Actual Exercise of Land-resource Rights Within the Exising Government Frame- work
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The law defines indigenous territories as ancestral domains AD. However, this is something that must be demonstrated; therefore it requires proofs: ethnography of the
people, genealogies spanning at least six generations, a census, and a geographical re- construction based on indigenous toponyms. With all this information, people from the
communities included in an AD develop a process of self-delineation, which serves as a basis for the official survey and monumenting process. What follows are administra-
tive procedures which end with the production of a claim book that includes all the documents of the process, the scrutiny of the claim book and survey maps by the Na-
tional Commission on Indigenous Peoples NCIP, whose seven commissioners have to be present in at least three meetings. This leads to the formal approval and, eventually,
the awarding of the CADT by the NCIP.
The process to obtain a CADT takes a long time because of the large amount of proofs required. On average, this process can take between two and three years. In many cases
in the Cordillera Administrative Region, the process has already gone on for more than ten years yet remains uncompleted. And the process is expensive. The NCIP has only a
limited budget for processing CADT applications, and it has been estimated that about 500 are still pending.
There are no limits to the size of a CADT or the number of communities that can jointly apply. Only in a few cases has an indigenous people decided to apply for a CATD
covering its entire territory. These include the Matigsalug in Mindanao 102,324 hect- ares and the Buhid in Mindoro 90,000 hectares. In most cases, several CADTs have
been issued or are being applied for by one particular indigenous people, covering be- tween a few thousand to a few ten-thousand hectares.
In many cases, the communities applying for a CADT face considerable problems arising from conflicts between different government agencies, in particular the NCIP
and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources DENR, regarding, for ex- ample, protected areas overlapping with AD claims, opposition from local governments
and companies due to commercial interests, and the collusion of the NCIP with such in- terest groups instead of living up to its mandate to support the indigenous communities.
Even when communities possess a CADT, they are often faced with pressure result- ing from corporate interests in accessing natural resources within their AD. The NCIP
has often supported companies in obtaining the Certificates of Free, Prior and Informed Consent FPIC that they need to start exploiting the natural resources, rather than help-
ing the communities in critically assessing the requests of these companies.
Nevertheless, many indigenous communities all over the Philippines consider the IPRA an advancement since it allows them to secure their territorial rights. They also
find that the lengthy and complicated proof-building procedure has in the end been valuable because it has allowed them to recover elements of their culture. And they ap-
preciate having defined clear and exact boundaries of their AD with the help of sophisti- cated methods and technologies like GPS global positioning satellite.
Communities possessing a CADT are, however, also well aware that a title is not enough, that they need to have their own development plans for their ADs and strength-
en their traditional or newly formed institutions to confront the challenges they are faced with.
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Case study 2. Community Forestry in Rasuwa District, Nepal
written by Sara Subba, Program Development Officer of The Mountain Institute
Community Forestry CF was first adopted by the Government of Nepal in 1989 for the sustainable management of the country’s forests by transferring management au-
thority from the Department of Forestry to the Community Forest User Group CFUG. Today, after two decades, CF, specifically in the hills of Nepal, is considered quite a suc-
cess. One of the major factors to this achievement is the fact that the CF strategy focuses on empowering local people, exclusively those that are deemed disadvantaged and mar-
ginalized. As such, the CF policy in Nepal endorses equal access to resources resulting in the equal benefit-sharing of those resources. Another noteworthy accomplishment
of the CF in Nepal is that it promotes participation of marginalized groups, especially women and indigenous communities, in decision-making process in the management
and conservation of the forests.
Rasuwa District of Central Nepal is nestled amidst the famous biodiversity-rich Ga- nesh Himal and Langtang Mountain range. This area is the stronghold of the Tamang
ethnic group, an indigenous community with a rich culture and heritage. Like most of the hill regions of Nepal, Rasuwa lacks development activity. The people of the area are
secluded from attaining any benefits from mainstream development. The availability of health and education facilities is extremely limited, and the living condition of the com-
munities is poor. Thus, many people migrate seasonally to other areas to supplement their income through trade or wage-earning jobs, and the exploitation of natural re-
sources, including endangered wildlife species, is very high. However, recent implemen- tation of CF has notably increased the access of disadvantaged groups, mainly women,
and the condition of the forests is significantly improved.
One example of CF success is the tiny village of Chilime in Rasuwa. The CF law re- quires that 13 of the members of the executive user committee be women. Considering
this, the village of 1,000 went ahead and had an all-women 15-member executive user committee to lead and manage their community forest.
In this case, increasing women’s participation in decision-making has not only pro- vided equal benefit sharing in the CF but has also empowered one of the most disadvan-
taged groups in all of Nepal. Further, an all-women executive committee has significant- ly optimized the effectiveness of conserving forests and high-value species, as females
are the main collectors of firewood, timber, medicinal plants and wild foods, and are also considered to have extensive indigenous knowledge on the management of natural
resources. Thus, they are of extreme importance as retainers of knowledge on native plants and animals for food, medicine, and fiber.
According to The Mountain Institute TMI, a non-profit organization supporting the villages of Rasuwa in the formation and registration of CFs, the people of Chilime are
now more aware of the importance of privately cultivating tree species and endangered medicinal plants because the CFUG prohibits unsustainable harvesting of these plants
and trees from the community forest.
Similarly, the Chilime CFUG holds various programs and trainings on private cultiva- tion of these species, promoting sustainable harvesting while providing alternate liveli-
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hood. With demonstration plots and nurseries to generate seedlings for plantations, the Chilime CFUG is indeed a winning example of the efficacy of CF.