenous peoples’ organizations, have revealed only a few cases where these principles are already being applied. More often, especially in Asia and Africa, application of these principles is still a long way off, some of the main obstacles being:

By contrast, the conferences revealed a genuine wish on the part of both indigenous peoples and conservationists to find mutually acceptable solutions that accept their different but complementary priorities and goals (Gray, Padellada and Newing, 1998; Colchester and Erni, 1999; Nelson and Hossack, 2003).

Responding to such findings, the 5th World Parks Congress in 2003 announced a “new paradigm” of protected areas that would respect indigenous peoples’ rights, halt forced relocation and restitute indigenous peoples’ lands expropriated in the past without consent to make way for protected area. The 7th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity endorsed such an approach in early 2004 (www.forestpeoples.org).

COMMUNAL TENURE AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

As noted, a widely held but little substantiated prejudice among development specialists is that collective land ownership acts as a brake on development by discouraging individual entrepreneurship, investment in more productive land use, the use of land as collateral for loans and active land markets. From this point of view, the dismantling of collective tenures is seen as a necessary step towards the promotion of modern agriculture and land use. Community-level studies in Guatemala have shown that collective land management systems tend to be more conservative in terms of crop-choice and to prioritize self-sufficiency and food security above immediate profits. Individualized land ownership, by contrast, has been favoured by those prepared to take more risks and who also eschew customary patterns of sharing wealth and surplus. However, good data are lacking on which systems most benefit people as whole in the longer term (Annis, 1987).

In Africa, research on communal tenure undertaken by the World Bank has revealed that communal tenure systems are dynamic and flexible, allocating individual, household and family rights within communal properties. These systems have shown that they are able to balance demands, take into account the welfare of less well-off members of the community and cushion farmers against poverty (Migot-Adholla et al., 1991; Blarel et al., 1992; Place and Hazell, 1992). Summarizing this research, the World Bank concluded in its 1992 World Development Report:

... indigenous systems of communal tenure appear flexible enough to evolve with the increasing scarcity of land and the commensurate need for greater security of land rights. At the same time, the retention of some community control over landownership helps prevent the emergence of landlessness

(World Bank, 1992: p. 144).

Moreover, what those who advocate the dismantling of collective tenures so often fail to take into account is that politically marginal groups, such as indigenous peoples, often fare particularly badly in “free” land markets of individualized holdings, because cultural differences, social marginalization and discrimination prevent them having equal access to information, technical assistance, the administration, capital, justice and markets. Not all indigenous peoples do seek to maintain their collective land ownership systems, but development specialists need to accept that those who wish to maintain their customary regimes may have good reasons for so choosing.

The process of ethnic reaffirmation among indigenous peoples during the 1970s and 1980s was accompanied by their rejection of top-down integrationist development projects. Indigenous peoples’ organizations and grassroots NGOs began to advocate an alternative development concept, based on indigenous territorial autonomy, self-determination and “selfdevelopment” (Bonfil Battalla, 1981). Self-development or “ethnodevelopment” is about indigenous peoples themselves controlling the development process to recuperate, maintain or enhance livelihood security and quality of life according to their own priorities (Gray, 1997: pp. 252 - 254). This bottom-up approach is based on the assertion that development interventions can only be effective if they build on existing social strengths and are consistent with local cultural values and aspirations (see also Bebbington and Thiele, 1993: pp. 36 - 37). For indigenous peoples, the first precondition for effective ethnodevelopment is security of land tenure and local jurisdiction over natural resources within an ethnic territory. Once the resource base is secured, indigenous communities use their understanding of their needs, strengths and weaknesses to design and implement grassroots development projects.

AID AGENCY EXPERIENCES

In the 1990s, in response to their own empirical surveys in Latin America that revealed a strong correlation between ethnicity and poverty (Psacharopoulos and Patrinos, 1994a,b), the World Bank began to explore possible strategies to tackle indigenous poverty. In rethinking its approach to indigenous peoples, the Bank has sought to move away from reactive “mitigation” and damage control towards a proactive “do good” development targeting indigenous peoples. Following an initial study that recognized the value of “ethnodevelopment”, the Bank commissioned a survey of 28 “successful” indigenous development cases in Latin America. The study identified ten preconditions for effective indigenous development (Partridge, Uquillas and Johns, 1996; Roper, Frechione and De Walt, 1996: pp. 4 - 5):

In 1997, the Bank put these principles into practice in Ecuador in its first ever national-level poverty reduction project targeting indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian peoples. The project was developed directly with indigenous peoples’ organizations and the government and contains land titling components for lowland areas and land restitution for land-hungry communities in the uplands. Field projects are supported on the basis of local development plans elaborated by base communities. Based on the aspirations of local communities, the project has sought to combine land tenure, food security, natural resource and water regularization, education, institutional strengthening and support for cultural events (van Nieuwkoop and Uquillas, 1999; Griffiths, 1999).

