Communal Land Tenure Research Articles

“If the mangroves disappear, so will San Crisanto — that’s how big the risk is”: Wetlands of a Coastal Lagoon Ecosystem and Local Adaptation to Climate Change

The Yucatan coast (Mexico) contains Ramsar sites of socioecological importance, but also faces problems, such as hurricanes, that increase its vulnerability. The frequency and magnitude of these threats increased, partly due to climate change, necessitating strengthened local adaptation strategies that incorporate the socioecological context and needs of wetland inhabitants. Thus, this study’s objective was to analyze responses to climate change by members of the port town San Crisanto (Yucatan) to learn about their perceptions and the actions they take when faced with hurricanes and their impacts. The study used a qualitative phenomenological methodology, working with 23 participants who witnessed three intense hydrometeorological events. As an ejido (unit of communal land tenure) in possession of land and resources, its members maintain the mangroves and manage them as a strategy of Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA). They support their actions with local socioecological knowledge of their territory and place-based attachment to the lagoon ecosystem that provides their livelihoods, but there also persist several practices requiring attention, such as filling floodable areas with waste, which damages the local population and ecosystem. We conclude that the ejido collective is relevant to ecosystem protection and recommend that EbA strategies be documented and strengthened in order to tend to the human population and the wetlands themselves in the face of climate change.

The Conversion of Ownership Type of Communal Land for Economic Activity, Resilience of Customary Law Community to State Policy

Communal land, the dominant form of land ownership in West Sumatra Province, is a legal place customarily to carry out economic activities with the principle of mutual benefit, and no transfer of communal land ownership is permitted. However, current state policies in economic activity tend to change the form of communal land ownership. The legality constructed by the state has made the transfer of ownership of communal land when used for economic activity, which disrupts the system of ownership and tenure of communal land. These conditions led to the emergence of community resilience in maintaining ownership and tenure of communal land. The method used in this research is a case study in two villages/ nagari, where data collection was carried out through in-depth interviews with several elements in the nagari. Community resilience is carried out by converting communal land ownership from nagari communal land to clan or subclan communal land and vice versa. The conversion of ownership type is a form of the resilience of the community against state policies that threaten communal land ownership and tenure while at the same time maintaining a balance of social and economic benefits from the use of communal land for economic activity.

Mapping high-altitude peatlands to inform a landscape conservation strategy in the Andes of northern Peru

SummaryThe wetlands of the jalca ecoregion in the Andes of northern Peru form peat and play a major role in the hydrological ecosystem services of the ecoregion. Although peat is globally valued for carbon sequestration and storage, peatlands have not yet been mapped in the jalca. In this region, the Gocta waterfall, one of the 20 highest waterfalls in the world, depends on the jalca’s wetlands ecosystem. The local population depends on tourism to the waterfall and is concerned about preserving its drainage area. To inform conservation planning, in this study we delimited the drainage area of the Gocta waterfall and identified land tenure by applying Geographic Information System (GIS), remote sensing and participatory mapping techniques. Then, by classifying optical, radar and digital elevation models data, we mapped peatland in the jalca of the Gocta drainage area with an overall accuracy of 97.1%. Our results will inform conservation strategy in this complex area of communal, private and informal land tenure systems. At a regional level, this appears to be the first attempt at mapping peatlands using remote sensing imagery in the jalca ecoregion, and it represents a milestone for future efforts to map and conserve peatlands in other tropical mountain areas of the world.

Impact of land use and land cover change on land degradation in rural semi-arid South Africa: case of the Greater Sekhukhune District Municipality

