1. The Situation of customary land tenure: Ghana by the Ghana Team
13th September, 2011
Douala

2. Presentation Outline
If and How communities own or control their forests
If and how communities use forests and participate in state and/or community forest management
What major threats to community control exist (including acquisition or leasing forests to domestic and foreign investors, forest and mining concessions and protected areas, etc

3. If and how communities own or control their forests
Historical perspective
Communal forestry regulation: pre-1850
Chiefs expropriation of communities:
Central state expropriation of chiefs:
State capture:

4. Ghana Land law is in most part customary:
Land tenure and rights are complex and policy is weak in addressing them
Ghana Land law is in most part customary:
80% of land holding is customary. Remaining 20% are under state ownership but are lands taken from stools for public use.
The customary land holding:
Category comprise of stool, skin, clan and family lands
Common trait of communal ownership and guided by customary tenets

5. Ownership inter-generational
Land is held in trust by the head of the community for the entire members
Allodial title resides in the community, clan or family and is not transferable
Varies across and within ethnic groups.
Dynamic
Contentious amongst community institutions – chiefs, shrines, families, asafo etc.
Ownership title is mostly oral and least documented

6. Stool land as define by Article 259 (1) of the 1992 Constitution “includes any land or interest in, or right over, any land controlled by a stool or skin, head of a particular community or the captain of a company, for the benefit of the subjects of that stool or the members of that particular community or company”
Constitution stipulates such lands “shall vest in appropriate stool on behalf of, and in trust for the subjects of the stool in accordance with customary law and usage”

7. State plays the role of fiduciary of the land
Acquisition of land in the case of forest reserves guided by Administration of Lands Act, 1962 Act 123
Stool holds “ownership”
Government holds “management”
State plays the role of fiduciary of the land
Functions include rights of allocation, leasing, collection of rents or incidents related to management

8. Constitution has not provided real solutions but has sought to “broker” peace between chieftaincy elite and national bureaucratic elites to disadvantage of other community institutions and of ordinary farmers
Statutory laws: Land Registry Act 1962; Administration of Lands Act 1962; Land Title Registration Law 1986;Lands Commission Act 1994 have clauses that weakens the administration and management of customary laws by land owners e.g
Stool land owners cannot dispose of lands without the consent of the Minister of Lands

9. Summary
Communities by the extension of their stool, skins, families own forest resources
Appropriation of these rights by state and traditional elites
No real value in ownership to forest owning communities without management rights
Documentation of various customary laws and codification in state law crucial
What is the place of law and reform in solving this problem

10. If and how communities use forests and participate in state and/or community forest management
Communities use of forest only in the form
TUPs
NTFP permits
As opposed to large concession rights in TUCs, Salvaging permits, etc by the state
Participation in state management minimal
Inspection team in the grant of timber rights
Unpaid labour in the clearing of boundaries
Labour in the new national forestation programmes

11. Consultation in the negotiation and signing of SRAs
Compensation for destroyed property
Policy is right in creating forest resources
Whether as individuals or community in planted trees
Naturally occurring trees even in off-reserve belongs to the state

12. Summary
How can rights to naturally occurring trees off-reserve be secured for communities?
Option of devolution of management rights in off-reserve areas to communities through their stools, their District Assemblies
Policy and legal support, institutional arrangement for replication, up-scaling of CBLAs, CBNRMs, CREMAs, and other forms of community Based Forest Management options

13. What major threats to community control exists?
The status-quo gives the credence to
Attack from State regulation of production (e.g. centralized grant of concessions / TUCs, allocation or royalties etc.)..
Attack from (mostly foreign) concession holders

14. Land grabs and implication for community rights and poverty of millions of displaced occupants
“Craze” for biofuel, “REDD projects” etc and appropriation of customary lands for this
Selfish interest of chieftaincy and state elite

15. Summary
Country level implementation of initiatives (REDD, etc) have the potential of resolving this conflict or further marginalizing communities
Constitutional review process, etc has brought the issue and debate of it to the national level
Ghana has initiated a process to further clarifying land/tree tenure issues but skewed towards REDD / carbon financing

16. Clarify and strengthen community rights to their lands resources through multi-stakeholder consultation process
Awareness of the value of the resources
Policy, legal review process under FLEGT, NREG and constitutional review process are potential opportunities for addressing these

17. Conclusion
We need to move towards strengthening local community rights and support communities to have a process which they are comfortable with and that defines their rights consistent with national priorities and the constitution.

18. THANK YOU