What Oxfam is Doing
Securing Land Rights
Outsiders with an eye on logging and mining projects are threatening the forests and mineral resources of the Chiquitano people of the Bolivian Amazon region. After spending 10 years mapping out the lands and filing legal documents—a process funded by Oxfam—several indigenous Chiquitano organizations have secured legal title to their vast ancestral lands they call Monte Verde. With the territory now under communal control, Oxfam is helping the Chiquitano to develop a master plan to manage the territory so it will serve them and future generations.
Mozambique’s Land Law
When Mozambique’s civil war ended in 1990, only a small fraction of the land in Mozambique was held in title by specific owners. With pressure from international donors and investors to grant legal title, and strong demand for the land from recently repatriated refugees, the government needed to tighten up its land policies. Poor farmers—many of whom were and continue to be illiterate women—were in danger: either because they could not prove they had title to their land, or because they would not understand and carry out the new requirements to establish ownership.Civil society organizations created ways to use the traditional system of land title, based on oral testimony, which would allow family farmers to make claims to their land. By the time the new land law was passed in Mozambique, there was a system to allow farmers to make oral claims and stay on their land. Oxfam America helped fund several organizations that worked on the legislation and trained farmers in the proper procedures to file their land claims.