Customary Land Tenure in Liberia - Land Tenure and Property ...

98
If communities anticipate that they could lose their forests, this could negatively affect their incentives to
sustainably manage forest resources.
In Motor Road, the extension of the northwestern boundary of the Sapo National Park and the subsequent
creation of the three kilometer buffer zone around the park are contributing to tenure insecurity for clan
members, who expressed suspicions that the FDA is seeking to take and profit from their land. Enactment of
the three kilometer buffer zone would have precluded expansion of farms and settlements from land falling
within the zone and shrunk the clan‟s available resource base for hunting, fishing, and gathering NTFPs.
Furthermore, the FDA proposal to transfer the Upper Wedjah Community Forest to the other side of the car
road has weakened the community‟s tenure security to the forest and bred uncertainty over who actually
exercises control rights over it.
8.2.5 Deeds and Tenure Insecurity
In Little Kola, Ding, Ylan, Gbanshay, and Dobli, clan members are able to access land that is held under
individual/family deeds and TCs registered in the name(s) of indigenes for seasonal farming and the
harvesting of products from the bush. However, these communities could face some risk that descendants of
those who acquired the deeds and TCs could eventually assert an individual claim to the land and remove it
from the realm of customary tenure. For example, clan members in Little Kola continue to access land held
under deed according to customary rules. One of these deeds is registered in the name of an individual and,
recently, a descendent of this individual attempted to have the land resurveyed in her name, though it is
unclear if the purpose of this was to remove the land from community use. Likewise, a few towns in Ding are
held under a deed (most towns only have TCs). Despite these deeds issued in the name of lineage members,
the possibility of these documents being used by their holders to assert exclusive rights to the land was not
perceived as a source of tenure insecurity among clan members in Ding and Little Kola. Clan members did
not seem to be concerned about losing rights to deeded land, maintaining that the deed holders are citizens of
the clans, and that, since they have never sought to exclude clan members, they are unlikely to do so in the
future.
8.2.6 Women’s Tenure Insecurity
Women are doubly vulnerable to land tenure insecurity, as they may be insecure due to customary norms
within their own communities and due to outside pressures affecting their communities as a whole. Though
in all 11 studied clans we encountered support for women‟s access to land within the customary tenure
system, the fluidity of women‟s land rights leaves them vulnerable and tenure insecure. For example, in
Tengia Clan, some reported that if women return to their natal community, they have to ask their brothers for
land. In Nitrian, community members reported that women do not have direct access to land, but rather can
only access it through male relatives or Quarter Heads – who are also male. Although this does not mean that
women in Nitrian do not have access to land, their position is precarious because they have to depend on a
male to access land. Here, we also learned that men determine where a woman may farm. Moreover, women
cannot inherit house spots, and single women do not have perpetual rights to house plots. In both Saykleken
and Nitrian, women do not control or inherit land, nor are they are allowed to plant life trees, which would
give them primary and perpetual rights to land.
In some clans, we also observed positive trends in terms of
women‟s land tenure security. For example, in Little Kola and
Ylan, women exercise important control rights over land. In Ylan
and Tengia, women have permanent rights to land parcels and
plant life trees, which increase their land tenure security. Widows
in Ding Clan exercise relatively secure use and control rights to
“Even if citizens have deed to the land,
people with power and money will run
over the poor people.”
– Community member, Little Kola
land. For example, a widow who resides in her deceased husband‟s community may continue to access land
there, may retain control over the house spot, and may often gain rights over tree crops that he planted or
that they planted together. According to some Town Chiefs, a widow assumes control of the household land
after her husband‟s death, even if she has no children.
CUSTOMARY LAND TENURE IN LIBERIA