Tenure and Global Climate Change

Tetra Tech helped integrate land and marine tenure and resource rights recognition into climate change mitigation and adaptation programs around the world.

Tetra Tech partnered with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to generate analyses and pilot activities at the intersection of securing rights to natural resources and advancing climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. Through the Tenure and Global Climate Change (TGCC) program, Tetra Tech supported land and natural resource policy development and piloted activities to recognize the rights of local communities across Zambia, Burma, Ghana, Paraguay, and Vietnam. Tetra Tech assisted USAID missions around the world to integrate tenure into a range of sectors including marine and coastal management, agriculture, and biodiversity and forestry.

The TGCC program aimed to identify and test models that strengthen resource tenure governance and increase the effectiveness of climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts. Through TGCC, Tetra Tech carried out case studies, analyses, and field work around the world to strengthen land rights in policy and practice, frequently advancing community resource rights recognition processes. We carried out long-term land rights and land-use planning activities to improve community engagement in land-use decision making and to increase access to financial services. Our team also partnered with Michigan State University to publish journal articles on the empirical evidence linking devolved land tenure and the achievement of biophysical forest management objectives.

Zambia
Tetra Tech tested the hypothesis that tenure security is a necessary prerequisite for farmers to invest time and energy in climate-smart agricultural (CSA) practices through a randomized control trial research design. We also worked with local partners to implement activities to strengthen farmers’ tenure, enhance land management rules, and provide training and inputs for CSA practices like agroforestry. This resulted in more than 17,000 land parcels mapped and recognized for the first time.

Burma
Tetra Tech provided technical assistance to the government to develop its National Land Use Policy, including support for policy drafting and consultations on the draft policy. The project team trained seven civil society organizations across four states and regions on approaches to document community land and resource rights as well as engage in land rights legal awareness processes.

Ghana
In collaboration with Winrock International, Tetra Tech partnered with cocoa supply chain stakeholders, including Hershey and ECOM Agroindustrial, to examine how land tenure constraints effect cocoa farm rehabilitation. The work helped cocoa companies improve intervention targeting and the development of a financial model for farm rehabilitation.

Paraguay
Tetra Tech partnered with the World Resources Institute to support local indigenous organizations to consolidate land claims in the Chaco forest ecosystem to enhance dialogue over Indigenous Peoples’ rights, forest conservation, and agribusiness investments in Paraguay. The results were launched through a dedicated platform for Paraguayan land rights, which is now being used by Indigenous Peoples, the private sector, and parts of government as the basis for discussion.

Vietnam
In partnership with Winrock International, Tetra Tech supported the implementation of a coastal spatial planning process with district and national government counterparts to promote the sustainable management of coastal mangroves.

Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama
Tetra Tech carried out a regional resource tenure and sustainable landscape assessment for USAID’s Central America regional climate change program. These analyses were used by USAID and local partners to consider how land and resource rights will impact implementation of forest conservation and climate change mitigation efforts in the region.

Nepal
Tetra Tech provided support to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility by carrying out a tenure and resource law evaluation in Nepal. This assessment was used by the Nepal Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) Coordination Cell to refine their climate change mitigation approach.

Marine Tenure and Small-scale Fisheries
Tetra Tech also completed a guidance document (primer) and an in-depth compendium of knowledge (sourcebook) on marine tenure in small-scale fisheries, which were informed by lessons learned from field assessments in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The primer, Looking to the Sea to Support Development Objectives: A Primer for USAID Staff and Partners, provides a series of support tools designed to guide USAID staff and partners on the integration of responsible governance of marine tenure into USAID programming. The sourcebook, Marine Tenure and Small-scale Fisheries: A Sourcebook of Good Practices and Emerging Themes, provides a deeper examination of emerging themes and practices in small-scale fisheries and marine tenure by drawing on findings from scholarly research, policy documents, and development projects by donor agencies and leading non-governmental organizations. The primer and sourcebook are available here.