NOTES AgriculTurAl & rurAl DEvElOpmENT 42691 Land Policy and Administration land policy and Administration as a Basis for the Sustainable Development of the iSSuE 30 FEBruAry Brazilian Amazon 2008 By mAlcOm D. chilDrESS There is enough land in the Amazon region to sat- reform policy goals. The increasing value of Amazonian isfy Brazilian society's demands for economic develop- land and the lack of consistent rules of the game in the ment, environmental management of a resource base allocation of public land create incentives to join the of global importance and the challenges of agrarian race for property rights and acquire land ahead of the reform. Yet Brazil has been unable to create a fully designations of public institutions. Private actors are coherent and manageable land policy and administra- moving quickly and aggressively to signal, document, tion system for the region which permits sustainable adjudicate, and enforce their claims to property rights development goals to be achieved while reconciling in the absence of fully consistent practices and gaps in special interests and uses. Instead, resource waste, institutional coordination. In practice private actors use private appropriation of the public domain and social the legalization of precarious occupation and fraudu- conflict characterize land relations in the region. As lent documentation as the main vehicles in the race the region becomes increasingly accessible for a vari- for property rights. Public institutions are attempting ety of economic activities, and more central to Brazil's to pre-empt the race through zoning, the rapid and economy, the resolution of the land questions looms extensive creation of protected areas, the passage of a large as a foundational element for reconciling and public forest concession law, and the establishment of ordering economic development, resource manage- sustainable development settlement projects. ment and social priorities. Nevertheless, the results of this race for property rights The timing of land policy reforms is important. An have generated a chaotic situation. Up to half of the ongoing "race for property rights" in the Amazon registered titles to private land in the Legal Amazon threatens to overwhelm the planning framework for are considered to be under suspicion of illegality. Over reconciling economic, environmental and agrarian 42 million hectares are held in possession (posses) with the National Institute for Agrarian Reform's interpreta- tion of their property rights differing widely from that of the possessors. Approximately 28 percent of the land (143 million ha) is considered legally unallocated, although virtually all of it is contested by various public and private agents. Another 70-100 million ha are privately held but considered likely to be based on fraudulent documentation. There is no consistent record of the physical location of lots registered in Amazonian land registries. On average 40 land-related killings have occurred annually over the past 5 years, and 1,800 violent episodes were recorded in 2004 in the region. So who really owns the Amazon? The cadastral data, based on user declarations, show that as of 2003, 35 percent of the area's 509 million hectares of land ThE WOrlD BANK was held under private tenure, either registered owner- cadastral declarations as simple possession (posse) which ship or private possession. Data from existing protected may or may not be subject to full recognition as private areas up to 2006 shows that about 37 percent of the property, again depending on its circumstances of size, Legal Amazon was in some type of protected status, history, and location. In this sense, 30 percent of the about half of this area as indigenous lands and half as entire area may be legally uncertain and/or contested. conservation units of various types. The remaining 28 percent of the area was in neither of these categories, There are three main efforts to address land policy and and therefore is technically considered to be unallocated administration issues in the Amazon, but they lack public land (Figure 1). coordination. One effort is led by the private sector and agribusiness and is characterized by widespread requests However, these figures mask a more complicated and for the regularization of occupied lands, generally held uncertain situation in terms of the final legal status under possession status, to state and federal land insti- of these areas. An unknown amount of the land in tutions. Responses to these requests are lagging, as protected area status is physically occupied by private they are tied to other key efforts to address the land users, whose claims of occupation may or may not have administration challenge. The second effort is led by validity according to a complex and often contradictory the land reform sector (under the direction of INCRA) legal and procedural framework, depending on their and focuses on combating land fraud, responding to circumstances. The large area described as private by occupations, and regularizing occupied areas in order to the cadastral system is also under a cloud of doubt. As expand areas available for land reform settlements. The much as 100 million hectares of the 178 million hectares third effort is led by the environmental and forestry sec- under declared private ownership are suspected of being tors and is focused on zoning, the creation of protected based on fraudulent documentation. Another 50 million areas, and enforcement of the legal reserve requirement hectares of this privately held area is classified from the to maintain standing forest on private land. These three main directions have had Figure 1. land tenure situation in the legal Amazon partial successes but have according to National cadastral System (2003) and the never been fully coordi- area under protection (2006) nated, generating con- flicts, policy gridlock and inconsistent judicial out- APA status comes. (private and These efforts to solve the Occupied and in the protected) problems have been par- cadestre (SNCR) 4% Without declared tially successful to date, 35% occupation or but remain incomplete. protection INCRA's efforts have 28% focused on re-inspection of documentation, called recadastre. The recadas- tre exercise has been a major step forward