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Influence of land tenure interventions on human well-being and environmental outcomes

Authors:
Tzu-Wei Joy Tseng at McGill University
Tzu-Wei Joy Tseng
Brian E Robinson at McGill University
Brian E Robinson
Marc F. Bellemare
Marc F. Bellemare
Marc F. Bellemare
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Ariel Benyishay at William & Mary
Ariel Benyishay
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Abstract

Land tenure security is increasingly recognized as a foundational element for advancing global sustainable development agendas, but questions remain about how it affects human well-being and environmental outcomes. We identify 117 studies that aimed to estimate the causal effect of land tenure security interventions on these outcomes. Approximately two-thirds of these studies reported positive links between improved tenure security and human well-being or environmental outcomes. Close to half of the studies that examined social and environmental outcomes reported positive impacts on both. The majority of studies assessed government-implemented interventions that statutorily recognized rights through land titling and formalization in the 1990s and 2000s. More research is needed to bolster the body of evidence on the effects of non-technical interventions (for example, capacity building and awareness raising) and the devolution of rights to inform future land policy efforts and accelerate sustainable development.
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AnAlysis
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-00648-5
1Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 2Department of Geography, McGill
University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 3Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN, USA. 4Department of Economics,
College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA. 5Climate Change and Sustainable Development Sector, Inter-American Development Bank,
Washington, DC, USA. 6Global Science, The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, VA, USA. 7Global Land Alliance, Washington, DC, USA. 8Department of
Geography and Environmental Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA. 9Landesa, Seattle, WA, USA. 10Department of
Geography, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA. 11Department of Human Ecology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA. 12Land
Tenure and Property Rights, Tetra Tech, Arlington, VA, USA. 13Land and Resource Rights Initiative, World Resources Institute, Washington, DC, USA.
14College of Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of New York, Syracuse, NY, USA. 15Center for International Forestry Research, CGIAR,
Bogor, Indonesia. 16Environment and Production Technology Division, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC, USA.
✉e-mail: ymasuda@tnc.org
With nearly half of the world’s population living in rural
areas of low- and middle-income countries, policymak-
ers increasingly recognize that clear, secure and equita-
ble access and rights to land are foundational for strengthening land
governance systems, social stability, economic growth, environmen-
tal conservation and human development1,2. As a result, land tenure
security (LTS) has increasingly gained prominence with the rise in
global sustainability agendas, such as the Paris Agreement and the
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, as many of these
agendas now articulate both human well-being and environmen-
tal targets. Yet, globally, the effect of LTS on human well-being and
environmental outcomes is still uncertain. For example, evidence
on the role of land rights for achieving desired climate goals remains
“established but incomplete”3. Given the prominent role of LTS in
global sustainability agendas, understanding its relationship to
human well-being and environmental conditions is essential. These
two outcomes are jointly important precisely because they are the
central metrics by which a diverse set of sectors judge various sus-
tainability goals.
Contemporary land tenure insecurity often stems from colonial
imprints of property systems that were established for extractive
purposes to benefit colonial settlers4. These systems were usually
carried over by post independence governments, making legal plu-
ralism the reality for most of the world5. Recent policies to strengthen
LTS, such as decentralization6, often have goals of clarifying or
enforcing existing tenure arrangements7,8, or ameliorating historical
power imbalances through interventions to empower women9,10 and
indigenous groups11, often through titling and formalization12–14.
In general, policies that strengthen LTS to advance sustain-
ability goals are based on the assumption that recognizing rights
will benefit the landholder by ‘unlocking’ capital (for example, by
providing access to credit or by enabling full utilization of produc-
tion factors), reducing uncertainty15,16, providing opportunities and
empowerment, and incentivizing the sustainable use of natural
resources17 (see Supplementary Information). These rationales have
fuelled substantial investments in policies that depend on LTS to
achieve their goals, with over US$2.5 billion spent on land titling
efforts alone in the past two decades (https://www.aiddata.org/).
