概要

增加全球对自然资源的需求is intensifying competition for land across the developing world, pushing companies onto territories that many Indigenous Peoples and rural communities have可持续管理几代人。这些社区,至少共同拥有世界一半的土地但是法律上只有10 percent of land globally,现在正在竞争保护其土地权利。

本报告对社区和公司如何正式化土地权利的全面审查,审查了获得正式土地权利所需的时间和成本差异,以及最终授予非洲,亚洲和拉丁美洲的15个国家 /地区的土地规模和权利。它发现了两组面临的障碍的显着差异 - 使公司明显优势的差异。社区牺牲了数年甚至数十年的艰巨政府程序,可能迫使他们放弃祖先的大量土地,而具有牢固政治联系的富裕公司迅速获得了对同一土地的权利。

该报告阐明了公司和社区之间的这种不平衡的竞争环境,并建议采取更透明的途径。它呼吁各国简化过度复杂的程序,并修改措施,这些步骤对社区施加了困难,不适当的负担,同时统一执行公司土地获取政策。在世界范围内,需要更好的冲突解决机制来解决竞争的第三方主张,政府还必须保护社区的自由,事先和知情同意。

Key Findings

  • Community land, crucial to rural livelihood around the world, is increasingly targeted by commercial interests. Its loss can lead to environmental degradation, increased rural poverty and land disputes that last for years. Without formal legal recognition of their land rights, communities struggle to protect their land from being allocated to outside investors.
  • 该报告揭示了15个国家的社区面临的地方性挑战。注册和记录其习惯土地权利的程序是复杂,困难和成本高昂的,要求社区牺牲时间,财务和习惯土地和资源。
  • 结果,社区正式化其土地权可能需要数十年的时间。在菲律宾,该过程需要56个合法规定的步骤;在印度尼西亚,涉及21个不同的政府实体。
  • 相比之下,公司相对迅速地获得正式土地权利。一些公司在获得最终批准之前采取快捷方式以获取土地或开始商业运营。很少有法律要求外国投资者参与有意义的社区咨询。这弊大于利的公司,并冒着流离失所社区的风险。
  • To level the playing field between communities and companies, this report calls on countries to establish accessible and transparent community procedures that recognize all customary land, mitigate associated land conflicts, coordinate implementation and budgetary support for community land formalization, and better monitor company compliance.

Executive Summary

对农村生计至关重要的土著和社区土地通常在非正式的习惯安排下举行。这可能使土地容易受到外部商业利益的影响,因此社区可以寻求在政府注册表中正式化其土地权利并获得正式土地文件。但是这个过程是耗时且复杂的,相反,公司可以相对迅速地获取土地,并在监管负担周围找到捷径。该报告绘制了社区和公司之间的这些不平等,并提供有关如何升级比赛环境的建议。

背景下的土地权

随着全球对食品,燃料,矿物质,纤维,木材产品和其他自然资源的需求,大型和小型土地获取都在全球范围内增加。公司和投资者正在争先恐后地获取土地并将其保存长时间。随着这场竞争的加剧,习惯任期下社区(包括土著人民)所拥有的土地很容易被强大的政治和经济精英收购,尤其是如果没有在政府注册表(卡达斯特式)中输入或正式记录的情况(土地证书或所有权)。在这种背景下,非洲,拉丁美洲和亚洲各地的社区正在动员正式化其习惯权并更好地保护其土地。鉴于多达25亿人在社区土地上以维持生计,赌注很高。尽管社会经济不平等的驱动因素(以及导致的不平等机会和治疗)因国家和随着时间而有所不同,但土地不平等在很大程度上引起了拉丁美洲的收入不平等,并且是某些亚洲和非洲国家的日益因素。

政府经常将社区土地,尤其是管理为共同财产(例如森林,牧场和湿地)的土地是空置的,闲置的和未充分利用的。对于许多人来说,经济增长和需要外汇的承诺要胜过社区土地权,并证明将该土地分配给公司以进行投资。除了这种偏见之外,管理社区和公司对正式土地权利的法律程序之间通常存在不平等,以及如何实施这些程序。

了解改善社区土地形式程序的挑战和机会对于确保习惯土地和保护全球农村生计至关重要。为此,作者设计了研究,以更好地了解社区和公司的程序途径,并评估社区或公司流程是否受到政府的优势和青睐。该报告对33个社区和公司程序的法律和实践进行了系统的审查,以在15个国家 /地区获得正式土地权利(请参见下面的方法)。

This report also provides practical recommendations for improving and ensuring equity in community and company procedures. The recommendations target government agencies responsible for developing and implementing community and company procedures, as well as their development partners; domestic and international companies and their investors; and communities, local civil society organizations, and international nongovernmental organizations concerned with land rights, human rights, and poverty reduction.

为什么正式的社区土地权至关重要

More than 50 percent of the world’s land, across all continents except Antarctica, is community land. Globally, national laws recognize 10 percent of land as belonging to communities, and another 8 percent is designated by governments for community use. But not all community land that is legally recognized is registered and titled. In most countries, a significant amount of community land is not formalized. In Peru, for example, some 6,500 groups hold 36.3 million hectares of land that is registered and documented to them, but another 4,000 groups have pending claims to a further 34.9 million hectares.

