COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND LAND MANAGEMENT IN COMMUNAL LAND TENURE AREAS

In many parts of the world in recent years there has been significant emphasis placed on implementing or reviving land tenure systems. In the main these efforts have focused on individual tenure, securing the rights to a piece of land for individual owners, and have tended to emphasise urban or core agricultural areas. However, in many parts of the world there are rural communities where some form of community tenure has traditionally been practiced. Often these are regarded as peripheral areas, but within such areas access to and control of natural resources is the key to the future prosperity of these economically and socially fragile communities. A recent research initiative by the Geomatics Research Group at the University of Glasgow has set out to establish best practice procedures for sustainable development and land management in such areas of communal tenure. This has particular relevance in the Scottish context where a particular form of communal land tenure, known as crofting, is extensively practiced in the highland and island areas, but is it is anticipated that many of the findings will be applicable in many other areas where systems of communal tenure exist. Typically approaches to using GIS as a decision support tool have been top down. However, there is a growing desire for local community involvement in sustainable development, adopting a bottom up approach. In adopting this alternative approach, the research programme addresses three aspects: institutional issues; technical issues in GIS design; and developing best practice guidelines. Each of these aspects of the research is described. 1. BACKGROUND In what may usually be regarded as rural and peripheral areas forms of communal tenure, predominantly supporting the primary industries (agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting, gathering), continue to persist. As traditional forms of tenure they have the advantage of local acceptability, while their isolation may enhance their ecological and cultural value  supporting, as they do, economically and socially fragile communities. Historically, within these peripheral areas, the official focus of development effort has been on large scale projects driven from the centre, assuming constant economic growth, and attaching little consequence to other sustainability issues. Over recent years there has been greater call for and a growing evidence of a new development approach, namely: community development. This approach often reveals itself in phrases such as communities in charge of their own destiny. However, for many people at the community level there is a lack of clarity as to how this grand scheme can be driven and sustained from within. Equally, from the institutional level there is uncertainty as to how best to support community initiatives, especially where these may be in conflict with existing priorities or represent new ones. Within peripheral areas access to and control of natural resources is the key to the future prosperity of economically and socially fragile communities, e.g. renewable energy initiatives, green tourism, biodiversity protection. This lends itself to support tools and solutions based upon spatial data. However, at a local level there is an apparent lack of relevant data, problems of access and management of data, and a skills and technology gap. 2. WHAT IS COMMUNAL TENURE? As indicated in the previous section, forms of communal tenure continue to exist and prosper in what may be regarded as marginalised and peripheral regions, for example the Pyrenees, Indonesias outer isles, Macedonia, much of Africa, as well as the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Such tenure arrangements may be formal or informal, and subject to national legislative instruments or traditional community agreements (sometimes referred to as traditional tenure). They undoubtedly have the advantage of local acceptability, and form a significant element of the distinct culture that is typically found in these areas. Although a small specialism amongst legal researchers, knowledge of these systems is usually limited to the locality where they are found. Examples of communal tenure are the shared use of land for a particular purpose (such as grazing on community held pastureland) by individuals or families who hold that right, or planned cyclical access to the arable land adjoining a community by individuals or families. The number of animals to be grazed or the acreage accessed for arable farming may be legislated or result from a community decision and may or may not take into account the size or wealth of a family or individual. Crofting is a form of partial communal tenure in the UK (particularly northern Scotland) where there is common grazing administered by the Grazings Committee of a township. Other forms of communal tenure exist in the UK. In the Scottish Borders certain areas of ground in and around the towns were defined by Court of Session judgements as belonging inalienably to the community, for agriculture. Annual ceremonies demarcate the boundaries of these Commons. Many English villages still have their Common where certain families retain grazing rights. Some cities retain old forms of communal tenure; the twelve Freemen of Newcastle upon Tyne retain the right to graze their cattle on the Town Moor. In North Uist run-rig (planned cyclical access to the arable land adjoining a community) still exists. In England a modern form of commonholding is being introduced to flatted properties as leasehold becomes more problematic. Much research and investment over the past two decades has been to support individual tenure. This is because individual tenure has been seen as both a weapon in the armoury of land reform and an engine for economic development. As a consequence the development of systems (e.g. specific new legislation, cadastral mapping, GIS developments) to support individual tenure has been massively funded by national and international bodies. Secure individual tenure is almost always accepted as beneficial, although doubts have sometimes been raised in parts of the world where this has been achieved at the expense of the claims of traditional stakeholders having some form of communal tenure. By comparison communal tenure arrangements are often seen as anachronistic, although some studies suggest the opposite [Ezigbalike, et al, 1996]. Nonetheless they continue to persist, and indeed there is a growing interest in communal tenure as a fundamental building block for sustainable development in peripheral regions. There is small body of research that seeks to understand and compare communal tenure arrangements around the world [e.g. Drummond & Goodwin, 1998]. 3. WHAT IS SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT? Initiatives from The Scottish Executive (Scotlands devolved government) now encourage community participation in any decisions involving enhancement (road widening, forest planting, new crofts, new recreation facilities, etc.) or community development. Peripheral areas, often including land held in forms of communal tenure, suffer from socio-economic fragility, while having high levels of ecological and cultural wealth. Sustainable development aims to achieve economic growth without significantly damaging the cultural or ecological wealth of an area. Increasingly peripheral areas, within the Scottish context, are the focus for the combined effects of: community development, high levels of investment and environmental designation. For example in Scotland we see the advent of community land trusts, community woodlands, world heritage sites, Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and support for the Gaelic language. In the crofting areas this results in an approach to local community development that involves the full breadth of central government agencies, local government, European and international institutions, voluntary effort, etc. This approach generates significant effect where there is community empowerment and support, but there remains a dependency upon central agencies for the provision of data to support local land management decisions. For example, a recent Community GIS Project in North Uist, Trotternish and North Sutherland immediately highlighted the problems associated with the requirement to use data supplied by some public agencies, access to this and other existing data and also non-existing data [Dùthchas Project, 2000]. Yet, these data supply agencies may also have the responsibility for taking the final go-ahead decisions related to specific local development proposals. This can be seen as a conflict of interest, and it is argued that an approach based upon data held at the local level has the potential to enhance community empowerment, increase the pace and acceptability of local development, and thus offset economic and social fragility. Furthermore, with the ready availability and ease of use of data capture tools there is increased scope for a community to capture data important to them that may be lacking from existing data sets. This is consistent with the conclusions of the Community GIS Project that identified a need for and the benefits of creating project relevant data sets from detailed and accurate local knowledge. 4. ROLE OF GIS IN COMMUNAL TENURE AND SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT Geographic Information Systems (GIS) gather, store and process geospatial data to provide new geospatial information using the available functionalities (or data processing tools). GIS approaches have been applied to land information management. The typical approach has been top down [Euroconsult, 1984]. Standard data sets and even functionalities are specified by central agencies. However, there is a growing desire for local community involvement in sustainable development, i.e. a bottom up approach. This approach is also driven by national and European policy, e.g. the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. Thus, there is an increasing need for ap