This paper analyzes whether national laws acknowledge indigenous peoples and other rural communit... more 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. While 71 percent of countries declare water to be a public resource, this belies the substantial existence of privately owned water. In 29 percent of countries, private water is an identified legal category, and in many other countries obtainable rights to water are sufficiently substantial to imply lawful possession. Communities are beneficiaries mainly where customary rights are accorded status as property rights, or where ownership of public lands and water are devolved to rural collectives. However, opposite trends of nationalization and regulation of water suggest that while legal recognition of community land ownership may rise in the future, this will not necessarily include waters on the land. Irrespective of tenure, rural communities in 72 of 77 countries (93.5 percent) are legally assured access to water for domestic purposes. This is consistent with the rising definition of safe drinking water as a human right, although access does not necessarily come free of cost.
The areas of state-designated PAs and other forms of conservation add up to more than the total a... more The areas of state-designated PAs and other forms of conservation add up to more than the total area under area-based conservation because they overlap spatially. † Indigenous lands in Brazil are reported to WDPA and counted to the total percentage of land protected in the country.
A new report offers evidence that the modest investments needed to secure land rights for indigen... more A new report offers evidence that the modest investments needed to secure land rights for indigenous communities will generate billions in returns—economically, socially and environmentally—for local communities and the world's changing climate. The report, Climate Benefits, Tenure Costs: The Economic Case for Securing Indigenous Land Rights, quantifies for the first time the economic value of securing land rights for the communities who live in and protect forests, with a focus on Colombia, Brazil, and Bolivia
The devolution of decision-making powers over natural resources to publicly accountable local aut... more The devolution of decision-making powers over natural resources to publicly accountable local authorities is frequently advocated as a means of achieving social development and enhancing environmental management. The experience of Uganda’s current decentralization reforms, however, suggests that the extent to which such benefits occur depends on the character of the decentralization. Uganda’s decentralization is renowned internationally for its local origins, participatory character and political commitment. However, an analysis of the reforms from an environmental perspective indicates three major problem areas. Firstly, there has not been an effective or consistent devolution of powers over natural resource management. In the case of forestry, for example, powers have been decentralized and re-centralized several times since the reforms began in 1993. The reason for this is that decentralization has been used primarily to resolve the government’s financial and legitimacy problems,...
Wildlife in Tanzania has been property and responsibility of the state since the colonial period.... more Wildlife in Tanzania has been property and responsibility of the state since the colonial period. In the late 1900s, however, the government ushered in new policies that granted wildlife user rights to communities that established Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) on Village Land. WMAs offer rural people new economic opportunities, but they also come with strict conditions. To date, WMAs have not achieved their objectives of conservation and local development. This brief explores the decentralization of wildlife user rights and their impact on local communities.
Kenya drew international attention in 2007 when widespread violence broke out following president... more Kenya drew international attention in 2007 when widespread violence broke out following presidential elections, resulting in the death of 1,300 people and the displacement of as many as 600,000 individuals. Much of the violence was linked to long-standing land disputes. Kenya has endured a long history of land conflicts, dating back to its colonial period when first the Germans and then the British promulgated policies and practices that alienated people from their customary land and pitted one ethnic group against another. these policies were extended after independence. ethnic divisions, especially over traditional land, were exploited for short-term political ends. Kenya's new Constitution of 2010, however, provides hope that some historical injustices will be addressed.
Although governance innovations that involve moving powers closer to the citizens are receiving i... more Although governance innovations that involve moving powers closer to the citizens are receiving increasing policy support, their implementation is not without problems. This study uses a review and case study approach to critically examine the contradictions and ambiguities of "peasant empowerment" in a co-management venture between Zimbabwean foresters and peasant communities. The institutional infrastructure for comanagement was derived from and superimposed upon a complex web of local power bases, further fragmenting existing networks of interest, affection and association, and thus limiting the scope for co-management. The legislative environment, at least during the pre-2000 period, supported the expropriation and control of the land and resources of peasant communities, thus contradicting the underlying principle of co-management, which is that of equal partnership. Powers over natural resources have remained centralized in the national state; the little power that h...
On 21 April 2011, the government of Uganda signed into law new regulations for implementing Ugand... more On 21 April 2011, the government of Uganda signed into law new regulations for implementing Uganda’s Access to Information (ATI) Act of 2005. 1 The ATI Regulations 2 were long awaited and widely welcomed, since many local and international advocates believed their absence had hindered full implementation of the Act, and stymied efforts to increase transparency and accountability. The Regulations support implementation of the ATI Act in a number of important ways. For example, they establish procedures for citizens to request government-held information and for government to respond to citizen requests. But the Regulations also include a number of burdensome provisions that make access unnecessarily costly and difficult and, as such, they are not in the spirit of the strong right to information provision found in Uganda’s Constitution.
