Land tenure has proven to be one of the most vexing issues in a peace process. The disintegration of land and property rights institutions during armed conflict yet the importance of land and property to the conduct of conflict present particular dilemmas for a peace process attempting to reconfigure aspects of societal relations important to recovery. In this regard understanding what happens to land tenure as a set of social relations during and subsequent to armed conflict is important to the derivation of useful tools for managing tenure issues in a peace process. This article examines the development of multiple, informal "normative orders" regarding land tenure during armed conflict and how these are brought together in problematic form in a peace process. While there can be significant development of tenurial legal pluralism during armed conflict, it is during a peace process that problems associated with different approaches to land claim, access, use, and disputing become especially acute, because an end to hostilities drives land issues to the fore for large numbers of people over a short time frame.

The relationship between migration and deforestation in the developing world continues to receive significant attention. However beyond direct population increase, the precise mechanisms that operate within the intersection of migrant/host land rights remain largely unexamined. Where migrants are provided with land and rights by the State and/or local communities, how such rights are perceived by the migrants is of primary importance in their interaction with land resources, and in aggregate it impacts the development opportunities and environmental repercussions of migration. The authors analyze the operative aspects of land rights reception (as opposed to provision) by migrant populations, and the relationship between this reception and deforestation. The article examines a case in Zambia to analyze how tenurial constructs, emerging from the way rights are perceived by migrants, lead to the continued clearing of areas much larger than needed for cultivation, even when the arrangement appears counter‐productive in terms of land rights provision and labour allocation. While valuable policy efforts have focused on providing resource rights to migrants, how such rights are received and the relationship of this reception to resource management needs greater policy attention.

Abstract:The food security crisis and international "land grabs" have drawn renewed attention to the role of natural resource competition in the livelihoods of the rural poor. While significant empirical research has focused on diagnosing the links between natural resource competition and (violent) conflict, much less has focused on the dynamics of whether and how resource competition can be transformed to strengthen social-ecological resilience and mitigate conflict. Focusing on this latter theme, this review synthesizes evidence from cases in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Building on an analytical framework designed to enable such comparative analysis, we present several propositions about the dynamics of conflict and collective action in natural resource management, and a series of recommendations for action. These propositions are: collective action in natural resource management is influenced by the social-ecological and governance context; natural resource management institutions affect the incentives for conflict or cooperation; and, the outcomes of these interactions influence future conflict risk, livelihoods, and resource sustainability. Action recommendations concern policies addressing resource tenure, conflict resolution mechanisms, and social inequalities, as well as strategies to strengthen collective action institutions in the natural resource sectors and to enable more equitable engagement by marginalized groups in dialogue and negotiation over resource access and use.

Natural resource management increasingly plays a pivotal role in the transition of post-confl ict societies towards a lasting peace. This role is not limited to societies where confl ict has been directly fueled by high-value natural resources such as timber or minerals. Unresolved issues surrounding land tenure administration can reignite tensions, and the inability of government to deliver key services (water, food, shelter, and other resourcedependent essentials for life) can destabilize weakened societies that are recovering from confl ict. In addition to eliminating these potential obstacles to peace, good natural resource management can provide opportunities for confi dence-building measures, serve as models of effective and equitable governance, and advance other peace-building objectives. Since the Second World War, there have been more than 300 major armed confl icts around the world. 1 The incidence of confl ict has intensifi ed in the years following the end of the Cold War: The period since 1990 has been marked by a proliferation of violent confl icts, with nearly all of them located in the developing and transition countries, and many in the poorest countries. The character of these confl icts has been changing. While the incidence of interstate confl icts has not increased, the incidence of intrastate confl icts, including armed civil confl icts reached a peak in the early 1990s, with over one third of the world's countries affected by serious warfare at some point during the 1990s. 2 As the vast majority of armed confl icts in the last sixty years have occurred in developing countries, most people directly affected by confl ict live close

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