Publications
Land and Resource Rights
WRI’s Land and Resource Rights project aims to ensure that rural people and the urban poor have secure rights over their land and natural resources.
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On Equal Ground: Promising Practices for Realizing Women’s Rights in Collectively Held Lands
by Celine Salcedo-La Viña and Renée Giovarelli - February 2021This report discusses women’s tenure security in collectively held lands and provides promising practices for ensuring women not only have legally and socially recognized rights in collectively held land but also are empowered to exercise their rights. The report combines legal analysis and literature review with in-depth case studies of five indigenous and customary communities – in Mexico, Jordan, Nepal, Indonesia, and Cameroon – who have achieved more gender-equitable collective land tenure systems.
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Undermining Rights: Indigenous Lands and Mining in the Amazon
by Patricia Quijano Vallejos, Peter Veit, Pedro Tipula and Katie Reytar - October 2020This new WRI report estimates that legal and illegal mining in the Amazon now cover more than 20% of Indigenous lands – over 450,000 square kilometers. It also finds that Indigenous lands with mining experienced higher incidences of tree cover loss than on those without – at least three times greater in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. Yet national laws continue to favor companies over Indigenous communities, the study’s legal analysis reveals. It sheds light on this uneven playing field and offers recommendations for Amazonian governments and mining companies.
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The Scramble for Land Rights
Reducing Inequity between Communities and Companies
by Laura Notess, Peter Veit, Iliana Monterroso, Andiko, Emmanuel Sulle, Anne M. Larson, Anne-Sophie Gindroz, Julia Quaedvlieg and Andrew Williams - July 2018Indigenous and community lands, crucial for rural livelihoods, are typically held under informal customary arrangements.
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A Fair Share for Women: Toward More Equitable Land Compensation and Resettlement in Tanzania and Mozambique
by Celine Salcedo-La Viña and Laura Notess - March 2018Advancing women’s land right rights is critical to achieving gender equality. But WRI’s new working paper A Fair Share for Women: Toward More Equitable Land Compensation and Resettlement in Tanzania and Mozambique finds that, despite constitutional commitments to gender equality, governments in Tanzania and Mozambique are not protecting women from harmful commercial land deals. State officials’ failure to close gaps in land laws and overhaul ineffective regulations shortchanges women who receive little to no payment for their families’ land, while attempts to amplify women’s voices in community land decision-making are also falling short.
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Climate Benefits, Tenure Costs
The Economic Case For Securing Indigenous Land Rights in the Amazon
by Helen Ding, Peter Veit, Erin Gray, Katie Reytar, Juan-Carlos Altamirano, Allen Blackman and Benjamin Hodgdon - October 2016 -
Making Women’s Voices Count In Community Decision-Making On Land Investments
by Celine Salcedo-La Viña and Maitri Morarji - July 2016Research by WRI and other organizations has shown that while national laws governing commercial land-based investments often mandate community participation in decision-making processes, in practice community participation remains weak, particularly for women. Women’s specific vulnerabilities, contributions to agriculture, and role as primary food providers in rural households necessitate their engagement in land acquisition and investment processes.
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Encroaching on Land and Livelihoods: How National Expropriation Laws Measure Up Against International Standards
by Nicholas Tagliarino - June 2016Encroaching on Land and Livelihoods examines whether national expropriation laws in 30 countries across Asia and Africa follow the international standards established in Section 16 of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGTs).
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The Economic Costs and Benefits of Securing Community Forest Tenure
Evidence From Brazil and Guatemala
by Erin Gray, Peter Veit, Juan-Carlos Altamirano, Helen Ding, Piotr Rozwalka, Iván Zúñiga, Matthew Witkin, Fernanda Gabriela Borger, Andrea Lucchesi, Paula Carvalho Pereda and Keyi Ando Ussami - November 2015Evidence is growing that tenure-secure community forests are associated with avoided deforestation and other ecosystem-service benefits. There are also economic and social benefits connected to communal management.
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Securing Rights, Combating Climate Change
How Strengthening Community Forest Rights Mitigates Climate Change
by Caleb Stevens, Robert Winterbottom, Jenny Springer and Katie Reytar - July 2014Note: The Executive Summary is also available for download in Bahasa Indonesia, German, French, Portuguese and Spanish.