In semi-arid regions, interactions between biophysical and socio-economic variables are complex. Such interactions and their respective variables significantly alter land use and land cover, degrade landscape’s structure, and impede the efficacy of the adopted land management interventions. This scenario is particularly prevalent in communal land tenure system or areas managed by a hybrid of traditional and state led institutions. Hence, this study sought to investigate the impacts of land use and land cover changes (LULCCs) on land degradation (LD) under communal rural districts, and the key drivers of habitat fragmentation in the Greater Sekhukhune District Municipality (GSDM), South Africa. The study used the wet and dry season multi-temporal remotely sensed image data, key-informant interviews, and workshop with tribal council to determine the major drivers of LULCC and LD. Results revealed that mines and quarries, subsistence and commercial cultivation, and thicket/dense bush LULCs declined significantly during the study period. These LULCs mostly declined in wet season, with loss in vegetation cover highly prevalent. Specifically, the highest conversions were from shrub/grassland to bare soil, thicket/dense bush to shrub/grassland, and shrub/grassland to residential, respectively. Generally, LULCC affected vegetation productivity within the study area, with increased negative NDVI values observed during the dry season. The findings from key informants and the tribal council workshop emphasized that soil erosion, abandonment of cropland, and injudicious land use (i.e. overgrazing and consequent bush encroachment) have severely degraded the land. The study also established that the degrading land can be attributed to the weakening local communal land management system, particularly the weakening tribal councils. The study recommends an urgent need for collaborative (i.e. government, tribal authorities, and land users) land management through designing relevant multi-stakeholder LD mitigation measures.

Analysis of Gender Issues in Access to Land among Farmers in Karu Local Government Area of Nassarawa State, Nigeria

Gender issues in access to land among farmers in Karu L.G.A of Nassarawa State, Nigeria was investigated. Random sampling procedures were used. Primary data were obtained through structured questionnaires administered to 100 respondents. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, logit regression model. Findings showed that some socio-economic characteristics have significant effect on the access to land, these includes; sex, occupation, farm size, annual income and level of education. gender has a positive significant effect with a coefficient of 0.03064 at 5% significant level of probability. Annual income and educational level of the respondents had a significant effect on the access to land with coefficient of 0.0468 and 0.1426 at 1% level of probability. The majority of the respondents (92.00%) indicated that price of land was the major actor limiting access to farm land in the study area. Other factors indicated were; Local customs (78.00%), farming experience (69.00%), communal land tenure system (63.00%), lack of resource to cultivate farm lands (59.00%), and access to credit (52.00%). 79.00% of the respondent disagreed that men and women have equal right to land ownership it was also indicated by majority (81.00%) of the respondents that men have more access to farm land than women. It was recommended that the women farmers should be encouraged to access credit facilities from government agencies. This will help them to increase production, through acquiring sizeable acreage of land. Also, Local customs that’s are not favourable to the women in accessing land for farming operations should be abolished so as to have equal right with their male counterparts

Dryland Pastoralism Climate Landscape and Food Security in the Suam River Basin of Kenya

River basins in the drylands of Sub-Saharan Africa have traditionally been utilized for pastoral livelihoods under communal land tenure. Communities in West Pokot in Kenya have continued to experience increased precipitation and temperature as a result of climate variability and change. This study aimed at assessing the impact of climate variability and change at micro-basin level in order to address research and policy gaps on climate change and food security as policy arena shifts from centralized to decentralized governance in Kenya. Primary quantitative data was collected from 387 households’ perceptions of climate variability and change and its implications on food security were measured. Food security index score was calculated. The annual rainfall trend over Suam river basin for the period (1981-2020), was characterized by a linearly increasing annual rainfall trend. Mann Kendall test Z-statistics and Tau were at 2.3578 and 0.0720 respectively. The basin experienced the highest rainfall variability during the first decade (1981-1990) with the highest coefficient of rainfall variation noted at 11.5%. The highest temperature was recorded in the third decade (2001-2010) and fourth decade (2011-2020) at 27.0 and 28.2 degrees Celsius respectively. However, the overall index score for food security was 55.78 with food availability scoring the highest index, mean (SD) of 63.41 (36.52). This was attributed to households’ practice of both nomadic pastoralism and agro-pastoralism activities. Climate variability and change, have resulted in increased amount of rainfall received providing for opportunity investment in rain water harvesting to support both pastoralism and agro-pastoralism production to enhance food security.

