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

‘So who owns the forest’
– Nor are many communities getting bogged down in irresolvable disputes,
which may greatly slow progress. Resolution is generally achieved by
communities themselves, or sometimes with the intervention of mediators
(County Land Commissioners). Costs are kept quite low.
– Distances are not immense in Liberia; it is usually possible for communities
to reach the boundaries they want to discuss in one day.
274
– Boundaries are readily identifiable and permanent in Liberia in the
existence of bountiful waterways and are used for this purpose wherever
possible. As well as removing the need for artificial boundary marking and
maintenance, this makes boundaries map-able without ground survey. The
NIMAC UNDP mapping initiative demonstrated this was viable in Nimba
County in 2006. It was able to identify and map the boundaries of all 73
clan areas in a matter of a few weeks using even low-resolution imagery. 216
It did this by sitting down with chiefs and elders in meeting places. The
semi-autonomous LISGIS agency is currently identifying all administrative
units throughout the country for the purpose of defining enumeration
areas for elections and censuses. Although the extent to which they will
define boundaries is unknown, the exercise will be highly indicative and
helpful to planning.
The basic elements of adjudication are integral to the above. The main hurdles
to successful collective titling tend to be vast distances to be covered, lack of
demand, lack of will to invest time in the work needed to agree and mark boundaries,
and a tendency for communities to get bogged down in dispute. 217 None
are likely to be significantly problematic in Liberia.
How would such a titling exercise be carried out Towns are the core unit of
community property, and this is where boundary agreements are being concentrated
at this time, for reasons earlier elaborated. However what the administration
defines as towns are often very small units, more like hamlets, and when it
comes to recognising the community property area as a whole, the preference
may be to title the clan area. The NIMAC exercise found this to be the case in
Nimba County. Piloting is needed to explore this.
216 NIMAC 2007.
217 As for example in the USAID funded Customary Land Security Project where rural communities in two
States of Sudan are undertaking boundary agreement and demarcation exercises, each Community Land Area
however running into sometimes hundreds of square kilometres. In Afghanistan inter-community dispute is
the major cause of slow agreement. See Alden Wily 2005b and 2006c.