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

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17 lead from Landesa. The remaining researchers – seven Liberian researchers and one U.S. researcher – were split between the two teams. Included in each team of five were men and women representing different professional backgrounds, regional origins, ethnicities, and ages in order to capitalize on diversity of skills, experiences, and insights to improve the research. For each of the remaining 10 studies, research teams spent five days in their designated study clans engaging in a series of research exercises with clan members. The team began each visit with an introduction to the purpose of the study, emphasizing that the research was being carried out on behalf of the Liberian Land Commission for the purpose of reforming land policy and law in the interest of securing the land and resource rights of rural communities. During the study, the team used the following RRA tools with members of the community: - Maps of the clan and one town in the clan, typically the main town (samples of which are located in Annexes 4 and 5); - A Venn Diagram to illustrate important organizations and individuals in the community comprising that clan (a sample of which is located in Annex 6); - Transect Walks to discover and comprehend the local natural resource landscape and tenure niches it embodies (samples of which are located in Annexes 2 and 3); - Seasonal and Labor Calendars to portray important crops, natural resources, and labor allocations throughout the year (a sample of which is located in Annex 13); - A Historical Profile to capture the history of communities; - A Historical Matrix to capture trends in resource use and availability and also conflict (samples of which are located in Annexes 7 and 8); - A Well-being Ranking Exercise to understand the structural realities and their interface with land and natural resources; and - Semi-Structured Interviews to probe land and resource rights, rules, and governance authorities. In using these RRA tools to draw on the knowledge of community members, the research teams regularly employed techniques using raw beans to enable community members to express approximate proportions, change over time, and ranking of importance. For example, a team might ask community members to indicate the proportion of families in the clan who hold documents for their land against those who do not by apportioning a handful of beans to each alternative. In another case, team members might ask participants to demonstrate, with beans, the prevalence of disputes between land owners and land borrowers during different periods of time up to the present and what their expectations are for the future. Also, beans might be used to show relative importance, such as when communities rank the importance of livelihood activities or crops. It is important to note that these exercises are designed to provide a visual indication of proportion or change. They are rough approximations and reflect people‟s perceptions of their realities. They do not represent actual numbers, nor should they be understood to indicate percentages or actual rates of change. For this reason, when displaying the results of these exercises in the case study reports and this report, we do not attach numbers to the beans or convert them to ratios or percentages. While undertaking research in each of the clans, research teams met every evening for “restitution,” a process of synthesizing information gathered during the day and planning exercises and questions for the following day. Identifying information needing triangulation is an important part of this exercise. On the final day in the clan, the research teams met with the community to report on what was learned and to validate their understandings. Teams asked whether they understood clan members properly and encouraged participants to make any corrections to the information. The teams also invited community members to fill in any information gaps, offer new information, and provide additional recommendations to the Land Commission. A sample research schedule, from Tengia Clan, is contained in Annex 1. CUSTOMARY LAND TENURE IN LIBERIA
18 In each case, after completion of community-level research, research teams would spend four days drafting and compiling the case study report. Each member of the team had responsibility over one or more sections. In several cases, certain members of the team went back to community members with follow up questions and the information gained was subsequently incorporated into the reports. Following the research drafting process, local study coordinators travelled back to all sites to deliver copies of the draft reports to designated community authorities, a practice that that was typically met with noteworthy appreciation. Community members were encouraged by the study coordinators to provide any further feedback on the reports to the extent they were able. In some cases, coordinators were contacted to correct minor pieces of information. Key findings from each of the case studies were delivered as formal presentations at the Land Commission to which Commissioners, Commission program officers, and local members of MCC and USAID were invited. Input received from these events as well as from reviews of the individual studies by the Land Commissioners, the Research Officer of the Land Commission, and the LPIS Chief of Party were then used to revise the reports. This report draws principally from the information gathered from the case study research and provides a synthesis of the findings corresponding to each of the study objective categories described in Chapter 1. In doing so, we examined the data collected from all 11 cases, recurrent patterns, and relationships as well as notable distinctions between the different communities. In order to strengthen our analysis of the implications of the research findings, we have purposely supplemented our research with findings from both published and unpublished sources as well as a review of the legal framework governing land tenure in rural Liberia. In doing so, we hope to be able to identify measures that can effectively pave the way to improved tenure security for rural communities in Liberia. 2.3 LIMITS TO STUDY Because the findings in this report draw primarily from information gained from community members and local authorities, it may not reflect the views and observations of others with knowledge and insights on the study areas. Although we triangulated information with different local stakeholders and validated the information we gathered with them, there is still a risk that the information is biased and even that community informants may have sought to sway the research team to depict the situation in a way that would serve those interests. In this report, we have attempted to counteract these risks by drawing on secondary sources of information. However, given the limited number of studies on customary tenure in Liberia, the fact that most are decades old, and the fact that few overlap with the specific communities we studied, their ability to offset these risks is restricted. At the same time, however, we contend that local perceptions of reality – particularly concerning sources of tenure security – offer valuable information. It is those perceptions, rather than some notion of „objective truth,‟ that ultimately influence people‟s behaviors, which in turn shape the prospects for continued peace and improvements to productivity and welfare. Two additional limits to the study arose from logistical challenges. The first stemmed from the fact that in some cases, the research teams were unable to secure appropriate lodging in the communities, necessitating them to stay 30 minutes to one hour away from the communities. The inability to reside within the communities may have compromised the depth of the rapport teams were able to establish with communities, an important ingredient for seeding trust. It also diminished the amount of information teams were able to collect through informal conversations. The research teams tried to counter this limitation by engaging with community members as much as possible in between research activities to elicit additional knowledge, clarify understandings, and triangulate information. With only five days to conduct the research, research teams were unable to visit all towns in the studied clans in order to gain full appreciation of the variation and maximize the array of clan member perspectives. Instead, the research design necessitated that RRA activities be typically based in one town. Resultantly, the largest number of participants usually consisted of individuals residing in that town. To counter these potential biases, the research teams made a point of setting aside at least one day to do „transects‟ that involved visits to other communities, tours of different tenure landscapes, and interviews with their residents. A sample transect walk map of a CUSTOMARY LAND TENURE IN LIBERIA
Page 1 and 2: LAND POLICY AND INSTITUTIONAL SUPPO
Page 3 and 4: LIBERIA LAND POLICY & INSTITUTIONAL
Page 5 and 6: ii 1.0 Introduction ...............