Formalization of communal land tenure and expectations for pastoralist livelihoods

Despite progress towards recognizing communal land rights, there may be unintended outcomes, and for pastoral areas there is a need to be aware of how this may affect evolving pastoralist livelihoods. This paper examines trends in pastoralist livelihoods, perceptions and aspirations of pastoralists in a setting where a new communal property rights framework is in the early stages of implementation. The study was carried out in Dirre, a grazing unit of the Borana Zone in Ethiopia. It employed a mixed methods approach that included key informant interviews, focus group discussions, a workshop, a household survey and feedback sessions. The findings show that current livestock herd sizes make it difficult for pastoralists to rely only on livestock keeping, and have necessitated diversification. Crop production is increasingly becoming an alternative livelihood source, and most respondents reported wanting to expand their farms. Pastoralists also expect land certification to help secure land rights and enable better management of rangelands. However, there is also a widely held view that by providing security, certification will also make it easier for them to continue diversifying their livelihoods. This suggests that communal land certification is not likely to end the push to individualization of land and the transition to agropastoralism; it may even accelerate it. The strengthening of communal land rights can thus be used to guide this transition so that it represents a reorganization rather than a collapse of pastoralism. The focus of formalizing land rights for pastoralists should not be saving pastoralism or reversing the agropastoralist trend, but rather securing land rights to enhance the pastoralists’ capacity to make sound livelihood decisions.

Community engagement in pastoralist areas: Lessons from the public dialogue process for a new refugee settlement in Turkana, Kenya

Large-scale development interventions have long failed to accommodate the needs and preferences of pastoralists or the systems of resource governance and land tenure upon which they rely. However, advocates of rights-based approaches to development emphasise the importance of community participation in planning and agenda-setting, and in Kenya, public participation is a formal constitutional requirement for government decision-making processes. In 2015, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees concluded negotiations with local stakeholders about the use of 15 km2 of communal rangelands to build a new refugee settlement in Turkana County, Kenya. Negotiations entailed a community dialogue process involving local people living in the vicinity of the proposed settlement. This paper retrospectively examines the inclusivity of the dialogue process, with particular attention to the involvement of pastoralists and the representation of their interests. Interviews and focus groups conducted with a range of key informants and community stakeholders highlighted two key problems. First, negotiations relied upon a simplistic approach to communal land tenure that overlooked the complexity of overlapping and often contested access rights. Second, there was an over-reliance on urban professionals and politicians as intermediaries between rural communities and development actors. Even where elite intermediaries act in good faith, they may introduce an ‘oppidan bias’ into development policies, thereby marginalising the viewpoints of non-urban, non-sedentary demographics, such as pastoralists. I conclude with recommendations for the UNHCR to develop a more explicit strategy for direct engagement with host community stakeholders in Turkana and with increased attention to the interests of livestock producers and the nuances of pastoralist land use.

Institutional bricolage and the (Re)shaping of communal land tenure arrangements: Two contrasting cases in upland and lowland Northeastern Laos

• Farmers’ view on communal land tenure is rooted in their farming strategies. • Farmers (re)shape their strategies through negotiation of their access to resources. • Power relations influence the shaping of communal land tenure rules and practices. • Farmers navigate through these relations through institutional bricolage. • Institutional bricolage reveals farmers’ (in)ability to benefit from the land. This article examines the factors shaping communal land tenure and livelihood practices in two villages in Houaphan province, Northeastern Laos. It employs the concept of institutional bricolage to show how local actors combine communal tenure, state intervention, donor programs and local power relations to (re)shape formal rules and day-to-day land tenure and livelihood practices. In particular, it highlights how state territorial strategies in lowland and upland rural spaces have differently shaped state interventions in communal land use and access, producing hybrid forms of communal land management rules and practices. The two cases highlight different processes by which communal tenure is eroded or adapted in the process of state incorporation, raising questions about competing authorities over land and the interests and objectives of different actors in land administration. The village cases illustrate how local communities’ (in)ability to shape, adapt, and reproduce institutional rules and arrangements pertaining to access and use of communal land is closely interlinked with: 1) how farm households perceive communal land tenure in relation to their livelihood options and farming strategies; 2) how power relations among local communities and between local communities and state actors shape decision-making processes and distributional outcomes; and 3) the role of the state in sustaining and advancing its control over land and how this changes over time.

Of Widows, Furrows, and Seed: New Perspectives on Land and the Colonial Andean Commons

AbstractAlthough much has been written about Indigenous land tenure in the Americas, colonial Andeanists still debate whether pre-Hispanic agropastoral communities held all pasture and farmland in common and, therefore, whether novel forms of private or individual control over land and its products were introduced only in the aftermath of the Iberian conquest. The alleged particularities of the Andean case vis-à-vis other regions for which historians accept a plurality of pre-Hispanic and postconquest land regimes are based on a twin set of oppositions: individual versus collective, and ownership versus use. In this essay, I reassess communal land tenure patterns through the lens of Native colonial customs of commoning and uncommoning. I contend that individual and communal aspects of land within Native collectives were not opposite ends of a spectrum but instead coterminous ways of acting on—that is, exerting power and control over—the same resources.

