Public lands, fisheries and forests
Where states own or control land, fisheries and forests, they should determine the use and control of these resources in light of broader social, economic and environmental objectives. The Voluntary Guidelines call for the recognition and protection of publicly-owned land, fisheries and forests that are collectively used and managed. They advocate that states should determine which of the public land, fisheries and forests should be retained for public use, and that policies should be developed and implemented for the allocation of tenure rights to others, and where appropriate, the delegation of responsibilities for tenure governance. For more information see Section 8 on Public land, fisheries and forests.
In the Kyrgyz Republic, public lands include all pastures which cannot be held privately. Pastures were traditionally used by community groups and they provide food security for about 65 percent of the Kyrgyz population. The 2009 Pastures Law decentralized the sustainable use and management of pastures by transferring the pasture use and management rights to pasture users’ unions with pasture committees as executive bodies at community level. The Voluntary Guidelines are embedded in the work, which includes gender equity assessments.
FAO supported the capacity development of pasture committees giving them the knowledge and skills to implement the Pasture Law.
FAO provided technical and financial assistance to the Kyrgyz Republic on the drafting and implementation of the Pasture Law and byelaws on community pasture tenure rights demarcation and registration through the FAO-World Bank Cooperative Programme.
In Mongolia, public lands also include pastures. The Voluntary Guidelines led to increased support and capacity for the development of a pastoral land law. The Voluntary Guidelines are being used as the reference set of principles.
National workshops provided a forum for participants to identify ways to improve the draft pastoral land law, giving the people of the Kyrgyz Republic the opportunity to share experiences of implementing its innovative pastures law. The national multi-stakeholder workshops also served to review an assessment of tenure governance in the forest sector, which used an assessment framework based on the Voluntary Guidelines.
FAO has provided technical support to Mongolia since 2014, with financial support from Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom (DFID).