Beyond Property, Beyond Ecology:

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Beyond Property, Beyond Ecology
Social-Ecological Resilience of Land and
Resource Tenure in Latin America Ankersen and
Barnes
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Outline

• Typology of property
• Resilience framework
• Vulnerabilities
• Ecological and social shocks
• Adaptive evolution
• Beyond property/ecology

More than being a bundle of rights residing in a
single owner, contemporary property is a series
of separable rights often held by a bundle of
owners (Geisler and Daneker 2000, p.xiii)
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Introduction

• Research and Writing Grant from MacArthur
  Foundation initial funding
• Why beyond property and ecology?
• Significance
• Shift to governance issues
• Global issues emphasize cross-scalar analysis
• Resilient systems require balance between social,
  ecological and economic agendas
• Dealing with legal and tenure pluralism

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Mexico Case Study - Ejidos
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Guatemala Case Study Extractive Reserves
Uaxactun
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Bolivia Case Study Indigenous Territory
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Panama Case Study Kuna Comarcas
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Land/Resource Tenure Typology
Beyond Property?
Resource Rights
Land Rights
quasi- sovereignty
Dual Governance
Kinship-based Tenure
Communal Title Individual Resource rights
Ethnic-based Tenure
Communal Usufruct
national sovereignty
Autonomous Governance
Extractive Reserves (Guatemala)
Ejido (Mexico)
Family Lands (Caribbean)
Quilombos (Brazil)
Indian Reservations (US)
Comarcas (Panama)
TCOs (Bolivia)
Homelands (SAfrica)
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Land Tenure at the Social-Ecological Interface
Land Tenure Land Management Land
Use Technology Infrastructure Knowledge
(Ecological)
Natural Capital
Ecological System
Social System
Social Capital
..improving the performance of natural resource
systems requires an emphasis on institutions and
property rights. (Berkes Folke 1998, p. 2)
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Resilience Framework for analyzing dynamic SES
Tourism
Road Improvement
Dam
Social-Ecological System (SES)
Shocks!!!
Drought
Hurricanes
Policy Reforms
Urbanization
Market signals
Resilience assuming change and explaining
stability, instead of assuming stability and
explaining change.. (Folke, Colding Berkes
2003)
Resilience Capacity of a SES to maintain its
fundamental identity in the face of shocks
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Change in System Identity in the Amazon
System Thresholds
shock
(1)
(2)
new system identity
(3)
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Vulnerabilities

• Inflexible governance structures
• Aging rural populations
• Generation gaps (migrant labor)
• Riskiness of farming
• Narrow livelihood strategies

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Shocks?
Global Drivers
Social / Economic

• community cohesion
• land Value escalation
• stronger self governance
• change livelihood strategies
• migration

• Human rights
• Social Justice
• Neo-liberal Policies
• Tourism

Regional Drivers
SES Interface
(Outcomes)

• Formal recognition of tenure
• pluralism
• Thinning of the tenure shell

Social-Ecological System

• Urbanization
• Free Trade
• Agreements

Ecological
Local Drivers

• Policy Reform
• Dam building
• Road improvements

???
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Beyond property/ecology

• Human right to property (IACHR cases)
• Property as vehicle for social policy (social
  function doctrine)
• Property serves as basis for ensuring territorial
  integrity and greater sovereignty
• Conservation has strengthened pressure to
  formalize polygon and manage internal resources
• Conservation has advanced non-exploitation of
  resources as valid basis for property rights
• Conflation of conservation and social justice
• Increasing complexity of property as legal
  pluralism is recognized

- Conservation has co-opted the narrative but the
narrative is about more than conservation -
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References

• Barnes, G. The Evolution and Resilience of
  Community-based Land Tenure in Rural Mexico. Land
  Use Policy Journal (in press)
• Barsimantov, J., M. Digiano, G. Barnes and A.
  Racelis. Tenure, Tourism and Timber in Quintana
  Roo, Mexico. Development and Change Journal
  (under review)
• Painter, K. The Development of Communal Land
  Tenure Rights in Afro-Latino Communities.
  Unpublished Research report. (2007)
• Griffith-Charles, C. The Persistence of Family
  Land in the Caribbean. LASA Conference
  Proceedings, San Juan, Puerto Rico (2006)
• Ankersen, T.  and T. Ruppert. Defending the
  Polygon The Emerging Human Right to Communal
  Property, 59 Oklahoma L. Rev. 681 (2006)
• Ankersen, T.  and T. Ruppert. Tierra y Libertad
  The Social Function Doctrine and Land Reform in
  Latin America, 19 Tulane Envt'l L. Rev. 69(2006) 
• Cumming, G., G. Barnes, M. Binford, R. Holt, S.
  Perz, M. Schmink, K. Sieving, J. Southworth, C.
  Stickler and T. Van Holt. An exploratory
  framework for the empirical measurement of
  resilience. Ecosystems, Vol 8 (8) 975-987 (2006)
• Ankersen, T. and G. Barnes. Inside the Polygon
  Emerging Community Tenure Systems and Forest
  Resource Extraction, in Zarin Schmink, Eds.,
  Working Forests in the Tropics Conservation
  through Sustainable Management (Columbia Press,
  2005)

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Case Studies Indigenous, extractive (resource
rights drive land rights) limited tenure,
familial, ejidal Tenure pluralism

• (have more legal standing e.g. bring suit)

Four Is thick shell around property