The confluence of interests that seeks to strengthen LTS highlights
the urgency of understanding the state of knowledge, to guide both
research and sustainability policies.
In the past three decades, there has been a notable increase in
assessments of interventions that address LTS (Supplementary Fig.
1). This emerging body of work has given rise to several reviews of
LTS that examined its impacts on deforestation18, women’s rights19,20,
agricultural investment21,22 and food security23 (Supplementary
Table 1). The study that is closest to the present work examined
the social and environmental outcomes of LTS across 36 qualita-
tive and 23 quantitative studies (although they were affiliated with
a particular donor agency and their search yielded a smaller set
of studies)24. However, these existing reviews focused on specific
geographies, biomes, interventions or outcomes, which prevent a
Influence of land tenure interventions on human
well-being and environmental outcomes
Tzu-Wei Joy Tseng 1, Brian E. Robinson 2, Marc F. Bellemare3, Ariel BenYishay4, Allen Blackman5,
Timothy Boucher6, Malcolm Childress7, Margaret B. Holland 8, Timm Kroeger 6, Benjamin Linkow9,
Moustapha Diop8, Lisa Naughton10, Thomas Rudel11, Jolyne Sanjak12, Priya Shyamsundar6, Peter Veit13,
William Sunderlin14,15, Wei Zhang 16 and Yuta J. Masuda 6 ✉
Land tenure security is increasingly recognized as a foundational element for advancing global sustainable development agen-
das, but questions remain about how it affects human well-being and environmental outcomes. We identify 117 studies that
aimed to estimate the causal effect of land tenure security interventions on these outcomes. Approximately two-thirds of these
studies reported positive links between improved tenure security and human well-being or environmental outcomes. Close to
half of the studies that examined social and environmental outcomes reported positive impacts on both. The majority of stud-
ies assessed government-implemented interventions that statutorily recognized rights through land titling and formalization
in the 1990s and 2000s. More research is needed to bolster the body of evidence on the effects of non-technical interventions
(for example, capacity building and awareness raising) and the devolution of rights to inform future land policy efforts and
accelerate sustainable development.
NATURE SUSTAINABILITY | VOL 4 | MARCH 2021 | 242–251 | www.nature.com/natsustain
242
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved
... Mobility is essential for ensuring the sustainable use of grasslands by pastoralists, given the strong spatial and temporal heterogeneity in 1 Although many studies have examined the environmental impacts of property rights in the forest and fishery sectors, they too have produced mixed results (e.g., Costello et al. 2008, Liscow 2013, BenYishay et al. 2017, Isaksen & Richter 2019, Jung et al. 2022. For a comprehensive review, see Tseng et al. (2021). grasslands (Rota & Sperandini 2009, Tessema et al. 2014, while flexibility can serve as an important risk management strategy for coping with the spatial variability of vegetation and the vulnerability of grasslands (McCarthy & Di Gregorio 2007, Fernandez-Gimenez 2002. ...
... Scholars have long recognized the significance of property rights in mitigating environmental degradation (e.g., Coase 1960, Hardin 1968. However, empirical studies on this topic have generally centered on the forest and fishery sectors, rather than on grasslands (e.g., Costello et al. 2008, Liscow 2013, BenYishay et al. 2017, Isaksen & Richter 2019, Tseng et al. 2021, Jung et al. 2022, despite the critical role that grasslands play in global ecosystems and the substantial degradation risks they face. This paper is one of the few studies that identify the effect of property rights on grassland conservation (e.g., Hou et al. 2022, Liu et al. 2019, Sneath 1998. ...
... This study also provides a new perspective for reconciling the mixed findings regarding the impact of property rights on environmental outcomes (Dietz et al. 2003, Tseng et al. 2021). Scholars who advocate privately managed natural resources believe that well-defined property rights incentivize land users to protect their lands and maximize long-term benefits (Hardin 1968, Farzin 1984, Banks 2003, Libecap 2009). ...
