PFLAP Implementation Following the Resolution by the Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial People’s Council that mapping and issuance of forest Land Ownership Certificates LOC i
Trang 1funded by AusAID in Quang Ngai
Pham Dinh Phong Deputy Head, Land Management Division
DoNRE, Quang Ngai
Background
Forestry, as one of the important natural resources of Quang Ngai Province, has contributed significantly in the economic development of the Province. Though efforts has been made for better management of forest resources both at state and individual levels in the past, however, there were ambiguity in the forest boundary and forest ownerships resulting to lack of effective forest management. About 343,436 Ha. of land is classified as forest land out of 515,266 Ha. of natural land area in Quang Ngai Province.
AusAID funded RUDEP (2002‐2007) assisted the Participatory Forest Land Allocation Process (PFLAP) to allocate the forest land to individuals and enterprises. Later, it is followed by Institutional Support Program (ISP) with the purpose to enhance the quality and effectiveness
of P135 II implementation in six upland districts of the Province and supported the woodlot owners to enhance their capacity and productivity.
The objectives of PFLAP are to implement social contribution policy of the forestry sector to secure the forest land ownership to use it sustainably, to create employment to improve the livelihoods of upland people resulting to enhance their incomes and to increase the participation of relevant stakeholders in the forest management by allocating forest land, especially the poor ethnic minority people.
This paper describes, in brief, the forest land allocation process with its strengths and shortcomings covering overall impact to the community with forest ownerships.
PFLAP Implementation
Following the Resolution by the Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial People’s Council that mapping and issuance of forest Land Ownership Certificates (LOC) in the six upland districts, DoNRE in coordination with the District People’s Committees (DPCs) prepared the Economic‐Technical Reports (E‐T Reports) on mapping for preparation of cadastral maps of scale 1/5000, land allocation, land registration, preparation of cadastral documents and issuance of LOCs for forest land and other sloping lands for annual tree crop production. The Economic‐Technical Report was prepared following the seven Steps of PFLAP. The Steps are briefly shown in Appendix 1. PFLAP was commenced in 2005 with the pilot testing in two communes.
Trang 2
Community awareness has significantly contributed to the success of the forest land allocation. All the stakeholders, especially individual households, were well informed in advance regarding the process and they contributed in the decision makings at village and commune levels to resolve boundary disputes, forestland rights, traditional users and others. Village and hamlet meetings were conducted to raise the community awareness on PFLAP. Such meetings were covered in the 63 communes of the six upland districts.
Main contents of the village meeting were as follows.
• inform households on the national and provincial policies related to forest land allocation and issuance of land ownership certificates;
• introduce households to PFLAP and schedules for PFLAP implementation at the provincial, district and commune level;
• introduce households to forest land types, regulations on their use and opportunities for households to use and manage their land;
• ensure that the households understand the objectives, principles, and significance of land use planning and land allocation activities and that they can identify their roles and duties in land use planning and land allocation process;
• introduce households to concepts, signs, colours, and the ways to identify boundaries and place names on the current three forest‐type maps and exercises to identify current land use practices.
Subsequently second meeting was followed to discuss and propose a forest land use plan. The meeting was conducted with the application of PRA methodology to discuss land use planning, and land use and management plans. Forest land use criteria, such as the areas planned for protection, production, cultivation, or afforestation were introduced to the households using the topographical map (1/5,000 scale). Discussions also included the future forest land use strategies. The District Working Group (DWG) then worked with households to identify future land use activities for various forest land types. Forest land use status as well as the ways to improve land use practices of local people was discussed and agreed by all participants at the meeting.
Draft of the forest land use planning was prepared as follows.
• The DWG in coordination with the consultants entered the information in the future land use planning and boundaries into the 1/10,000 scale topographical map. This map included land use planning details and proposed land allocation plans agreed by participants at the village meeting.
• The forest land area and planned area of different land types for each village were calculated and entered into an inventory sheet. Commune land use planning maps were
an aggregation of village planning maps and data.
• On the basis of these maps, the DWG assisted the Commune People’s Committees (CPCs) in drafting the commune participatory forest land use planning and land allocation plans.
Trang 3
The DWG presented the draft commune forest land use planning and land allocation plans to the Commune Land Advisory Council (CLAC). Recommendations and comments were given by participants at the meeting to finalise the explanation of the commune forest land use planning and land allocation plans, maps and other relevant documents.