for Protected areas and land administration by indigenous lands recovering about 20 mil- 33% lion hectares of illegally Total Area: 508,866,843 hectares documented land for public purposes and clari- fying the status of mil- 2 lions of hectares more. Yet the exercise still needs to be The race for property rights in the Brazilian Amazon is carried forward to completion. For example, 1,939 cases likely to become more intense as the economic potential accounting for about 62 million hectares above 5,000 ha of the region continues to expand through road building are still pending. Of these cases, 978 have not presented and increased opportunities for agricultural expansion, any documentation and total about 24 million hectares. spurred by profitable commodity production scenarios. This may indicate the area with the highest likelihood of In this situation the incentives driving the race for prop- presenting illegalities. The recadastre call for properties erty rights will only become stronger. ranging from 5,000 to less than 10,000 hectares has To avoid perpetuating the same land problems into the also not been completed. future, an alternative scenario would require strong The establishment of land reform settlements has cooperation and coordinated action among many stake- expanded quickly since 1995 (to a total of 36 million holders who have tended to not work together in the hectares) and has become one of the main drivers past--essentially a new type of social and political of land policy and administration in the Amazon. pact--to remove key obstacles to peaceful and sustain- But the creation of land reform settlements is not able land administration in the Amazon. well-coordinated with environmental policies, spatial In spite of much existing conflict, there are many shared planning and is prohibiting land regularization, the interests and incentives among most landholders in emergence of legitimate land markets and intensifica- the region for achieving a system of transparent and tion in private holdings. regularized tenure. Cooperation and coordinated action The third reform effort, the creation of protected areas, would need to focus on intensified efforts at reclaiming including indigenous lands, in the Legal Amazon is the public land that is clearly the result of illegal acquisi- main strategy from the environmental standpoint to tion. Reclaiming public land creates space for the con- resolve land policy and administration issues in advance solidation and creation of protected areas and agrarian of the race for property rights by asserting the public's reform settlements. interest in forest management and the protection of The second focus of coordinated action would logi- traditional inhabitants. Forty-two percent (212 million cally be the regularization of land held in possession hectares) of the Brazilian Amazon is under protection as under conditions of "good-faith" in areas where such indigenous land or conservation units. In a historically occupation is appropriate. More specifically, a pact for notable achievement nearly 37 percent of these con- coordinated action would involve uniting the interests servation units were created only in the last four years of economic development groups, environmentalists, (2003­2006). and land reform proponents around a grand plan for land regularization. Under such a plan the goals of each In many cases the creation of protected areas has of these groups would be targeted through coordinated successfully pre-empted new occupations, leading to government initiatives to reclaim public lands illegally improved environmental management, but challenges held in exchange for the allocation of these lands to land from informal and illegal occupation, as well as oppos- reform, the regularization of existing possessions held in ing interest groups, remain for protected areas. Until good faith, public investments in regularized areas and recently most protected areas were far from the reach the expansion and consolidation of the protected areas. of economic activities and the kind of passive protection offered by most protected designations was sufficient. Regularizing land tenure and creating normal land mar- But now 84 percent of protected areas are within the kets would improve incentives for intensification of land profitable reach of economic activities (such as timber, use in these areas, providing legitimate and productive mining, cattle and soy production) and face increasing land users with the security to invest in their landhold- pressure due to the growth of infrastructure (e.g., roads, ings. This strategy would involve the "sealing off" of electrical grid) and the rise of commodity prices (timber, new frontiers to unorganized and illegal occupation. minerals, meat, and soybeans). Main elements in coordinated approach would also 3 need to include the extension of the recadastre exer- REFERENCES cise to all properties, cancellation of the registrations Arima, E.; P. Barreto, and M. Brito. 2006. Cattle Ranching of illegally held lands and the identification of public in the Amazon: Trends and Implications for Environmental lands (discriminação). A coordinated approach for land Conservation. Belém: Imazon. regularization as described here has also the potential Arima, Y. A., S. C. Simmons, R. T. Walker, and M. Cochrane. for significant environmental gains. Regularization and In press. "Fire in the Brazilian Amazon: A Spatially Explicit titling would provide the basis for charging compensa- Model for Policy Impact Analysis. Journal of Regional Sciences tion for legal res erves, and reduce pressure on new forthcoming. conservation areas. It would reduce pressure on existing Barreto, P. C. Souza Jr., R. Noguerón, A. 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Significant contributions to their publication and content come from the DFID-World Bank land policy partnership, the World Bank-FAO collaborative program, the Knowledge for Change Trust Fund, the Global Land Tools Network, the multi-donor trust fund supporting implementation of the Gender Action Plan, and the Norwegian ESSD Trust Fund. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the World Bank Group or supporting institutions. THE WORLD BANK 1818 H Street.NW Washington, DC 20433 www.worldbank.org/rural