Land and Natural Resources

Overview

     Land and natural resources is the mainstay of livelihoods in the developing world, generally, and Africa, in particular. That is why Kenya economic development blueprint the Vision 2030 points out that land will play a critical role in the achievement of the country socio-economic and political development.

    But the pressure on land and other natural resources continues to increase at an alarming rate. Critical socio-economic activities such as human settlements, agriculture, commerce, industry and tourism development are all competing for the ever-dwindling natural resource base.

     For export and to inappropriate tourism development. Unsustainable agricultural and other socio-economic practices are causing serious deforestation and changes in landscapes and ecosystems with consequent losses of biodiversity, loss of soil fertility, and agrochemical pollution of soils, freshwater and coastal resources downstream.

      Furthermore, land tenure and other policy issues critically affect land management, as do a multiplicity of socio-economic factors, such as trade and the influence of outside markets, traditional and cultural practices, and demographics. These challenges call for serious legal, policy and institutional responses. But these have been in short supply.

       In Kenya, for example, past policies and laws have neither managed to deal with the age-old land question nor evolved appropriate rules for regulating issues of ownership, access and use of land and natural resources.

       The result has been numerous land conflicts, unsustainable utilization and management of land and related resources and resultant poverty and inequity within the Kenyan Society.

      The Constitution of Kenya 2010 and the National Land Policy sets a framework for reversing this past and setting the framework for sustainable management of land and natural resources in the path towards achieving sustainable Development.

    It is against this light that ILEG’s Land and Natural Resources Programmme seeks to support the development and implementation of policies and laws that encourage sustainable and equitable management and utilization of land and natural resources at national, regional and international levels.

     Such natural resources include biodiversity, forests, wetlands, water, drylands, fisheries, and minerals, amongst others. A critical challenge in the management of natural resources is the framework for resolving conflicts. Many communities, regions and countries fight over resources either as consequence of resource scarcity or competing uses.

Exacerbating these conflicts is the lack of clear and objective structures and procedures for resolving conflicts over natural resources in an amicable manner.

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The Access Initiative