The DWG assisted the CPCs to finalise the plans to submit to the District People’s Committees (DPCs) for approval.
Altogether, there were 1,040 commune and village meetings with the participation of 58,539 person times. This included:
+ Commune meetings (2 meetings/commune): 102; 4,189 person times
+ Village meetings (2 meetings/village): 938; 54,350 person times
After two years (2007‐2008) of the implementation of mapping for preparation of cadastral maps and issuance of land ownership certificates in the six upland districts in Quang Ngai, 121,930 Ha./124,138 Ha. of land was measured, accounting for 98%, and 111,909 LOCs were delivered, accounting for 117% as compared to the Economic‐Technical Reports. LOCs are jointly owned by both male and female heads of the households.
In order to complete mapping and issuance of the LOCs, DoNRE with the support of Institutional Support Program (ISP) covered
• Trainings to provide guidance on approval work to the CLAC;
• Preparation for the village meeting and consolidation of the proposals;
• Village meetings;
• CLAC meetings;
• District Steering Committee (SC) meetings and
• Trainings on the use of ViLis software.
By June 2009, total area measured for the preparation of cadastral maps was 122,647 Ha. with the issuance of 117,616 LOCs.
Community Efforts in Forest Management
With the ownership of forest land, the individual households are contributing to establish plantation forest especially with Acacia species. Though there are individual efforts in the plantation establishments, they are also involved in the Activity Groups to enhance the productivity and market development. ISP has supported with the technical training to woodlot owners and improvement in the forest management to optimize the productivity.
Achievements
Overall, the LOCs have been delivered in all the area of forest land currently used by local people with the completion of cadastral maps of forest land in six upland districts.
Trang 4This was due to the timely instructions of the political system from province, districts and communes and skilled staff of Department of Natural Resources and Environment and relevant agencies including consultant agencies. It should be noted that RUDEP and ISP has significantly contributed in terms of financial and technical supports.
Major achievements are as follows.
• The DWG, the CLAC and government staff at different levels have been well equipped with fundamental knowledge on the participatory forest land use planning and land allocation through technical training courses;
• The approval work by CLAC has been conducted in an accurate, fair, democratic and transparent way which enhanced the quality of land registration documents;
• Through the program, technical staff of District Natural Resources and Environment Division (DNRED) and the Land Registration Office of the districts have been able to use FaMis and ViLis software in compilation and adjustment of digital maps, preparation of cadastral documents, and preparation of the LOCs. The commune cadastral officials have been familiar with the use of computers and software’s;
• Participatory approach has been applied widely by the agencies at different levels and particularly by people. This process has helped people understand well the party and the government policies towards forest land;
• The participation of upland people in this process not only improved their knowledge but also helped them identify their roles and responsibilities in forest land use planning and land allocation;
• In the implementation of PFLAP, people had opportunities to participate such as identification of boundaries between villages, land use organisations accompanying consultant agencies in the preparation of cadastral maps, land registration, land allocation in the field and issuance of the LOCs. Consequently, on receiving the LOCs, households are able to immediately identify the locations and the boundaries of their land, which minimized potential conflicts and claims on land.
• This PFLAP has extensively and comprehensively raised the awareness of the DNRED and the District Land Registration Office staff, and especially the CLAC members on the importance of land management. Responsibilities of the leaders and the staff of each agency have been clearly defined, which contributes to addressing the issues and shortcomings during the past time. Work has gradually become stabilized and developed for the coming years.
• This Process not only shows the elaborate and logical nature of work but also brings practical benefits to upland people. They are now provided with the LOCs and have the rights with their land.
Difficulties and Shortcomings
• The transfer from Protection Forest into Production Forest after the approval of three forest‐type classification was slow due to the lack of guidelines from the central government. It was not until 2008 that MARD provided guidelines on this. As a result, it
Trang 5has been impossible to allocate land and issue the LOCs for some area of land transferred from Protection Forest into Production Forest.
• The DNRED and the Land Registration Offices in the upland districts are lack of staff. In addition, these staff are overloaded with work volume and their contribution to this work was therefore very limited.
• Some local authorities did not concentrate efforts on this work. What they did was to assign the work to the professional staff and consultant agencies without any instructions. Consequently, the issues emerged during the implementation were not addressed in a timely manner.
