**_5_**

farms. In practice though, laborious survey procedures prevented more than a quarter of villages in the country from securing Village Title Deeds. A new **Land Policy** (1995) and new land legislation (1999) have now reconstructed the tenure environment of Tanzania and with it, the nature and expression of rights at the local level.<sup>8</sup>

1.18 The construct of 'the village' remains central in the new policy and legal framework, and is in fact strengthened. The links between the village and its land were given a clear and strong legal foundation by the introduction into law of **Village Land** as one of three land management categories within which land ownership relations pertain (the other two being General Land and Reserved Land).<sup>9</sup>

1.19 Of these three land management categories, Village Land is perhaps the most important. Over half the country falls within the boundaries of its more than 9,000 registered villages. Village Land is subject to own legislation, the Village Land Act (1999). While this law removes the right of a Village Council to secure title over the Village Area, it endows that body with functions more appropriate to its identity as a government, by designating it the **Manager** of that land (rather than owner).

1.20 The new law is quite clear with regard to the responsibilities, duties and rights of the Village Council in this capacity as land manager. First and foremost, the Council is obliged to define, with the agreement of the community, tracts of the Village Area which are to remain, for an interim period or in perpetuity, as land held in common by the whole community. The Village Land Manager is required to establish a Village Land Registry and, should the community so wish, issue private deeds or titles over respective parts of the remaining land within the Village Area. The process through which this is to be undertaken amounts to a simple form of in-village adjudication, carried out by appointed villagers and dependent ultimately upon the agreement of the community as a whole. Rights established in this way are comparable to those of European freehold. These deeds may be made out to groups, clans, households, spouses (holding the land jointly), as well as to individuals.

## THE **FOREST POLICY** FRAMEWORK

# **Village Lands and Forest Managers**

1.21 At once the relevance of the new land legislation to emerging systems of communitybased management of woodland and forest resources in Tanzania, can be seen. As we have noted, most unreserved woodlands and forests are found in or adjacent to Village Lands, of which elected village councils are the designated and lawful Land Managers. Land law not only allows villagers to earmark parts of their local environment for common use and/or natural resource management. It encourages them to do so, and provides two mechanisms through which

> 8 cf. **_National Land Policy_** (August 1995); **_the Land Act,_** _No._ **_4_** _of_ **_1999 and the Village Land Act,_** _No._ **_5_** _of_ **_1999._** approved by Parliament in February 1999, assented by the President in May 1999 but with the date of commencement not yet gazetted.

> 9 General Land is in effect 'Government Land' and includes all urban areas, many estates which are held as leaseholds from the state, and a range of other lands where the state is the land management authority, in the person of the Commissioner of Lands. Reserved Land has special status in that its use and occupation is regulated by use- or resource-related laws, such as the Forest Ordinance, the National Parks Ordinance or the Highways Ordinance.