Ejidos, Urbanization, and the Production of Inequality in Formerly Agricultural Lands, Guadalajara, Mexico, 1975–2020

The ejido is an institution of communal land tenure and governance administered by the Mexican government. This paper assesses the current visual appearance of landscapes and implicit land use in ejidal lands on the periphery of Guadalajara, Mexico, using Google Street View (GSV) images tagged for signs of urban distress. Distressed landscapes are associated with the temporal process of urban expansion—newer settlements tend to be more visibly impoverished. Concentrations of vulnerable housing are correlated with encroached-upon ejidal lands in a process that was underway by the 1970s, well before Mexico’s neoliberal turn. Ejidos on the urban periphery, created to support agricultural communities during Mexico’s radical period of agrarian reform, are now sites of urban sprawl and impoverishment. Nevertheless, these communities remain legally salient as federal entities with respect to the disposition of land. Their presence complicates the historical evolution of land use in the urban periphery in ways that do not fit into classical central place models. We conclude that the presence of ejidos is associated with rapid and chaotic urbanization by migrants and the loss of agricultural capacity in Guadalajara’s periphery.

Livelihood Security and Land Tenure Systems in Ethiopia

The article investigates the factors behind the dwindling condition of communal lands and their legal status in Ethiopia in light of the country`s international and regional commitments. As the nation is comprised of an overwhelming proportion of agrarian community, who in addition to their individual farmlands for crop production, are highly dependent on communal land and resources such as timber, firewood, traditional medicine, fodder and thatching grass and places for ritual ceremonies. Currently, a nationwide, communal land on which the life of the rural mass is based on is admitted to be on the brink of literal disappearance. Even though a number of factors ranging from climate change, population growth and others may be ascribed to the dwindling of communal lands and landed resources, this study argues, through a doctrinal analysis, that the denial of legislative recognition on its part, categorically adds fuel to an unfettered extinction. Thus, the writer urges government both at federal and regional (state) level ought to accord sufficient legislative recognition of communal land tenure as well as protection of legitimate tenure rights of the rural poor which has survived for ages. Keywords : communal land; land tenure; land rights; indigenous peoples; rural community; livelihood DOI: 10.7176/JPID/56-01 Publication date: November 30 th 2020

Ecological Doctors in Maasailand: Identifying Herding Best Practices to Improve Livestock Management and Reduce Carnivore Conflict

Ilkisonko Maasai pastoralists in the Amboseli ecosystem of southern Kenya earn livestock-based livelihoods in a difficult environment exacerbated by a range of challenges. In this setting, many stakeholders, including the Maasai themselves, have come to see traditional extensive pastoralism as essential to long-term social-ecological resilience. This includes the maintenance of communal land tenure, which protects both unfragmented landscapes and the cultural practices necessary to thrive therein. This land tenure system has also been well-documented to support diverse wildlife populations, including large carnivores such as the African lion. Lion Guardians is a conservation organization working on the group ranches of the Amboseli ecosystem to reduce human-lion conflict using culturally appropriate strategies, with a thirteen-year track record of reductions in lion killing as compared to other conflict mitigation approaches. However, in recent years they have noted a marked increase in the amount of lost livestock. Lion Guardians’ data indicate that untended livestock account for >80% of lion attacks, making them a primary driver of human-lion conflict in the ecosystem. In this paper, we present the results of a community-based qualitative study aimed at identifying the causes of lost livestock, in pursuit of win-win solutions for people and lions. Using an iterative multi-stage research process, we conducted interviews with more than 120 Maasai community members. Finding general agreement that lost livestock are a problem and that poor herding practices are the primary cause, we next sought to identify both herder and herder-mentor best practices. For this, we focused on the knowledge of elders and “master herders”, those identified by their communities as especially adept and responsible herders. In creating these lists, we learned that herding best practices relevant to carnivore-conflict prevention are inseparable from those related to pasture management and livestock productivity, and largely inseparable from traditional Maasai culture. This means that good herders, who have been called “ecological doctors”, can support the vitality of not only plants and pastures but also lions, ecosystems, and entire human cultures.