• The effective coordination between the consultant agencies, the CPCs, and the DNRED
of some districts was sometimes lacking and not regular, which caused the checking and appraisal of documents inaccurate.
• Due to scattered settlement of the local people, it was difficult to conduct meetings since people had to travel too far. In some villages, meetings had to be held several times and some meetings had to be held at night so that people could fully participate.
Lessons Learned
Through the implementation of PFLAP in Quang Ngai, the following lessons have been drawn by DoNRE:
• The SC, the DWG and the assigned staff have to manage and direct the implementation closely, objectively and democratically. Also, issues emerged during the implementation have to be addressed in a flexible way.
• Those districts and communes which receive intensive support and directions from the political systems from district, commune, and village levels will be able to carry out the planned activities very well.
• Communication work to make people understand the Government policies and laws and the benefits of land allocation and issuance of the LOCs is very important and this plays
a pivotal role in the success of this process.
• Coordination between the consultant agencies, the CPCs, and the DWG has to be on a regular basis. In addition, these agencies have to cooperate closely to resolve the issues during the implementation.
• It is really difficult to carry out PFLAP in the community where most of the people are ethnic minorities. This required patience and result‐based approach in doing the work. Moreover, it is very important to promote the roles of mass organizations in mobilizing the participation of people.
• It is necessary to integrate other programs and projects with PFLAP so that people can use their land more productively. Households often harvest the products before the harvest time, therefore, there should be a long term support to the households. It is also necessary to restrict the transfer of the LOCs from one household to another (because there are tendencies to sell the LOCs by land owners) when people get the LOCs. More importantly, people should not lose their forest land, especially their land use rights.
Trang 6
Forest land allocation has contributed to guarantee the land rights of individual households especially the poor upland people, both male and female, of the province. They made
significant contribution to enhance the productivity of the forest once they receive land
ownership. The PFLAP has not only supported the poor households but it also contributed to capacity building of the implementing agencies both in policy development and technical field.
As the allocated forest is scattered, the individual forest owners need to manage the forest in a community approach with market development to maximize the productivity and income.
Trang 7
Appendix 1: Seven Steps of PFLAP
Step 1 Administrative preparation + Formation of the provincial and district Steering
Committees; (In practice, SC was not formed at the provincial level. PPC assigned DONRE to take the lead in the implementation)
+ Formation (or restructuring) of the Commune Land Advisory Committees;
+ Formation of the provincial and district Working Groups.
Step 2 Technical preparation and
collection of information,
documents and maps
+ Technical Training for the district Working Group and the Commune Land Advisory Council;
+ Preparation of maps;
+ Collection, review and evaluation of related documents and maps;
+ Preparation of technical equipment and tools; + Financial preparation;
+ Commune meeting for the implementation of PFLAP.
Step 3
Field surveys, data collection,
and development of current
land‐ use maps
+ Village and Hamlet meetings conducted for community awareness raising on PFLAP;
+ Field survey to develop current land use maps (field exercises);
+ Evaluation of the data collected and preparation of the current land use maps (indoor exercises)
Step 4
Development of the forest
land‐use planning and
proposed forest land
allocation plans
+ General principles of forest land use planning and forest land allocation plans;
+ Village and hamlet meeting to discuss the forest land use planning and land allocation plans;
+ Draft of the forest land use planning and forest land allocation plans;
+ Seminar on the forest land use planning and forest land allocation plans at the commune level;
+ Approval of the commune forest land use planning and forest land allocation plans.
Trang 8
Mapping and identification of
land boundaries in the field,
and preparation of cadastral
maps
+ Surveying, mapping, identification of boundaries, and locations of forest land lots in the field (field exercises);
+ Development of cadastral maps of forest Land‐ Scale 1/5,000 (indoor exercises);
+ Review and inspection of the outputs;
+ Submission of maps
Step 6 Preparation of LOCs
documents, appraisal of land
allocation documents and
issuance of Forest Land Use
Ownership Certificates
+ Registration of LOCs + Preparation of documents for land ownership certificates;
+ Appraisal and approval of the documents for forest land allocation and forest land‐use ownership certificates.
Step 7
Issuance of the LOCs;
Preparation and finalisation of
cadastral documents.
+ Hand over of the LOCs to land users;
+ Development of cadastral documents;
+ Review and appraisal of cadastral documents;
+ Submission of the outputs, copies of the LOCs, and cadastral documents.