The ethnodevelopment approach is being used in World Bank and Global Environment Facility (GEF) natural resource management projects including, among others, the Peru - Sierra Natural Resources Project, the Paraguay - Natural Resource Management Project and the Panama Atlantic Biological Corridor Project.

The Bank is now extending its ethnodevelopment portfolio via learning and innovation loans (LILs) targeting indigenous poverty in Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. The main goal of these projects is to build up indigenous and government capacity to administer development projects. These pilot projects may be followed by larger long-term national-level projects (World Bank, 2000, 2001). The willingness of governments to take on these dedicated loans for indigenous peoples indicates that they are beginning to show some interest in the cultural and social aspects of development and poverty reduction. This is a major departure from past government policies that sought to apply western technological solutions to alleviate poverty among “backward” indigenous communities.

Other transnational agencies such as the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) have also adopted the ethnodevelopment model in their field projects with indigenous communities in Bolivia, Brazil and Colombia. Several of these projects combine land tenure, food security and sustainable income components (IFAD-CAF, 1998; Iturri and Schulze, 1998).

The regional development banks are also beginning to develop similar approaches. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has followed the World Bank’s lead and recently carried out a detailed survey of land titling and indigenous peoples in Latin America with the aim of developing a programme to address the economic and cultural needs of indigenous peoples, within the framework of its agricultural and poverty alleviation programmes. The review found that hitherto the IDB had paid only limited attention to indigenous peoples in its land administration and land titling projects. Projects directly targeting indigenous peoples and aimed at securing their rights are only now being contemplated by the IDB, but previous land titling projects have shied away from addressing collective tenures. The review is critical of new IDB land titling projects in Ecuador and Peru, which aim to provide individual titles to peasants and indigenous highlanders, in order to promote more vigorous land markets:

The programs were not designed on the basis of careful baseline studies in those communities, nor does the available project documentation point to detailed knowledge of communal land tenure systems or their degree of market interaction.

(Plant and Hvalkof, 2001: p. 4)

The report stresses the lack of knowledge about the connections between poverty and land tenure patters and recommends a much more engaged policy interaction with indigenous peoples. It warns against imposed visions that assume a priori that individualized land holdings and vigorous land markets provide the best options for indigenous peoples.

The Asian Development Bank adopted a policy on indigenous peoples in 1998 and is currently in the process of developing a poverty alleviation strategy targeting indigenous peoples. Entitled “Technical assistance for capacity-building for indigenous peoples/ethnic minority issues and poverty reduction”, the programme has commenced with poverty assessments of indigenous peoples in four countries, as well as a general overview of indigenous tenure regimes in Asia - Pacific. These studies have yet to be released, but a preliminary finding of the Indonesian country study is that insecure tenure of indigenous peoples is a major contributor to poverty (Safitri and Bosko, 2001).

The African Development Bank stands out as the one regional development bank yet to develop a policy on indigenous peoples or a culturally tuned approach to dealing with land tenure.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The cases of participatory and collaborative demarcation, titling and joint management initiatives identified in this article provide examples of best practice that need to be mainstreamed in legal frameworks and replicated in practice at the country level. Similarly, the multiple obstacles to the effective implementation of progressive constitutional reforms need to be eliminated. Together, the lessons from the positive and negative findings generate a number of recommendations for strategies to improve indigenous land tenure and livelihood security:

Although there is a need to support positive joint management and selfdevelopment initiatives, there is general agreement that there is also a need to rethink wider macroeconomic policies that create pressures on indigenous lands and undermine their livelihood (Dorner, 2001). Devising these alternative sustainable development strategies will require effective and meaningful dialogue with indigenous peoples’ own representatives. In many countries, indigenous peoples’ organizations have developed alternative agrarian and development policies that are not acted on by the government. Progress towards developing new cross-sectoral and sustainable land-use policies will require policy-makers to take indigenous development proposals seriously.

All these recommendations point to the need to improve the participation of indigenous organizations in national development planning and democratic processes. As well as the specific recommendations listed above, one key strategy for improving land policies over the medium to long term must therefore be to increase support for the institutional strengthening of indigenous peoples’ representative community-based and political organizations.

REFERENCES

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