*Community Collective Land Stewardship Contributions to Sustainable Rural Development… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.104212*

delimitation of the Cubo communal land. The community was the major player in the identification of its rights and the delimitation of its territory. AWF simply facilitated the process of self-determination by providing the community with a participatory methodology that translated indigenous knowledge into a form that was registered in a modern registry system—the National Cadastre. The approach was participatory, allowing the community and its neighbors to delineate and reach a consensus on the boundary of what they perceived to be their land. The delineated boundaries coincided with the historical lineage territory over which the Cubo community has jurisdiction over land and other natural resources, such as wildlife, forests, water, and pasture. A series of validation mechanisms were integral to the land delimitation process, whereby the Cadastral Department consulted the neighboring communities to verify (i) if they were consulted in the process of land delimitation and (ii) if the delineated boundaries were correct. In addition, the administrator of the Massingir District ensured that the registration process was transparent and that it considered various interests of those desiring to secure their land, including the interests of neighboring communities and other stakeholders, such as the authorities of the adjacent Limpopo National Park, and the private concessionaires. The outcome of this process included:


#### **Figure 2.**

*Cubo secured communal land allocated to biodiversity conservation (map drawn by map drawn by Gordon Ringani).*

Securing and leveraging communal land for biodiversity conservation and tapping into the wildlife economy for the Cubo community was expected to have several benefits, including:


*Community Collective Land Stewardship Contributions to Sustainable Rural Development… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.104212*

empowerment and enterprise approach, where community-based organizations (CBOs) are registered and contract directly with the private sector [8]; and

v.The community's quest to establish a Conservancy conformed to the resolutions of the 5th IUCN's World Parks Congress of 2003, and the Convention on Biological Diversity 7th Conference of 2004, which recognized and recommended the establishment of "Community Conserved Areas" as the fundamental mechanism in support to biodiversity conservation, and equitable sharing of benefits arising from biodiversity conservation [16]. It was also in agreement with Mozambique's own legislation on land (*Lei de Terra* of 1997), and forestry and wildlife legislation (Mozambique government 1997).

#### **3.2 Governance of the secured land and conservancy**

In southern Africa, the legal personality for governing CBNRM is either a trust, Associações (as is the case in Mozambique), communal property association, or community-based organization (CBO) which is empowered to govern and represent the communities' interests in the management of the natural resources. In addition, the empowerment of communities over their land and associated natural resources, such as wildlife and forests establishes them as prospective partners in any commercial joint venture deal with private investors, and/or state agencies.

For the Community Conservancy, an Associação was established comprising three females and seven men elected by the Cubo community. The inclusion of women was consistent with Mozambique's constitution, in which men and women are equal before the law in all aspects of political, economic, social, and cultural life. As equal members within the community, women representatives are supposed to fully represent the interest of women within their communities in land management decision-making processes and other aspects of socioeconomic development. The Associação was established to reinforce local accountability—a prerequisite for them to gain direct benefits from investments in conservation-based business and/or in-kind donations from effective local-level land and biodiversity management. The roles of the Associação were to:


• Defend the community's rights to its secured land tenure.

To fulfill the Associação's mandate, its members were trained by AWF in various aspects (resource management, conflict resolution, financial management, etc.) to ensure that it appropriately served the community's interests and expectations.
