Presentation by Steven Lawry and Ruth Meinzen-Dick at “GLF Discussion Forum on Commons Tenure for a Common Future” on the first day of the Global Landscapes Forum 2015, in Paris, France alongside COP21. For more information go to: www.landscapes.org.

1. GLF Discussion Forum on Commons Tenure for a Common Future
5 December 2015, Paris
Investment in the sustainable commons:
conditions for commons-based enterprises
Steven Lawry and Ruth Meinzen-Dick

2. background
• Communities have secured stronger rights to common property over the
past 30 years (though much remains to be achieved)
• Rights movement supported by an effective advocacy campaigns, research,
and internationally agreed best practices, including VGGT, FPIC, and
agreements (Global Call to Action)
• Progress on rights draws attention to persistent poverty in many commons
communities
• Tenure security and rights clarification creates conditions for secure
investment and sharing of commons benefits.
• Attention now needed on building local governance
capacities and social and commercial enterprises capable of
generating economic benefits, fostering inclusive growth,
and securing investment.

3. The Proposition:
Inclusive growth leveraging the productive assets of
common lands is possible
Key elements:
• Equitable and secure resource tenure
• Locally appropriate mechanisms for managing natural resources, including
for assigning rights, responsibilities and benefits locally
• Appropriate local institutional arrangements for developing and managing
business relations with outside enterprises and investors (this capacity often
absent)
• Commercial or nonprofit service providers, for brokering deals, connecting
supply chains, building confidence
• Resource-based commodities or services valued by markets
• Market linkages via sustainable supply chains
• Efficient and effective enterprises and partners

4. FOCUS: Land and resource-based commodities or services
valued by markets
• High-value marketable commodities or services important
• Market conditions (favorable prices), organized supply chains, access to financial
services matter. Agri-business sector builds the supply chains; public sector
provides public goods, including roads, energy, security, land administration
services.
• Certification (of commodities and territories) connects producers to supply chains
and important markets with increasingly high ESG standards.
• [High certification standards can exclude smallholders. RSPO and FSC trying to adjust
certification standards to circumstances of smallholders]
• Volume of financial capital searching for high-ESG investment opportunities
growing (e.g. zero-deforestation pledges, certified commodities, social inclusion
standards more likely to attract capital as consumers demand grows for
sustainably produced commodities.)
• Territorial certification is gaining ground in Brazil. Certification of territories can
reduce market and social risks.
• CIFOR Landscape Fund

5. Namibia community conservancies
• 1996 law accorded ownership and
management rights of wildlife to
communities that establish
conservancies and adopt management
standards. (Nature Conservation
Amendment Act, 1996)
• By 2015, 82 conservancies
established; covering 162,000 sq. km
(19.7% of land area); generating
benefits for 189,000 people (9% of
population)
• 2014 principal sources of income:
Joint-Venture Tourism (43.5%);
Sustainable Wildlife Use (39.9%); Craft
Enterprises (5.2%); Natural Plant
Projects (5.2%)

6. Namibia community conservancies

7. Namibia: Benefits/Achievements
• 2014 total revenue, USD 8 million; since inception USD 48.7 million
• 1,700 full-time & 4,000 part-time jobs created (including 532 game guards);
income invested in local schools, clinics, water supplies; human/wildlife
conflict mitigation; greater perception of voice in governance of resources.
• Growth in wildlife population attributed to conservancies:
• Elephant: 7,600 in 1995; 20,000 in 2012
• Black rhino: 1980 near extinction; 2020 in 2014 (40% of Africa population)
• Lion range increased ten-fold between 1995 & 2013.
• 10,000+ head of game moved to conservancies since 1999, including sable,
giraffe, black rhino.

8. Namibia: Challenges/Problems to be addressed
• Generally weak institutional capacity of conservancies
• Declining or inadequate funding support for the CBNRM Programme
• Increasing human/wildlife conflict; need to increase household-level
benefits; competing land uses.
• Increased poaching of rhino and elephant by organized crime cartels
• Growing social media assaults on trophy hunting (40% of conservancy
revenue)
• A small number of conservancies generate most of the revenue, due to
location near major roads, tourist routes, quantity of game, and competing
land uses.
• Less visited conservancies provide important wildlife habitat/environmental
services but are under-compensated, raising concerns that farmers in those
areas will lose interest in the conservancy approach.(Suich, H. 2010)

