A policy proposal for natural resource management in the rainforest of Madre de Dios, Peru: The concession system and land tenure reform

Madre de Dios in south‐eastern Peru, like other tropical regions, faces important threats that are resulting in a loss of forest resources. The predominant types of land tenure in the rural zones of Madre de Dios are mining, agricultural and forestry concessions of land given by each Ministry to the settlers. Concessionaires fail to act as owners, because concession contracts do not guarantee secure property rights. Short‐term non‐sustainable land uses are favored over sustained management practices. The way in which people use the natural resources depends upon the allocation of rights over those resources. Considering communal property as a policy proposal: a system of land tenure which does not facilitate legal titling of the lands occupied by settlers and loggers will continue to hinder the possibility of developing sustainable long‐term management strategies. In this article, the main proposal for a policy reform is that the land tenure system of concessions currently employed by the Peruvian government must be replaced with the assignment of legal communal land titles to the settlers' communities (not to isolated individuals) who are currently occupying forest lands in the region. The communal land titles would create an incentive for privately motivated group management of the forests, which could help reverse some of the wasteful and indiscriminate uses of land currently government‐owned.