Chapter-4

Property Rights, Land Tenure and Tenure

Security
 Property Right and Natural Resource
Management
The Four Strands in the “Rights Bundle” various
strands in a bundle of rights related to a unit of
land and associated natural resources may
include:
 Right to use,
 Right to manage,
 Right to transfer (assign or reassign)
 Use and management rights, and
 Right to “own”.
 Property Right and Natural Resource Management
1.Use rights
 The most observable types of property rights are
use rights, either to non-consumptive use of a
resource or withdrawal of the resource such as:
• gathering deadwood in a forest,
• grazing livestock in a pasture,
• producing crops on agricultural lands, or
• fishing in a pond
 Use rights are as varied as are uses of a unit of land
and the natural resources it contains.
 For example, use rights to a parcel of land may include:
– the right to farm,
– to pasture,
– to plant trees,
– to cut trees,
– to build a house,
– to establish a non-agricultural enterprise,
– to exploit the land as a quarry, or
– any combination of such rights
 Use rights to trees may include
• fruit or leaf gathering,
• honey collection,
• removal of bark or branches, or
• removal of the tree itself
 Use rights to a body of water may include
– drinking,
– bathing,
– washing clothes,
– watering livestock,
– fishing or
– diversion for irrigation
2. Management rights
 Management rights are an order higher than use
rights, and are intermediate between use and full
ownership (including transfer) rights.
 Management rights consist of the right to organize
and assign use rights.
 The manager of a unit of land or a stock of natural
resources typically has authority to makeland use and
production decisions that have implications for the
various use rights holders.
 Just as management rights can be distinct from use
rights, management rights are also often distinct from
transfer (or ownership) rights.
 For instance, a wetland may be legally owned by the
state, but management of the wetland, that is, rules
of when and where people can fish or how much fish
can be withdrawn may be decided upon by a village
council.
 Typically, in such cases, the village council will
manage the wetland within the overarching
regulations imposed by the state—as for instance, a
state imposition of ban on fishing during specific
times of the year.
3. Transfer right
 Transfer rights exist at a still higher order than use and
management rights.
 Transfer rights refer to the authority to assign or
reassign both management and use rights.
 A transfer of rights may be definitive and absolute, that
is, the transfer may include all rights included in the
property rights bundle.
 The ability to definitively transfer the entire property
rights bundle is a typical feature of property rights
systems predominant in the West, and may be referred
to as alienation right.
 However, a transfer of property rights may also apply to
something less than the entire property rights bundle.
 For example, it is common in non-Western societies for
a family or a community to transfer management and
use rights attached to a specific parcel to a new arrival.
 The transferred rights include the right to exclude all
others, including community members, from certain
uses of the transferred parcel such as crop cultivation.
 Rights granted to the new arrival are often quite
secure, and may even be considered permanent.
 But the right to transfer the use and management
rights is typically withheld from a new arrival within a
given community
4. Ownership
 In contrast to the rights categories presented
above, definition of the term ownership, as
applied to land and natural resources, is neither
precise nor rigorous.
 It is a useful term, and unavoidable within a
discussion of property rights. The term is used
here simply to indicate priority claims to the
property rights bundle made on the part of an
individual, a private entity or a state.
 Priority rights can be thought of as a claim of
authority to manage and administer the property
rights bundle.
 The concept of ownership may vary depending
upon the socio-political context.
 For example, alienation rights, taken for granted
in Western property rights systems, may be
entirely absent from the property rights bundle
claimed by the customary owners of land and
natural resources.
 Types of Tenure
Land tenure is often categorized into four types:-
I. Private: Rights are assigned to a private party that
may be an individual, a married couple, a group, a
corporate body (commercial enterprise or non-
profit organization).
II. Communal: A right of commons may exist
whereby each member of the community may use
the land and resources of the community.
 Grazing cattle on a common pasture is one example.
 Non-community members, however, may be
excluded.
III. Open access /Terra nullius- Land belongs to no
one. Does it exist?
 Specific rights are not assigned to any individual or
group and no one can be excluded.
IV. State
 Rights are assigned to a public sector entity.
 State land is divided into State Public Land, which
can be used for public purposes, and State Private
Land, which may be leased to earn an income.
Core tenure processes
There are four core tenure processes that are
common in many nations.
1. Formally titling land
2. Transferring the land through agreements
(selling, buying, mortgaging and leasing)
3. Transferring land by social events (birth, death,
marriage, divorce, exclusion and inclusion among the
managing groups)
4. Forming new interest in the cadaster, generally
new land parcel or properties (subdivision and
consolidation)
 What are some basic features of tenures?
1. Tenures are characterized in terms of:
 Type of right: ownership (freehold), tenancy
(leasehold), usufruct (use right), concession,
license
 Holder: individual (private), state (public),
community (common)

2. Tenures are not made in Heaven but are created

by law
 Impact of Tenure Security
 In many countries of the developing world,
insecure land tenure prevents large parts of the
population from realizing the economic and
noneconomic benefits like:-
 greater investment incentives,
 transferability of land,
 improved credit market access,
 more sustainable management of resources,
 independence from discretionary
interference by bureaucrats, that are
normally associated with secure property
rights to land.
 Benefits of Increased Tenure Security
 Increase in land users’ investment incentives;
 Reduce the time and resources individuals have to
spend trying to secure their land rights;
 Ability to make decisions about the allocation of land;
 Help groups that were traditionally discriminated
against.
 Greater equity;