Evolution of Land Tenure in Incentivizing Forest Carbon Activities

Matt SommervilleUSAID Tenure and Global Climate Change

Project24 March 2015

Resource rights have important implications for REDD+/ forest carbon success• New and existing procedural and

substantive rights

• Define legitimate stakeholders

• Establishes rights to benefit and right to participation

• Creates assurances for investors on responsible groups

REDD+: Incentivize reducing deforestation and increasing carbon sequestration in land-use

REDD+ and land and resource tenure

• Project level • May not impact policy but tend to be

working with a discrete population with clear issues.

• Landscape/jurisdictional/national approaches• Can impact policy, but have diverse range

or stakeholders rights.

4Source: Climate Focus, Standards for Results-Based REDD+ Finance

Standards for REDD+ implementation

Carbon Fund Methodological Framework

UN-REDD Guidelines

BioCarbon Fund

Forest Investment Program

REDD+ SES

Tenure in current standards:

UNFCCC Cancun Agreements: “Requests developing country Parties…to address…land tenure issues, gender considerations…ensuring the full and effective participation of relevant stakeholders…”

Clean Development Mechanism: “A description of legal title to the land, rights of access to the sequestered carbon, current land tenure and land use.”

Carbon Fund Methodological Framework: Information on land tenure and resource rights can help inform sound ER Program design, as it may help to identify rights-holders…, can guide the targeted design of the ER Program Measures, can contribute to efforts to draft benefit sharing plans, and can demonstrate the ER Program Entity’s ability to transfer Title to ERs.

• Assessment of land and resource tenure in the Accounting Area. • Making process on land tenure as a non-carbon benefit.

Tenure in current standards:

Verified Carbon Standard: “Project participants shall define the project boundary at the beginning of a proposed project activity and shall provide the geographical coordinates of lands to be included…[L]and administration and tenure records (are required).”

Climate, Community, and Biodiversity (CCB): “Description of current land use and customary and legal property rights including community property … identifying any ongoing or unresolved conflicts…and describing any disputes over land tenure that were resolved during the last ten/twenty years.”

Plan Vivo: “Must be secure (land tenure or use rights) so that there can be clear ownership, traceability, and accountability for carbon reduction or sequestration benefits.”

Evolution of tenure in institutions from 2009 - 2015Carbon Fund:

– Advanced in recognition of role of understanding resource rights in program design

• If activities are contingent on recognized rights – requires an action plan for legal recognition of ownership, occupation or usage…

• ER program encourages contribution to clarifying tenure in accounting areas.

– Struggle with transferring title to emission reductions

FIP: – Launch of Indigenous Platform and Communities Grant Mechanism

Evolution of Tenure in Institutions from 2009 - 2015.

CCBA: – Increase in the years of conflict that the standard goes back.

Overall Project Level ExperiencesInconsistent treatment of tenure in project level auditing– Use of title alone to demonstrate secure tenure.– Willingness to credit in areas where there are no

documented ownership or management rights locally or in legal framework.

Project PathwaysSupport the documentation of rights of local stakeholders• Uruguay – CDM project • Ethiopia – Humbo Assisted Natural

Regeneration• Uganda – Plan VivoSupport the documentation of rights of project developers• Congo – North Pikounda – Concession permit

with further MEFDD agreement of project developer’s right to title and ownership

• DRC – Mai Ndombe – Logging concession local rights through Cahier de Charge

Inform subsequent legal reforms• Cameroon

Country-level PathwaysREDD+ not large enough to transition tenure regimes, but…Can incentivize registration of easements/co-management arrangements• ZambiaDevelopment of national level participation and consent frameworks• Strategic Environmental and Social Assessment ProcessEnforcement of existing tenure rights.• BrazilIndigenous Rights Documentation and Titling• GuyanaClarify rights to benefit from other resources • Costa Rica/GuatemalaClarify tree tenure • Mali/Ghana/Zambia

Current limitations

Avoiding tenure issues / conflict• “Illegal squatting resulted from confusion as to

the exact location of the Northern boundary of the property. Due to the sensitive nature of land tenure… it was decided not to evict these people, but rather exclude this encroached area from the accounting area…best option is to exclude the encroached area from carbon accounting as including it will most likely make it necessary to relocate the occupants which could lead to unnecessary conflict.”

Signing away rights that people don’t actually have.

• “Recipient households will sign an agreement acknowledging that XXX is the owner of the rights to the emissions reductions generated”

Title to Carbon (Carbon Rights)• What is an emission reduction credit and what interests

does it provide?• Commodity or service• Interest in the land

• Who has the right to sell and trade carbon credits, and create long-term liabilities/easements on land-use?

• Most governments have the right to regulate pollutants. • Can link the creation of a credit to the government to fit

inside a sub-national registry. • Government then devolves the credit ownership to the

landowner or the developer. • Taxing credit generation and sales.

Lessons Learned

• Projects and countries are using creative approaches to address tenure in the context of program design, but these differ dramatically by country and project.

• Many programs lack an adequate legal and institutional consideration of rights and ownership

• Mapping rights as the relate to intervention options

• Document local rights among proponent/title owner rights, and use these as part of negotiation process

Learn more and contact us …

http://usaidlandtenure.net/issues/global-climate-change