9. Mayan Biosphere Reserve
• Located in northern Guatemala, in the department of El Petén
• Encompasses 2.1 million hectares of lowland tropical rainforest; Mayan
forests of Mexico and Guatemala make up the largest contiguous tropical
forest north of the Amazon.
• Established by Congressional Legislative Decree 5-90 established the MBR
in 1990; linked to the peace accord
• Five objectives: conserve biodiversity; maintain the ecological equilibrium of
the area; conserve cultural heritage; provide development alternatives
consistent with resource conservation; promote active participation of
society
• Three zones: Core zone (national parks, protected biotopes, wildlife
preserves) 36%; Multiple-use zone (40%); Buffer zone (24%)
• 14 concessions granted in the MUZ since 1995 (12 community and 2
industrial concessions); 25-year concession term.
• Community concession adopted from industrial concession model

10. Mayan Biosphere Reserve
Credit: Hugo
Ahlenius,
UNEP/GRID-Arendal

11. Biophysical and socio-economic outcomes
• Management of principal NTFP Xade improved; lower off-take, higher
quality; higher price
• Annual deforestation rate 2001-2009 0.5% compared to pre-concession
(1991) rate of 1.5%. (2.0% per year in Peten outside of concessions.)
• Incomes in forested concessions higher than those relying mainly on
agriculture
• Employment increased, incomes increased (due to employment and
dividends), income sources diversified (hunting, collecting NTFPs, timber,
agriculture, off-farm services)
• Most timber sales are generated by mahogany (75%) and cedar
(10%-15%), which are not in great supply, raising concerns about
the environmental sustainability of the concessions. Difficult to
commercialize non-traditional species

12. Institutional outcomes
• National Council of Protected Areas (CONAP) is administratively weak, and
faces political, legal, economic and social threats due to “lack of response to
[drug-trafficking, illegal cattle ranching, pressures of extreme poverty around
the protected area, agricultural invasions, pressure for mega-projects] and
natural threats.” (Reyes Rodas, et. al, 2014, p .121).
• Weak community forest enterprises.: “poor ability to prioritize and plan for
investments, inadequate organizational structure for business
purposes, instability of trained personnel in key positions,” and weak
control over available resources.”
• “Lack of long-term entrepreneurial vision among leaders and members.”
Credit:
Nature.org

13. conclusions
• Tenure security; Institutional fit; effective monitoring & enforcement are enabling
conditions for good common property governance (Tucker, 2010)
• This discussion has focused mainly on questions of “institutional fit,” that is, “the
presence of institutional arrangements that fit the socio-ecological context of the
resource system.”
• These institutional arrangements should have the following characteristics [McLain &
Lawry, 2015, p. 248]:
– they take into account the biophysical characteristics of the resource and the
factors that affect its sustainability;
– they are reflective and respectful of the user groups’ cultural values, norms,
traditions, knowledge and capacities;
– they exhibit complementarity and connectivity between local institutions and the
broader legal and policy institutional frameworks; and
– are structured in ways that help counterbalance power asymmetries between
resource users and other social actors in value chains.
• Lessons of Namibia conservancies and Guatemala Mayan Biosphere Reserve
suggest that local enterprises must have the capacity to manage market
relationships on behalf on behalf of local suppliers.

14. References
• McLain, Rebecca & Steven Lawry (2015.) Good governance : A key element of
sustainable non- timber forest product harvesting systems, In, Ecological
Sustainability for Non-Timber Forest Products. Charlie M. Shackleton, Ashok K.
Pandey, Tamara Ticktin (eds.). Earthscan Routledge.
• Reyes Rodas, Renaldo, Justine Kent, Tania Ammour, Juventino Galvex (2014)
“Challenges and opportunities of sustainable forest management through
community forest concessions in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Peten, Guatemala,
In, Forests under pressure-Local responses to global issues. In Pia Katila, Wil de Jong,
Pablo Pacheco, Gerardo Mery (eds) IUFRO World Series Volume 32. Vienna.
• Suich, Helen (2010) The livelihood impacts of the Namibian community-based
natural resource management programme: a meta-synthesis, Environmental
Conservation 37 (1): 45–53
• Tucker, C. (2010) ‘Learning on governance in forest ecosystems: lessons from
recent research’, International Journal of the Commons 4, pp. 687–706

15. THANK YOU
cifor.org
blog.cifor.org
ForestsTreesAgroforestry.org