Kinship and Semelai Residential Arrangements: Belonging to Village and the Resilience of Communal Land Tenure in Tasek Bera, Malaysia

By examining two villages in Pos Iskandar, Tasek Bera, the article shows that Semelai have a sense of grouping based on consanguinity, where parents, married children and siblings live in proximity, which traditionally formed a kampong (village). This contributes to the resilience of the communal land tenure system. Today, however, land is seen as property and this has led to its informal inclusion in the Semelai concept of pesakak manah (inheritance). While Semelai try to maintain their living arrangements, individual and inherited property rights in land are emerging. Land remains deeply embedded in kin-based relationships, but the legitimacy of land rights is predominantly grounded in law and legislation rather than in the customary norms of kinship and communal land tenure that is based on relationality. The moral underpinnings of land rights should, therefore, be anchored in a relational perspective that draws from kinship and the communal land tenure system.

Disrepair, Distress, and Dispossession

The crisis unleashed in Barbuda by Hurricane Irma in 2017 followed centuries of neglect by the British colonial state and then by the postcolonial government of its sister island, Antigua. Barbuda developed customary communal-land tenure as a result of its peculiarities in slavery and freedom, and this survival strategy has doubled as political and economic resistance to encroachment by Antigua, where private land ownership and uneven opportunity abound because of the unstable, cyclical nature of its main industry—tourism. Although Barbudans have long delimited tourism development and refused private land ownership, citing communal land as their shield, these issues have resurfaced in the rebuilding process after Hurricane Irma. Barbudans’ desires to maintain their previous way of life remain hampered by the Antiguan government’s disaster capitalist desires to reconstruct Barbuda as a resort paradise. This essay reveals how climate change, economic fragility, and uncertain sovereignty have collectively undermined Barbuda’s customary forms of independence, leaving dispossession in their wake.

Aprovechamiento forestal y diversidad arbórea en seis ejidos de Quintana Roo

El aprovechamiento forestal en el sureste de México se realiza desde la civilización Maya mediante usos tradicionales, concesiones forestales hasta la propiedad comunal. Actualmente, la mitad de los ejidos de Quintana Roo están enfocados en el aprovechamiento forestal maderable, principalmente en selvas medianas subperennifolias, el tipo de vegetación con mayor cobertura. El objetivo de este trabajo consistió en determinar la diversidad arbórea en 14 selvas del sur de la Península de Yucatán, con edades, prácticas de manejo y conservación distintas: seis en ejidos forestales del estado de Quintana Roo y ocho en otros sitios. Se analizaron 10 parcelas de 500 m2 por sitio, en las que las especies arbóreas fueron identificadas taxonómicamente y se midió el diámetro a la altura del pecho en ejemplares desde los 7.5 cm hasta 1.30 m sobre el suelo. Se determinó una riqueza de 156 especies de árboles con abundancia, dominancia e importancia relativas contrastante entre sitios. Se realizó, para los 14 sitios, un análisis de similitud de Bray Curtis, que se conformó por tres grupos: el primero por un sitio en la Reserva de la Biósfera de Calakmul sin uso, el segundo por seis sin uso, desde 7 hasta 50 años y el tercero por seis ejidos forestales. La riqueza, abundancia y similitud entre ellos probablemente se asocian a la ubicación geográfica y a la edad de recuperación tanto de disturbios antrópicos como naturales. Se sugiere incorporar dichas características ecológicas como indicadores en los planes de aprovechamiento forestal, acotados ambiental y socioeconómicamente.

Conflicting Levels of Engagement under the Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act and the Minerals and Petroleum Development Act: A Closer Look at the Xolobeni Community Dispute