Despite its importance to rural populations, community land formalization is rarely a government priority. In many countries, national laws do not recognize collectively held land or establish a formalization procedure. Elsewhere, the law permits formalization but limits the types of customary land and customary rights that can be formalized. Where formalization procedures are in place, the law is often poorly implemented, or implementation efforts have stalled. In Bolivia, for example, formalization efforts for land titles granted to Indigenous Peoples since 2005 have slowed in recent years with the government instead allocating customary land to investors to generate needed revenues for social programs.

While customary tenure systems historically provided communities with land security, the growing threats to exploit community land are leading to new insecurity. Communities around the world are therefore applying for formal land rights in order to integrate their customary rights into official legal systems and to protect their lands. Even in countries where formalization is not needed for legal recognition, communities are seeking to register their land to “double-lock” their rights. While registration and documentation of land is not a guarantee of tenure security (and can bring challenges such as property taxes, gender inequality, and exposure to unwanted investors), many communities consider the benefits to outweigh the costs.

正式的土地文件可以帮助社区说服其他人的合法权利,以确保他们将得到他人的认可和尊重。当出现挑战时,这些文件可以用作法院法院中合法财产的证据,在这些挑战中,它们通常具有比习惯权的口头证词更多的重量。土地证书或头衔还可以为社区与外部投资者的谈判提供关键的杠杆作用,从而提高了他们在分享收益和减少不良交易可能引起的冲突可能性方面获得公平交易的机会。有记录的社区土地权也可能开放获得项目融资的机会。在寻求可行的基于社区的投资项目时,许多政府和银行认为有记录的社区土地比惯常持有的土地更安全,从而降低了其风险。

方法

为了进行这项研究,作者收集了有关15个国家 /地区的19个社区土地形式化程序的数据 - 非洲,亚洲和拉丁美洲。对所有19个社区程序进行了审查国家法律,并实施了7种土地权利程序。此外,在12个研究国家中检查了14个公司的土地征用程序。研究人员审查了所有14个公司程序的相关法律,并针对6个程序进行了调查的实践。

在整个15个国家 /地区,社区和公司程序之间的数据比较集中在八个关键问题上:前提条件和步骤,时间,货币成本,金钱,土地规模,权利持续时间,授予权利,权利维护和权利可竞态性。

To help ensure consistency in data collection across informants, procedures, and countries, the researchers developed common indicators for each of these issues and a corresponding methods guide.

在秘鲁,坦桑尼亚和印度尼西亚,动员了野外团队进行研究。这些团队由坦桑尼亚的Ujamaa社区资源团队(UCRT)领导,得到了世界资源研究所(WRI)的支持;必威官网手机版秘鲁国际林业研究中心(CIFOR);以及印度尼西亚的ASM律师事务所在权利和资源倡议(RRI)的支持下。数据收集方法包括有关社区和公司程序的文献综述,国家法律和技术指令的法律审查,与一系列利益相关者的访谈以及现场访问,与具有土地正式化经验的社区成员会面。

WRI作者在其他12个国家进行了有关社区和公司程序法律的办公桌研究。主要是通过审查有关社区和公司程序以及所有相关国家法律的文献来收集数据的。对于圭亚那和莫桑比克来说,WRI作者还主要通过审查学术和灰色文献来评估社区和公司程序的实践。雨林基金会联合国(RFUS),美国人民协会(APA)和森林人民计划(FPP)提供了有关圭亚那的重要信息。

Findings

分析三大洲的社区和公司程序收集的数据产生了五个重要发现,这些发现突出了社区土地形式化程序的复杂性以及社区和公司程序之间的不平等。

1.社区程序是繁重的,无法访问。在寻求正式的土地权利时,社区面临着复杂的法律,技术和证据要求。例如,在印度尼西亚,土著人民必须首先游说其区域立法机关以正式承认其土著地位。在智利,除非拥有特定的历史文件,否则土著社区没有资格获得该程序。在乌干达,社区必须将自己纳入协会,选举官员并撰写宪法。另外,形式化程序很少是透明的。社区并非总是能够纠正或质疑政府错误,获取信息或找出申请被延迟或拒绝的原因。它们也可以从过程中的关键步骤中排除在外映射。最后,第三方声称对所涉及土地或边界冲突造成的竞争权的第三方通常会使程序变得复杂。这些争端在法律或实践中没有很好地解决,并且可能有效地停止了这一过程。

2.为了使自己的土地形式化,大多数社区必须接受受限制的权利,新的风险和/或更少的土地。在接受调查的大多数国家中,习惯土地的重要领域可能被排除在授予社区的证书或头衔中。例如,一些社区不能正式化任何林地,而另一些社区则必须排除第三方声称的土地。此外,除了在实践中评估的程序之一外,政府官员对授予社区的土地规模强加了任意上限。社区也没有获得其土地上自然资源的全部权利。政府保留将重叠特许权分配给高价值自然资源(例如木材)的权利,社区只有在19项调查程序中的2分中有权行使完全自由,事先和知情同意。

3.平均而言,程序比投资者更具挑战性。Community procedures generally take years to decades, while land acquisition procedures for companies typically range from one month to five years. Many communities are unable to formalize their land, sometimes after decades of efforts. Different standards are imposed on communities and companies to screen for and resolve competing claims to the land. All community procedures require a screening for third-party rights, and such third-party claims in practice often prevent a community from successfully formalizing its land. By contrast, only 6 of the 14 corporate land acquisition procedures surveyed for this report require any form of community consultation, and only 3 of those contain provisions protecting communities’ rights to free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC). Instead, the law presumes that the government owns the land or has the right to give it away.

