Page - (000151) - in Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development

Box8.1 (continued) 1982: STKs start to be awarded 1993:CultivationRightsProject ends 1989:All commercial logging is banned inThailand 1991: ZoningofNational Forest reserves starts (ZoneA:Land suitable for agriculture; ZoneC:Protected forest zone:ZoneE:EconomicForest) 1992: Forest ProtectionUnits transferred to provincial forest offices 1993:All degraded forest lands transferred toAgriculturalLandReformOffice (ALRO), and excluded fromNational forest reserves.ALROissuesSPK4s to landless farmers Sources: Various. Mainly Bugna and Rambaldi (2001), Fujita (2003), Thailand (2003), Buergin (2000),RFD(Various years),Wataru (2003) Box 8.1 shows that the government of Thailand institutedmany land titling pro- gramsbeforeandduring theperiodofstudy, thataimedto ‘clarify’and ‘re-clarify’ the status of property rights, often resulting inmuch confusion. Indeedvillage level data usedinthisstudyindicatethatthemodalperceptionoflandtitlesecuritydidnotremain constant over the 11 year study period (1986–1996). Table 8.1 shows that residents withinForestVillageschangedtheirviewofhowsecuretheirholdwasover their land. We believe that understanding these perceptions of security are critical if we are to understandhowresidentswithinReservedForestsmade their croppingdecisions. All villages within the study dataset lay within forest reserves at least once during the 11 year period. Table 8.1 summarizes strongly held beliefs about land titlesandshowsthatperceptionsof landtitle (and thereforesecurityof title)didnot always match the type of land title households possessed. There were seven different types of land titles in the study region (seeTable 8.1). Thus for example many residents within forest reserves believed that they could use their land as collateral. However forest legislation did not allow residents to have secure land titles or to use land as collateral. After discussing the implications of these land titles15 and consulting literature around this, I differentiate between villages depending onwhether they believe they have secure land rights or not. Villages that report possessing NS-4, NS3 and NS3-K are classified as possessing secure propertyrights.Nineteenpercentof thevillages in thestudysamplereport that they had secureproperty rights even thoughde jure residents canpossess onlyusufruct rights.16 Another factor that contributed to this belief of secure ownership is that most residents payproperty taxes. I discuss thismore in thenext section. 15Personal communication,GershonFeder (2004). 16Feder et al. (1988a, b) andGine (2004a, b) also document that residents of villages that have been in existence for a long period of time are likely to believe that they have secure property rights to the landthat theycultivate,even if theydonotpossess land titlepapers.Federetal.claim thatdespite thefact that landtitledocumentsaremissing, there isanactive landmarket in thispart of thecountry, furtherunderscoring thisperceptionof secure land rights.Gine,whenexamininga sample of 191 villages in North East Thailand and Central Thailand, finds that 40% of the households located invillages inForestReserve andLandReformareas had titled land andonly 20%of thehouseholdswere landless. 8 UsingMixedMethods toAssessTrade-OffsBetweenAgriculturalDecisions. . . 135