Page 7 and 8: iv 4.2.1 Statutory Tenure Claims by
Page 9 and 10: vi 7.3.2 Courts ...................
Page 11 and 12: viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Ma
Page 13 and 14: x ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS CDC CF
Page 15 and 16: xii EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report s
Page 17 and 18: xiv game for both sale and consumpt
Page 19 and 20: xvi manage tree crops where these a
Page 21 and 22: xviii In the clans we visited, stat
Page 23 and 24: xx DISPUTE RESOLUTION MECHANISMS Di
Page 25 and 26: xxii Recommended measures include t
Page 27 and 28: xxiv Remove land and governance au
Page 29 and 30: 2 This chapter begins with a presen
Page 31 and 32: 4 1.2 LAND TENURE AND RURAL LIVELIH
Page 33 and 34: 6 (Renner, 1931). Initially lacking
Page 35 and 36: 8 1.3 HISTORY OF LAND TENURE IN LIB
Page 37 and 38: 10 Certificate is merely a permit t
Page 39 and 40: 12 however, rights granted to commu
Page 41 and 42: 14 2.0 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY This ch
Page 43: 16 Figure 2.2: FEWS-NET map of Libe
Page 47 and 48: 20 3.0 LAND USE AND LIVELIHOODS Thi
Page 49 and 50: 22 Upland Rice Cultivated in each o
Page 51 and 52: 24 money quickly. However, they als
Page 53 and 54: 26 3.2.2 Trees In addition to food
Page 55 and 56: 28 large rubber farms ranging from
Page 57 and 58: 30 tasks assigned to women and vice
Page 59 and 60: 32 3.2.7 Hunting and Fishing In mos
Page 61 and 62: 34 bush and fell trees on a farmer
Page 63 and 64: 36 men‟s focus on life tree culti
Page 65 and 66: 38 from one or more patrilineages,
Page 67 and 68: 40 Figure 4.1: Access to land for f
Page 69 and 70: 42 Figure 4.2: Children’s acquisi
Page 71 and 72: 44 Figure 4.3: Profile of borrowing
Page 73 and 74: 46 he/she is fully integrated as a
Page 75 and 76: 48 widows will sometimes marry a ma
Page 77 and 78: 50 Several communities have rules g
Page 79 and 80: 52 Bush and Forest Resources In all
Page 81 and 82: 54 Water and Fishing Access to wate
Page 83 and 84: 56 Other factors cited for contribu
Page 85 and 86: 58 Figure 4.6: Presence of differen
Page 87 and 88: 60 bush resources largely follows c
Page 89 and 90: 62 In Ylan, some land is held under
Page 91 and 92: 64 the majority of studied clans, t
Page 93 and 94: 66 We also found that, in the clans
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68 In some clans such as Upper Work
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70 Town Chiefs Town Chiefs represen
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72 dispute resolution. 55 While in
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74 such as Clan and Paramount Chief
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76 some women who held positions as
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78 could rely. This in turn produce
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80 community sometimes encounter re
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82 rubber on adjacent land, as well
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84 In other clans, including Ding a
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86 Disputes over Mining Mana Clan c
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88 7.0 DISPUTE RESOLUTION Dispute r
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90 7.2.2 Chairladies In Dobli, Gban
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92 7.3.4 Disputes between Clans/Dis
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94 In some clans, the abundance of
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96 8.2.2 Scale of Ownership Claims
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98 If communities anticipate that t
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100 The importance of documenting c
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102 The current land tenure sys
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104 10.0 POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS In
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106 communities. Instead, we sugges
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108 apply for fee simple tenure. Th
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110 tenure unit. Instead, this role
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112 Tribal Certificates and Deeds R
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114 REFERENCES SECONDARY SOURCES Ak
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116 Wallace, Carolyn Gamiao and Rol
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118 DATE TIME ACTIVITY March 23, 20
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120 ANNEX 3: NORTHEAST TRANSECT, DO
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122 ANNEX 5: TOWN MAP, SAYKLEKAN CL
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124 ANNEX 7: HISTORICAL MATRIX, YLA
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126 ANNEX 9: DOBLI DISPUTE LETTER C
Page 155 and 156:
128 ANNEX 11: TRIBAL CERTIFICATE FO
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130 ANNEX 13: SEASONAL CALENDARS, M
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132 ANNEX 14: COMMUNITY FOREST BY-L
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134 CUSTOMARY LAND TENURE IN LIBERI
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136 b. A family or individual shall
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138 a. Standing Rules Tree
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140 The amount of rattan collecte
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142 o o o o o o o Antelope Hippo
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144 Any community member or gro
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146 U.S. Agency for International D
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