The effect of deforestation on land tenure in Central Africa

The CoForTips project aims at the promotion of better management of the forest of the Congo Basin by presenting to the policy makers plausible scenarios of social and ecological systems evolution. In this paper, we focused on the impact of deforestation on land tenure mutation in Central Africa. Land tenure defines the level of ownership and management experienced by the local population on defined areas (Le Roy et al., 1996). We assume that the rules acting on objects of land tenure evolve from loose land control to privatization and the ability to dispose of resources when we progress on the forest transition curve designed by Mather (1992). We demonstrate that individual land tenure increases along with the deforestation process, and continue along with the reforestation process where this one is a consequence of agricultural plantations on deforested lands. We then draw a theoretical land tenure evolution with variation of population density in relation to forest cover that could be used as an indicator of SES shifting more sensitive than the evolution of forest cover to appreciate forest transition at the SES level and predict the presence and intensity of tipping points.