**5. Lessons learned from Cubo**

The Mozambique government's denial of the Cubo community's desire to develop a nature Conservancy in favor of agrofuel production contradicts the primary purpose of its land law (Lei de Terra of 1997) which is to secure customary land rights, thereby helping to manage and reduce conflict over land tenure and promote rural development through among others, conservation and communities' participation in the wildlife economy as an option to diversify livelihood strategies in rural areas, especially where conventional agriculture is not sustainable, such as in Massingir district. Similarly, there is a special recognition in the land law, of the rights and interests of local communities, including mandatory requirements for community consultations and hearings when land is transferred to new uses and/ or users; hence it is quite puzzling that the implementation of these positive legal and institutional frameworks has been ignored by the government in addressing the Cubo community's lost opportunity to adopt collective land stewardship as a strategy to improve its rural livelihoods and contribute to local level sustainable development.

Although the Mozambique government's contempt for its own land law has not been fully assessed, it may be due to the following interrelated factors.

#### **5.1 Ineffective enforcement of the land law statutes**

There is a gap between the law-making rhetoric and on the ground enforcement of the land law due to weak institutional capacity, poor governance, lack of political will to enforce the law, and vested state's interests—contrary to communities' needs. These shortfalls are being amply taken advantage of by the district authorities, who under the pretext of promoting national economic priorities, promote the interests of investors over local communities' needs. The ease with which ProCana secured a leasehold concession on the community's legally secured land is subject to wild speculations, but it appears the process may have been aided by powerful Mozambicans who had a stake in the venture and bribing of traditional leaders by ProCana [17]. Traditional leaders have since colonial times been susceptible to corruption and in almost all southern African countries; tenure insecurity is sometimes caused by the exploitative behavior of traditional leaders and rentseeking government officials [10]. Contrary to the statutes of the land law, the Cubo community members were cursorily consulted about the transfer of its land to the private sector. The district authorities focused their land acquisition consultations on community elders/village headmen, who granted permission unwittingly without the full involvement of the wider community [17]. Such agreements are made in exchange with promises from the investor to improve employment and facilities in the area, but such pledges are hardly fulfilled, leading to resentment from the community [19].

The Cubo case demonstrates that legal rights to land are not enough. They need to be set in the broader historical and political context of the country. Nelson and Agrawal [22] observed that institutional reforms that devolve rights to the local level have been relatively successful in countries where public institutions are efficient and the rule of law operates—for example, in Namibia, Botswana, and pre-crisis Zimbabwe. This, they argue, is not the norm across sub-Saharan

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

Africa—where in general state institutions are characterized by patrimonial relationships and weak rule of law. The partial devolution of valuable natural resources such as wildlife to the local level (as observed in Mozambique) appears to be fundamentally at odds with the interests and incentives that dominate governance processes [22].