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Avoiding the Resource Curse
Spotlight on Oil in Uganda
by Peter Veit, Carole Excell and Alisa Zomer - January 2011Uganda has made significant progress in codifying the rights of access to information (ATI) and participation, and toward putting in place the
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Mapping a Healthier Future
How Spatial Analysis Can Guide Pro-Poor Water and Sanitation Planning in Uganda
by Stephen Adam, Norbert Henninger, Florence Landsberg, Uganda Ministry of Health, Uganda Ministry of Water and Environment, Uganda Bureau of Statistics, International Livestock Research Institute and World Resources Institute - October 2009Improving water supply, sanitation, and hygiene is central to Uganda’s successful development. Such measures would affect all Ugandans and are important to every sector of the economy, but they are particularly relevant to the poor.
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Mapping a Better Future
How Spatial Analysis Can Benefit Wetlands and Reduce Poverty in Uganda
by Norbert Henninger and Florence Landsberg - May 2009Uganda has abundant natural wealth. Its varied wetlands, including grass swamps, mountain bogs, seasonal floodplains, and swamp forests, provide services and products worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year, making them a vital contributor to the national economy. Ugandans
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Building Local Democracy through Natural Resource Interventions
An Environmentalist’s Responsibility
by Jesse Ribot - November 2008In practice, everything but democratic decentralization has taken place in the name of ‘democratic decentralization’ reforms: privatization, administrative deconcentration, NGOization, selective civil society inclusion, participatory processes, co-management, and committee-based project implement
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On Whose Behalf
Legislative Representation and the Environment in Africa
by Peter Veit, Gracian Z. Banda, Alfred Brownell, Prudence Galega, George Mpundu Kanja, Rugemeleza Nshala, Shamiso Mtisi, Benson Owuor Ochieng, Alda Salomao and Godber Tumushabe - September 2008This report presents the findings of research on critical incentives and disincentives to legislative representation in Africa and provides a number of policy and program recommendations.
Four critical aspects of representation are discussed in detail:
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Protected Areas and Property Rights
Democratizing Eminent Domain in East Africa
by Peter Veit, Rugemeleza Nshala, Michael Ocheing' Odhiambo and Jacob Manyindo - June 2008Protected areas are a traditional means for pursuing wildlife management and have become increasingly central to conservation strategies in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. In East Africa, the future of biodiversity rests largely on the security and sustainability of the protected estate.
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The Poverty of Forestry Policy
Double Standards on an Uneven Playing Field
by Jesse Ribot and Anne M. Larson - October 2007Can policies designed to maximize exploitation by elites benefit the people who live in forests? Forestry policy throughout the developing world originates from European "scientific" forestry traditions exported during the colonial period. These policies were implemented by
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Agricultural Subsidies, Poverty, and the Environment
Supporting a Domestic Reform Agenda in Developing Countries
by Antonio La Vina, Lindsey Fransen, Paul Faeth and Yuko Kurauchi - January 2007What policies are needed so that reforms in agricultural subsidies in developed countries can translate into real benefits for poor farmers and for the environment in developing countries?
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Profiling Local-Level Outcomes of Environmental Decentralizations
The Case of Cameroon’s Forests in the Congo Basin
by Rene Oyono - June 2005Since the mid-1990s, Cameroon has launched a process of decentralization of the management of its forests. Among other innovations, this decentralization process has transferred powers over forests and financial benefits accruing from their exploitation to local communities.
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Constitutional Reform and Environmental Legislative Representation in Uganda - A Case Study of Butamira Forest Reserve in Uganda
by Godber Tumushabe and Arthur Bainomugisha - November 2004The overall objective of this study is to analyze cases where Members of Parliament have taken the concerns of their electorates to Parliament. The Butamira Forest Reserve has been selected as the case study. The Forest Reserve which is located in Kagoma
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One step forward, two steps back? Paradoxes of natural resources management decentralisation in Cameroon
by Phil Rene Oyono - October 2004Theory informs us that decentralisation, a process through which powers, responsibilities and resources are devolved by the central state to lower territorial entities and regionally/locally elected bodies, increases efficiency, participation, equity, and environmental sustainability.
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Waiting for Democracy
The Politics of Choice in Natural Resource Decentralization
by Jesse Ribot - September 2004Decentralizations and other environmental governance reforms are taking place around the world. They are affecting and re-configuring the local institutions that are the basis of natural resource management. Little is known about the effects of current reforms, however, much is assumed.
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Legislative Representation and the Environment
Lessons from a case study of Cameroon
by Prudence Tangham Galega and Phil Rene Oyono - April 2004This policy brief highlights the existing incentives that provide an opportunity for legislators to effectively perform as well as the disincentives which impede the legislator’s effectiveness.
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Democratic Decentralization of Natural Resources
Institutionalizing popular participation
by Jesse Ribot - October 2002This brief presents preliminary findings and recommendations from research on natural resources in decentralization efforts around the world.
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