An investigation into forest ownership and customary land ... - Fern

‘So who owns the forest’
Many youths obviously have returned to rural life, but with changed demands.
Utas reports, for example, that young ex-combatants returning to Sinoe have
abandoned the traditional practice of helping their parents to farm until their
mid- to late twenties; youths as young as 15 years are establishing independent
farms. 168 We have already seen that youth in Grand Gedeh and Nimba study
towns are reluctant to devote all their time to farming, finding ways to earn cash
incomes on the side. Families are feeling the absence of their labour.
192
Authority in land relations is also predicted to change. The traditional handover
of lands and control over land access from one generation to the next has
always required firm handling but may be expected to be less smooth than in
the past. Several times in the field study, youths expressed frustration at land
decisions made by elders (Nimba, Grand Cape Mount), and openly blamed their
fathers and grandfathers for failing to stop loggers, miners, chain sawers, elites
or ‘honourables’ from taking community
land (Gbarpolu, Rivercess, Nimba). They
expressed strong views on a number of
occasions including in one case recommending
that women should surrender
farm plots they had been given if they
marry outside the village (Grand Cape
Mount). Their views were sometimes
strident, particularly as relating to rights
The rights and interests
of young people are the
cutting edge of shifting
norms
,,
over forestlands. Some complained that they were not represented in decisionmaking,
a complaint which one elder endorsed: ‘As long as I have lived in the
village youth have never had a say’ (Gbarpolu).
Everywhere, the study found high interest in land matters on the part of young
people; they attended public meetings in numbers and actively contributed. As
Quan has concluded to be the case in Africa generally, the conventional view
that young people are ‘disinterested’ in land matters is not borne out in practice.
169 If anything they are more concerned and more active when their access or
rights are frustrated – and those of their communities.
Similarly, care has to be taken not to misinterpret returnee and youthful
discontent as evidence of disenchantment with customary land tenure per se.
The study found their positions reinforce the fundamental constructs of rural
tenure, particularly as relating to collective ownership and the maturation of ‘our
168 Utas 2005.
169 Quan 2007.