4.社区权利在实践中受到限制,但是投资者扩大了机会,尤其是如果他们没有强大的社会和环境承诺。Communities have narrow windows of opportunity for land formalization. Legal procedures are narrow and offer little flexibility; and in practice, a lack of resources and capacity means most communities have only one opportunity (if any) to formalize their land. Similarly, in exercising rights over natural resources, communities are seldom able to realize those rights to the full extent allowed by the law. In contrast, for companies, land acquisition is facilitated by a range of legal alternatives, as well as quasilegal, extralegal, and illegal measures. Company engagement with key steps in the process, like community consultations, varies widely. Across countries, some companies exploit natural resources to which they have not been granted rights, and revocations of land rights when companies fail to meet conditions or comply with the law are inconsistent. These companies therefore have a competitive advantage in obtaining formal land rights against both communities and those companies that comply with legal and social or environmental standards.

5.监管和政策框架对投资者而不是社区形式化程序。Communities receive inadequate and sporadic support, compared to dedicated and sustained support for investors. Companies often benefit from dedicated investment centers and government recruitment efforts, whereas community land formalization programs are under-resourced and implemented inconsistently. Some countries lack the requisite institutions to formalize customary land rights. In Uganda, entities responsible for approving key steps were never established, making implementation of the procedure impossible in some regions. Finally, in some countries political and economic elites have successfully undermined community land formalization efforts that threaten their interests.

建议

在比较社区和公司程序的复杂性时,该研究发现了一些关键区别,从而使外国公司受益。鉴于社区正在寻求正式的长期习惯权,这与可能的预期相反,在某些国家,这些权利已经具有法律效力,而公司正在申请获得新权利。该研究强调了在法律中编码并在实践中实现的重大程序挑战,以获得获得正式土地权利的社区。它还强调了与公司土地获取程序相比,监管框架和实施参与者如何处理社区程序的不平等。为了解决这种不平等,这项研究提出了以下建议,以改革社区程序:

1.建立并实施明确的社区土地形式化程序。立法和实施法规应为土著人民和其他社区提供清晰,可访问的程序,以注册和记录其土地权利。政府应简化过度复杂的程序,并修改施加艰巨的负担的步骤。参与性的社区映射是最佳实践,并且对于确保准确性和防止后来的冲突至关重要。实施机构和民间社会合作伙伴应在系统实施计划中合作,采用参与性社区映射作为最佳实践,并制定协调的预算战略。

2.建立冲突解决机制并解决竞争的第三方主张。社区之间的边界冲突和第三方重叠的主张是延误的主要来源,在社区土地形式化期间成本增加。政府应建立明确,公平和可及的冲突解决机制;促进参与社区土地形式化的政府部门与参与将优惠分配给高价值资源的人之间的沟通;并探索建立统一的会计师的选择。实施机构和合作伙伴应将争议解决计划纳入标题计划。公司应进行自己的尽职调查,而不必依靠单个部门或办公室的保证,因为土地是可以自由可用的。

3. Prevent the loss of customary land and provide more inclusive bundles of rights.Communities must not be forced to give up land or natural resources that they have customarily enjoyed. Governments should insure that certain classes of land, such as forests or unoccupied areas, are included in formalization and should grant communities full rights to the range of natural resources on their land. As a safety net, legal procedures should clearly allow communities to obtain additional land in the future. Implementing partners and civil society should ensure that communities are included in land surveying and mapping, and can sensitize government officials on the importance of seemingly vacant collective land to community well-being.

4. Ensure oversight, accountability, and transparency.Monitoring and oversight mechanisms should be simultaneously bottom-up (from communities) and top-down (from higher-level institutions). Governments should establish avenues for communities to make complaints or appeal decisions and to request information about the status of their applications. Country-level monitoring of community formalization efforts, in law and in practice, is also key to the effective implementation of formalization procedures.

5. Level the playing field between communities and companies.政府应加强对公司行为的监控和监督,要求公司进行全面的FPIC,并确保在社区土地申请或头衔的申请中未分配自然资源特许权。此外,所有参与者都必须重新注意习惯对土地的理解,以及将习惯土地陈旧系统整合到法定框架中的挑战。政府和民间社会应在土地形式化过程中和之后支持社区授权计划。公司应向社区寻求FPIC,即使不需要法律,并促进范围内的标准,即承认习惯土地权利以及社区赋予其自由,事先和知情同意的社区的重要性。