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... Globally, there has been increasing interest in land rights (e.g., Salmerón-Manzano and Manzano-Agugliaro, 2023) and the interactions between land tenure and forests (e.g., Robinson et al., 2018;Masuda et al., 2020;Tseng et al., 2021). The empirical literature on land tenure and forest outcomes suggests the relationship is mixed and context specific (Robinson et al., 2014;Busch and Ferretti-Gallon, 2023). ...
... Using primary data, we are able to include a measure of both formal land title and perceptions of LTS-that land is secure from expropriation or land grabbing-in our analysis. Most studies of LTS measure the influence of titling or formalization interventions (Tseng et al., 2021), and do not explicitly capture the influence that formal or informal institutions have on assuring rights are upheld. ...
Land tenure security and forest cover in the Colombian Amazon
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Land tenure security (LTS) is important for achieving many sustainable development goals but its influence on forest cover is mixed. The uncertain relationship between LTS and forests is driven, in part, by the moderating influence of other drivers of deforestation. In this paper we illustrate this complex relationship between LTS and forest cover for individual private landholders in the Colombian Amazon. We use household surveys and econometric analysis with matching techniques to examine whether formal land titles and perceptions of LTS influence forest cover. We explore how the effect of a land title on forest cover is moderated by perceptions of LTS, time to markets, and participation in a conservation program. We find that more secure land tenure, on average, has a statistically significant and negative influence on forest cover in our sample. The negative association between LTS and forest cover is stronger when landholders perceive they have secure tenure and are closer to markets. However, we find the negative relationship between land title and forest cover goes away when a landholder participates in a conservation program. While our cross-sectional data and quasi-experimental methods cannot lead to causal statements, our results are in line with many recent studies in the Amazon region, and our household-level data provides important insight regarding drivers of deforestation that moderate the relationship between land title and forest cover. Our results inform the design of future LTS interventions and conservation efforts.
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... Gender biases in private and public services, such as credit and extension services (Manfre et al., 2013;Kosec et al., 2023), limit women's capacity to participate in agroforestry markets and to build remunerative tree-based enterprises (Catacutan and Naz, 2015;Ingram et al., 2016;Davis et al., 2019). Where benefits from agroforestry are formally linked to land rights, such as in many Payments for Ecosystem Services schemes, women who are not registered on titles receive limited direct benefits from these initiatives (Sunderlin et al., 2018;Kariuki and Birner, 2021;Tseng et al., 2021). When rules of the entry limit the number of members in farmers' associations or cooperatives to one per household, women are usually excluded in favour of their husband, which limits women's direct access to services and benefits from these groups (Kaaria et al., 2016). ...
Enhancing gender equality in agroforestry systems
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  • Feb 2025
Practiced by rural smallholders globally, agroforestry holds great promise for rural livelihoods, climate action, restoration, biodiversity conservation, and other socio-economic and environmental goals. Yet, agroforestry systems embed significant gender differences and inequalities that hinder the achievement of these goals. In this chapter, the authors explore the nexus of gender and agroforestry to unpack how gender shapes agroforestry systems, and how these systems (re)produce gender inequalities. To support this analysis, they draw on two frameworks – the Gender at Work framework, and the Reach-Benefit-Empower-Transform framework – to understand (1) gender transformative change in and through agroforestry, and (2) a range of programmatic approaches for working with gender to support this change. To bring the discussion to life, they draw on examples of agroforestry projects that have intentionally addressed gender relations and examine how they have fared. In so doing, they highlight entry points for agroforestry interventions to promote greater equality
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... Han et al. [38] indicated that the land rental market has been reemphasized as important for providing access to land for the poor and as an efficiency-enhancing institution in uncertain times, especially in transition countries. Similar research conclusions have been obtained from scholars such as Tseng et al. [39], Tan et al. [40], Guo et al. [41], Jiao et al. [42], and Li et al. [43]. However, the other view is that land transfer has exacerbated the inequality of farmers' income to some extent. ...
