Protecting community Lands & resources in africa

This report, published by Natural Justice and Namati, synthesizes strategies and lessons from a 2013 symposium of 20 expert advocates working to protect community lands and natural resources across Africa. It provides a practitioner-focused guide to confronting threats such as state-driven mega-projects, large-scale land concessions, and exclusionary conservation. The document emphasizes the importance of community self-definition, the use of biocultural community protocols, and the necessity of multi-pronged advocacy strategies that combine legal education, community mobilization, and strategic engagement with government and media.

• Community self-definition is a complex process often complicated by state-imposed definitions, administrative boundaries that do not align with customary ones, and internal power struggles. Allowing communities to determine their own identity and territory can strengthen empowerment and local governance, though it requires careful facilitation to avoid the exclusion of marginalized groups.
• The Legal Resources Centre (LRC) in South Africa used litigation and the assertion of customary law to challenge state-imposed community structures. In the Dwesa-Cwebe case, this approach helped fishers from the village of Hobeni reclaim rights to traditional fishing grounds and empowered the broader community to define themselves outside of official government structures.
• In Mozambique, Centro Terra Viva (CTV) found that administrative boundaries often conflict with customary ones, as seen in the Marrúcua community which spans two districts. CTV recommends involving a wide range of local officials early in the self-definition phase to anticipate and resolve these administrative impasses through negotiation rather than litigation.
• The Ujamaa Community Resource Team (UCRT) helped the Hadzabe hunter-gatherers in Tanzania secure a Certificate of Customary Right of Occupancy (CCRO) for 23,000 hectares. This was achieved by negotiating a compromise where the community remained egalitarian but appointed trustees to satisfy government administrative requirements.
• In Liberia, the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) uses a multi-step methodology for community self-identification to prevent manipulation by elites and investors. This process includes scoping research, leadership consultations, community-wide consultations, and a final collective decision-making process to ensure inclusivity.
• Land conflicts in Africa are categorized into intra-community, inter-community, and conflicts with outside actors. Advocates are encouraged to use alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and mediation over litigation, as the latter can be costly, time-consuming, and biased toward elites.
• The Land and Equity Movement in Uganda (LEMU) identifies three types of land encroachers: deliberate (elites), opportunistic, and vulnerable (impoverished). They argue that different strategies are needed for each, such as using 'legitimate power' from district officials to counter the influence of deliberate encroachers who ignore local courts.
• In Togo, Auto Promotion Rurale pour un Développement Humain Durable (ADHD) implements Village Action Plans (PAVs) to promote endogenous development. This participatory process allows communities like Ibefo to prioritize their own needs, such as clearing roads to markets and reforestation, rather than following top-down government mandates.
• The African Biodiversity Network (ABN) uses 'eco-cultural mapping and calendaring' to document indigenous knowledge. In Kenya, this helped the Tharaka community document sacred sites and communicate their vision for the future to government actors.
• The Legal Resource Centre (LRC) led a campaign in South Africa to defeat the Traditional Courts Bill of 2011, which would have given traditional leaders excessive power to punish dissenters. The strategy involved a multi-pronged approach: mobilizing rural communities, using media to amplify human interest stories, and threatening litigation over the lack of meaningful public participation.
• In Namibia, the Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation (IRDNC) supports the Khwe San community within Bwabwata National Park through a community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) program. This includes the TEKOA training program, where elders teach traditional tracking and ethno-botany to youth to preserve culture and create employment as guides.
• The Association for Law and Advocacy for Pastoralists (ALAPA) helped Maasai pastoralists in Loliondo, Tanzania, resist eviction notices issued by the Ministry of Natural Resources. By forming coalitions and using evidence-based submissions, they convinced the government to withdraw the notices in May 2013.
• Save Lamu in Kenya uses a Biocultural Community Protocol (BCP) to unite diverse ethnic groups (Bajun, Aweer, Sanye, Orma, and Swahili) against the LAPSSET mega-project. The BCP serves as a proactive tool to document traditional knowledge and demand transparency, consultation, and independent impact assessments.
• In Ethiopia, MELCA supported the Sheka community to protect their forests from agricultural investment by facilitating the registration of the Sheka Zone as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2012. This strategy creates an international commitment that makes it harder for the government to allocate land for purposes contrary to community interests.
• The Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Organisational Development (CIKOD) in Ghana used endogenous development tools and a BCP to help the Tanchara community prevent gold prospecting by Azumah Resources Limited. By building a unified vision and using a Community-Driven Health Impact Assessment Tool (CHIAT), the community successfully delayed mining activities.
• In Sierra Leone, Namati supported the village of Masethele to renegotiate a lease with Addax Bioenergy. By empowering community members to challenge their leaders, who had signed a deal for the entire village, the community successfully limited the lease to only one-fourth of their land.
• The Chiadzwa Community Development Trust (CCDT) in Zimbabwe works to combat the 'feminization' of the negative impacts of diamond mining in Marange. They use community monitoring to document how mining pollution increases women's workloads and limits their access to traditional resources like river reeds.

APA

Booker, S., Knight, R., & Brinkhurst, M. (2015). Protecting community Lands & resources in africa. Natural Justice. https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Protecting-Community-Lands.pdf

Chicago

Booker, Stephanie, Rachael Knight, and Marena Brinkhurst. Protecting community Lands & resources in africa. Natural Justice, 2015. https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Protecting-Community-Lands.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Booker |first1=Stephanie |last2=Knight |first2=Rachael |last3=Brinkhurst |first3=Marena |title=Protecting community Lands & resources in africa |publisher=Natural Justice |date=2015 |url=https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Protecting-Community-Lands.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{booker2015protecting, author = {Booker, Stephanie and Knight, Rachael and Brinkhurst, Marena}, title = {{Protecting community Lands \& resources in africa}}, institution = {Natural Justice}, year = {2015}, url = {https://naturaljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Protecting-Community-Lands.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }