Challenging the State: Devolutionary Tenure Transitions for Saving and Expanding Forests

Abstract

I address a contentious element in forest property relations to illustrate the role of ownership in protecting and expanding of forest cover by examining the extent to which rural communities may legally own forests. The premise is that whilst state-owned protected areas have contributed enormously to forest survival, this has been insufficiently successful to justify the mass dispossession of customary land-owning communities this has entailed. Further, I argue that state co-option of community lands is unwarranted. Rural communities on all continents ably demonstrate the will and capacity to conserve forests – provided their customary ownership is legally recognized. I explore the property rights reforms now enabling this. The replication potential of community protected forestlands is great enough to deserve flagship status in global commitments to expand forest including in the upcoming new Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).