The Influence of Rural Land Transfer on Rural Households’ Income: A Case Study in Anhui Province, China
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This paper looks into the impact of China’s new rural land reform, the three rights separation policy (TRSP), on Chinese farmers’ income. Based on data collected from 360 rural households in Anhui Province, China, 2021, this paper constructed the influence pathways of the TRSP on household income and estimated the effects along different pathways using the structural equation model (SEM) model. It showed that through expanding the planting scale and promoting resource-use efficiency, the new land tenure system can indirectly increase transfer-in household income. However, the TRSP has a significant negative direct effect on transfer-out households’ income, and only a slight impact on transferring rural labor to other industries or relaxing the liquidity constraint. In short, the TRSP’s effect on income gains is more prominent in transfer-in households than transfer-out ones, which in the long run would lead to an increased income gap, more so if transfer-out households lack easy access to non-farm employment. Our findings suggest that public authorities should respect farmers’ autonomy in land transfer decisions and pay special attention to labor transfer in poverty alleviation. Meanwhile, widening income disparities among different groups should be heeded while implementing local governments’ service roles.
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... This work has further explored the potential to move beyond simple concern for 'representation' of social interests to encompass broader goals of empowering marginalised actors and communities in the design and implementation of sustainability initiatives (e.g. Blomquist, 2009;Brockhaus et al., 2011;Mwangi and Wardell, 2012;Tseng et al., 2021). Research on integrated water resources management has similarly shown how multi-stakeholder sustainability governance processes frequently exclude many important categories of affected stakeholders. ...
Jurisdictional approaches to sustainable agro-commodity governance: The state of knowledge and future research directions
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The article examines the rise of jurisdictional approaches (JAs) as a new governance model to foster sustainable forest and land management in agro-commodity production areas, particularly in biodiversity-rich tropical forest countries. Over the past decade, these approaches have gained momentum due to the significant land use changes caused by agro-commodity production, which have substantial environmental impacts and affect the livelihoods of around 1.6 billion rural people, including indigenous communities. The literature predominantly offers descriptive and analytical insights into the conceptualization and functions of JAs, with a notable gap in evaluative studies. Much of the academic discourse is shaped by practice-oriented publications, often presenting an optimistic view of JAs' potential. However, the articles also acknowledge that JAs are not value-neutral, underscoring the necessity for more in-depth analyses of their practical implementation and effectiveness. The authors propose several future research directions for jurisdictional approaches (JAs) to sustainable commodity governance, emphasizing the need for systematic critical evaluations focusing on their limitations and obstacles and the more profound limits of their potential achievements. They stress the importance of addressing political and socio-economic power dynamics in establishing and implementing JAs and call for more research on the participation and inclusion of marginalized social stakeholders. Additionally, they highlight the need to assess the effectiveness and impact of JAs. The authors also advocate for empirical-analytical work to understand the practical functioning of external linkages between national and subnational jurisdictions and suggest exploring the interactions between JAs and global environmental governance processes.
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... Property rights is considered a tactic to solve the problems of land degradation (Li et al., 2007). However, it has been demonstrated that privatization often causes more land degradation than the traditional collective property system (Cao, Xu, et al., 2018b;Sneath, 1998), regardless of whether land ownership is maintained by the government or the individual (Ostrom et al., 1999;Tseng et al., 2021). Some governments are modifying the land use rights system by increasing funds to protect and restore the ecosystem (Ouyang et al., 2016;Su et al., 2021). ...