With gold prices skyrocketing and demand for other minerals on the rise, mining poses a growing t... more With gold prices skyrocketing and demand for other minerals on the rise, mining poses a growing threat to communities and ecosystems around the world. Conducting geospatial analysis of the Amazon biogeographic region, this report estimates, for the first time, the full extent of legal, large-scale mining concessions and illegal mining operations on Indigenous territories within the rainforest. It finds that, together, legal and illegal mining now cover more than 20% of Indigenous lands, endangering hundreds of Indigenous communities and critical ecosystems across 450,000 square kilometers. Mining, the study also shows, is polluting at least 30 Amazonian rivers and eroding communities’ proven ability to prevent deforestation. From 2000 to 2015, Indigenous lands with mining activities had higher incidences of tree cover loss than those without mining. In Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, for example, forest loss was at least three times higher in Indigenous territories with mining operations...
Indigenous and community lands, crucial for rural livelihoods, are typically held under informal ... more Indigenous and community lands, crucial for rural livelihoods, are typically held under informal customary tenure arrangements. This can leave the land vulnerable to outside commercial interests, so communities may seek to formalize their land rights in a government registry and obtain an official land document. But this process can be time-consuming and complex, and in contrast, companies can acquire land relatively quickly and find shortcuts around regulatory burdens. This article reviews and maps 19 community land formalization and 14 company land acquisition procedures is 15 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Comparing community and company procedures identifies multiple sources of inequity.
Improving land tenure security (LTS) is a significant challenge for sustainable development. The ... more Improving land tenure security (LTS) is a significant challenge for sustainable development. The Sustainable Development Goals and other recent global initiatives have renewed and increased the need to improve LTS to address climate change, biodiversity loss, food security, poverty reduction, and other challenges. At the same time, policymakers are increasingly interested in evidence‐based policies and decisions, creating urgency for practitioners and researchers to work together. Yet, incongruent characterizations of LTS (identifying the key components of LTS) by practitioners and researchers can limit collaboration and information flows necessary for research and effective policymaking. While there are systematic reviews of how LTS is characterized in the academic literature, no prior study has assessed how practitioners characterize LTS. We address this gap using data from 54 interviews of land tenure practitioners working in 10 countries of global importance for biodiversity and...
Working Papers contain preliminary research, analysis, findings, and recommendations. They are ci... more Working Papers contain preliminary research, analysis, findings, and recommendations. They are circulated to stimulate timely discussion and critical feedback and to influence ongoing debate on emerging issues. Most working papers are eventually published in another form and their content may be revised.
Uganda has made significant progress in codifying the rights of access to information (ATI) and p... more Uganda has made significant progress in codifying the rights of access to information (ATI) and participation, and toward putting in place the institutional infrastructure, including a regulatory framework, for the oil sector. Political roll-backs that are re-concentrating power in the executive branch of government and the growing scale of known oil reserves, however, may jeopardize these advances. In this context, the passage of a new law in the United States requiring companies that file annual reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to disclose the payments they make to host governments for the extraction of oil, natural gas and minerals, could help shore up transparency around investment in Uganda's extractives industry and avoid the failures in governance that have exposed other countries to the "resource curse."
Insecure land tenure plagues many developing and tropical regions, often where conservation conce... more Insecure land tenure plagues many developing and tropical regions, often where conservation concerns are highest. Conservation organizations have long focused on protected areas as tenure interventions, but are now thinking more comprehensively about whether and how to incorporate other land tenure strategies into their work, and how to more soundly ground such interventions on evidence of both conservation and human benefits. Through a review of the literature on land tenure security as it relates to conservation practice, predominantly in the tropics, we aim to help conservation practitioners consider and incorporate more appropriate land tenure security interventions into conservation strategies. We present a framework that identifies three common ways in which land tenure security can impact human and conservation outcomes, and suggest practical ways to distill tenure and tenure security issues for a given location. We conclude with steps for considering tenure security issues i...
Access to Information and Transparency Provisions in Petroleum Laws in Africa
New Approaches to the Governance of Natural Resources
Petroleum laws are being developed or reformed in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Recent di... more Petroleum laws are being developed or reformed in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Recent discoveries of oil and natural gas in Ghana, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Kenya, and other countries have led to the development of more comprehensive petroleum regulatory regimes (BBC, 2012; Guardian, 2012). Established producers, such as Nigeria, have also taken steps to reform their laws to address new contexts and challenges, including national and international demands for increased scrutiny and transparency in the extractive industry sector. For example, several governments and corporations have endorsed the voluntary disclosure standards of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).1 In Africa, Nigeria (2007) and Liberia (2009) have passed EITI legislation (EITI, 2009; NEITI, 2012).
Legislative representation and the environment in …, 2008
; and Mutuso Dhliwayo in Zimbabwe. The institutions these individuals represent are among Africa'... more ; and Mutuso Dhliwayo in Zimbabwe. The institutions these individuals represent are among Africa's premier public interest policy research, environmental law, and human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs). We would also like to thank the many other NGO leaders, government offi cials, members of parliament, university researchers, and donor representatives who contributed to the country-level research and participated in the
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Papers by Peter Veit