SITUATION ANALYSIS OF THE SMALL-SCALE GOLD ... - WWF

To this day, however, little progress has been made in resolving the complex issue of
developing legislation to provide these communities with secure title to the land they live
on, farm, fish, hunt, collect, extract timber, gravel, sand and gold and use for cultural and
religions purposes. The principal reason for lack of progress is again the failure to
develop broadly supported basic policy principles on the basis of which demarcation of
Indigenous and Maroon lands could take place. It will be very difficult to demarcate
customary settlement areas until broad consensus has been reached on the policy
principles on which to base land allocation. Of course, the mapping of customary land
use patterns is useful to any future effort to resolve the crises, but the criteria for
determining productive use should be agreed upon by the stakeholders and have a
cultural and/or scientific basis.
There are a number of basic policy principles that have to be discussed and agreed upon
by all parties: is permanent habitation a requirement for awarding title, or will areas, that
are intermittently used to secure productive resources, also qualify? How much land is
needed to secure productive resources? How is the government going to handle sub-soil
resources? How much land should be set aside to guarantee the preservation of the
environmental resources necessary for the well-being of the tribal communities? Which
lands are necessary for the physical and cultural reproduction of the community? In other
words, how many hectares does a persons need to survive in a rainforest or savanna
subsistence economy, and how many hectares should be set aside to assure sustainability
of the forest resources? Which land should be set aside on the basis of cultural criteria:
religion, historical occupation, identify and other factors to be identified during
interactive policy making? It is essential that all key stakeholders are involved in the
development of a land rights policy that will help resolve this issue.
This matter should not be treated lightly. Approximately 50 of the 140 Indigenous and
Maroon villages are located in the greenstone belt and almost all the concessions in the
interior overlap with the customary settlement area of one of more Indigenous or Maroon
settlements. Until the land right issue is resolved, the development of the interior will be
stymied.
It is of interest to note that most of the Sela Creek mining zone, which has been claimed
by miners from the Ndjuka Maroon group, has remained domeingrond (State land). On
the request of the Ndjuka granman, the GMD has not granted concessions to this zone to
reduce the chance of conflict between Maroon miners and concession holder from the
coastal area. There are various examples of such informal agreements between the GMD
and Indigenous and Maroon authorities. On the positive side, these gentlemen‟s
agreements show a realist position of the government vis-à-vis the SSM sector. In the
absence of legal backing, however, oral contracts may be abandoned with changes in
government and in the GMD-top. This situation leaves forest peoples, including tribal
miners, in an unfavorable and uncertain position.
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