Land parcellation reduced spatial redundancy resulting in grassland degradation
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Degradation is the most immediate threat to biodiversity and sustainable livelihoods of global pastoral grasslands. However, we are still uncertain why grassland degradation is enhanced by the land policy of grassland parcellation. We hypothesized that spatial redundancy of the grazing system, that is, parcellation accelerates land fragmentation and reduces spatial redundancy, leads to land degradation. This study aimed to clarify the relationship between households, livestock and grassland management under the grassland contract policy, and to determine the causes and consequences of grassland fragmentation and degradation. We interviewed households who received land under the grassland contract policy in typical pastoral areas of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau, and then, we employed binary logistic regressions, multinomial logistic regressions and fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analyses to examine the relationship between spatial redundancy and grassland–livestock balance. A very significant (p < 0.001) negative asymptotic exponential trend emerged between grassland area and stocking rate, but with regional differences. Grassland spatial redundancy and stocking rate displayed a significant (r² = 0.96; p < 0.05) negative asymptotic exponential trend, that is, households with a lower spatial redundancy had a higher stocking rate. Based on our results, spatial redundancy can be used as one of the key indices to evaluate landscape stability of grazing systems. In any terrestrial ecosystem, the size of spatial redundancy reflects the carrying capacity of the land and determines the delicate relationship between land, animals and population, that is, in equilibrium or non‐equilibrium. Therefore, taking the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau as an example, we face the spread of grassland degradation caused by the gradual fragmentation of resources under the current grassland contract policy and parcellation in global pastoral areas. Determining the spatial redundancy size of grassland is an important prerequisite for understanding grassland degradation and formulating grassland management strategies. These novel findings have potential beneficial information for resource utilization, especially land management planning in pastoral areas worldwide. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
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... Some scholars have also questioned large-scale land titling policies. First, the issuance of land certificates may not imply increased security of land tenure [30,31], with certain scholars contending that the traditional village order can provide the basic land rights needed to stimulate small-scale investment, whereas reforms to formalize property rights have eroded pre-existing social networks and informal rules to provide security [32,33]. Furthermore, it has been claimed that due to dysfunctional governments in developing countries, land title certificates lack an appropriate legal system backing and authoritative structures, making such certificates more nominally symbolic rather than of practical use [16]. ...
The Role of Procedural Fairness: Land Titling Programs and Agricultural Investment in China
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This study examines the moderating role of procedural fairness between land titling programs and agricultural investment. We constructed a theoretical model that introduces perceived security of land tenure and procedural fairness into the traditional “property rights-investment incentives” analytical framework. Moreover, we empirically analyze the impact of land titling and its procedural fairness on agricultural investment using data from the “Thousands of People, Hundreds of Villages” survey held in 2018 among 9596 households in China. The empirical analyses were conducted by using the ordinary least squares (OLS), probit, and instrumental variable methods. Our analysis showed that land titling in China significantly promotes agricultural investment by farm households and that procedural fairness has a significant positive moderating role in the investment incentive effect of land titling as well as significantly improving the institutional credibility of land titling and enhancing farmers’ perceived land tenure security.
View
... While some scholars argue that health outcomes predict land tenure security (Tseng et al., 2021), Dachaga and de Vries (2022) suggest that land tenure security significantly shapes the socio-physical and environmental conditions necessary for good health. They describe land tenure security as a form of preventive medicine, fostering resilient conditions for healthy living, while land tenure insecurity increases vulnerability to poor health and well-being. ...
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This article explores the nexus between land redistribution policies and healthcare accessibility to mitigate social and economic disparities arising from inequitable land distribution. Historically, concentrated land ownership has marginalised rural communities, limiting their access to healthcare services. Land reform initiatives focusing on redistribution and secure tenure have the potential to empower marginalised groups economically and enhance their health outcomes through improved access to healthcare facilities. The study fills Gaps in existing research by investigating the interconnectedness of land tenure security, health outcomes and healthcare access, drawing insights from global contexts, including successful cases in Denmark, New Zealand, and South Korea, alongside challenges in Russia, India, and South Africa. Through a comprehensive literature review and analysis of data from the Global Health Security Index, the study highlights the critical role of equitable land distribution in fostering health equity and sustainable development. Findings suggest that countries with inclusive land policies demonstrate improved public health indicators, highlighting the importance of integrating land reform into broader health and development agendas. In conclusion, land redistribution holds promise for enhancing healthcare access and achieving health equity. Ultimately, this research advocates for strategic interventions that prioritise fair land distribution as a cornerstone for achieving universal health coverage and addressing persistent health disparities worldwide.
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The potential for homestead microplots to contribute to food security in rural West Bengal
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Landesa's partnership with the Government of West Bengal on state land allocation and titling programs provides an extraordinary learning opportunity. This paper uses survey data gathered through a recent study of households across West Bengal to explore the relationship between newly gained tenure security and the potential for improving the food security of the household. It finds no titling effect on food security, nor does it find an effect when women's names have been included on the title. However, it does find a positive effect on food security when households engage in such livelihood activities as homestead kitchen gardening and animal husbandry. It concludes by exploring ways to improve the uptake of such activities at scale.
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Improving land tenure security (LTS) is a significant challenge for sustainable development. The Sustainable Development Goals and other recent global initiatives have renewed and increased the need to improve LTS to address climate change, biodiversity loss, food security, poverty reduction, and other challenges. At the same time, policymakers are increasingly interested in evidence‐based policies and decisions, creating urgency for practitioners and researchers to work together. Yet, incongruent characterizations of LTS (identifying the key components of LTS) by practitioners and researchers can limit collaboration and information flows necessary for research and effective policymaking. While there are systematic reviews of how LTS is characterized in the academic literature, no prior study has assessed how practitioners characterize LTS. We address this gap using data from 54 interviews of land tenure practitioners working in 10 countries of global importance for biodiversity and climate change mitigation. Practitioners characterize LTS as complex and multifaceted, and a majority of practitioners refer to de jure terms (e.g., titling) when characterizing it. Notably, in our data just one practitioner characterized LTS in terms of perceptions of the landholder, contrasting the recent emphasis in the academic literature on landholder perceptions in LTS characterizations. Researchers should be aware of incongruence in how LTS is characterized in the academic literature when engaging practitioners.
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Transparency, Reproducibility, and the Credibility of Economics Research
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Investigating the impacts of increased rural land tenure security: A systematic review of the evidence
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  • J RURAL STUD
This paper investigates the multiple effects of increased land tenure security on rural people through a systematic review of the available evidence. The research involves collecting and synthesising the robust quantitative and qualitative research around this topic and is guided by a theory of change that reflects expected effects from the main land tenure security-related activities. Based on the analysis of 59 robust studies, the paper finds strong evidence for positive effects of land tenure security on productive and environmentally-beneficial agricultural investments as well as on female empowerment, but a lack of support for links with productivity, access to credit, and income. Key contextual factors that shape the validity of expected causal chains are also identified and relate to the potential for discrimination and elite capture, which can affect intervention implementation and enforcement; historical experiences with land ownership, which can shape perceptions of current land tenure security, regardless of the actual level; and the characteristics of local lending institutions, which can influence intended effects on credit access. The paper also finds that more research is needed to capture long-term effects of land formalisation interventions and to shed further light on potential environmental benefits.
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Legal Empowerment of the Poor through Property Rights Reform: Tensions and Trade-offs of Land Registration and Titling in Sub-Saharan Africa
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  • Apr 2018
Land registration and titling in Africa is often advocated as a pro-poor legal empowerment strategy. Advocates have put forth different visions of the substantive goals this is to achieve. Some see registration and titling as a way to protect smallholders’ rights of access to land. Others frame land registration as part of community-protection or ethno-justice agendas. Still others see legal empowerment in the market-enhancing commodification of property rights. This paper contrasts these different visions, showing that each entails tensions and trade-offs. The analysis helps explain why land law reforms aiming at legal empowerment may be controversial or divisive in African countries.
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