The South African customary land tenure system is currently administered in terms of the Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act 31 of 1996 (IPILRA). As the name suggests, this is a temporary measure to protect vulnerable customary land rights while awaiting permanent communal land tenure legislation. In terms of section 2(1) of the IPILRA, no person may be deprived of any informal right to land without his or her consent. This provision is subject to subsection (4) of the IPILRA, the Expropriation Act 63 of 1975 or any other law that provides for the expropriation of land rights. Accordingly, section 2(4) states that no one may be deprived of his or her informal rights in land unless it is through the Expropriation Act, any valid land expropriation legislation or through custom that is endorsed by a majority of the community members.
 Nevertheless, the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) and the mineral right applicants habitually contravene this consent provision by not including the beneficiaries of the IPILRA in the mineral right application process. The DMR awards licences without the communities' consent because the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act 28 of 2002 (MPRDA) authorises it to act as the custodian of mineral resources on behalf of all South Africans. When an application for mineral rights is received, it is the DMR's duty as a custodian to ensure that all the requirements of the MPRDA have been complied with. These levels of engagement, consent under the IPILRA and consultation in terms of the MPRDA, form the basis of the analysis of the decision of Baleni v Minister of Mineral Resources. Although the court decided that the acceptable level of engagement is consent in terms of the IPILRA, this article argues that consultation and consent are not mutually exclusive, and hence require reading the two pieces of legislation together.

An assessment of the implications of alternative scales of communal land tenure formalization in pastoral systems

Pastoralism faces diverse challenges, that include, among others, land tenure insecurity, that has necessitated the need to formalize land rights. Some governments have started regularizing rights for privately owned land, but this is complex to implement in pastoral areas where resources are used and managed collectively. Our aim was to assess how the scale of communal land tenure recognition in pastoralist systems may affect tradeoffs among objectives such as tenure security, flexibility, mobility, and reduction of conflicts. We used a participatory scenario-building approach to investigate alternative scenarios of land tenure recognition in southern Ethiopia where a new communal land tenure system is in the early stages of implementation. Through key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and a workshop, respondents analyzed the likely outcomes of communal land tenure recognition at different scales. Our findings suggest that there is a good chance of success when the tenure policy is embedded onto customary structures. All scales have some shortcomings, but Reera seems best, yet pastoralists preferred the Dheeda which despite its challenges, is the best for maintaining flexible mobility. There are multiple uncertainties and complexities, which suggest the for multi-pronged approaches and various support mechanisms when implementing a formal land tenure system in these areas.

Legal Certainty in the Management of Agricultural Land Pawning in the Matrilineal Minangkabau Society, West Sumatra

Agricultural land pawning is not a new phenomenon to the traditional communities (Masyarakat Adat) in Indonesia, especially the matrilineal Minangkabau people who rely on their agricultural land for economic transactions. Based on the national law, customary law (referred to as Adat Law hereafter) is to prevail over agrarian issues in Indonesia. But even so, agrarian issues remain under the influence of national law. This study discusses the management of agricultural land pawning in the matrilineal Minangkabau society according to national, Adat, and Islamic laws. Despite its popularity, the Adat law approach in dealing with land issues, especially agricultural land pawning, has not been well accommodated under National Law. This paper investigates how agricultural land pawning is regulated in Indonesia, with a focus on the Minangkabau society in West Sumatra. This paper does not seek to promote one legal system over another, but instead, it intends to promote legal certainty in agricultural land pawning in West Sumatra. To show how the lack of legal certainty can lead to confusion and conflict, this study relies on the contradicting verdicts of an agrarian conflict case from lower courts to the Supreme Court. The study reveals that the contradiction between national agrarian laws, Minangkabau Adat law and West Sumatra local Regulation No. 16/2008 on Communal Land Tenure causes confusion within the community and the judiciary. Legal certainty is crucial to strengthening the rule of law and democracy in Indonesia, and the conflicting interpretations of agrarian laws belittle this concept. This study suggests that one way to deal with legal uncertainty regarding agrarian law in West Sumatra, and throughout Indonesia, is to promote a stronger and more just decentralization, which is increasingly important as the country faces the question of legal unification. The suggested decentralization effort would leave local issues to the authority of local legislations.

The Manifestation of Climate Injustices: The Post-Hurricane Irma Conflicts Surrounding Barbuda’s Communal Land Tenure

Hurricane Irma caused significant destruction to the Caribbean during the 2017 Atlantic Hurricane season. In its aftermath, many of these Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are left with the dilemma of seeking ways to rebuild in some cases entire nation states. Using the case study of Antigua and Barbuda, where Barbuda was the first Caribbean island to receive a direct hit from Hurricane Irma, the paper begins to explore the ways in which the global system of exploitation of SIDS exacerbates internal historical conflicts which is a manifestation of climate injustices. Specifically, the Barbudans’ relative privilege in having inherited communal land rights have become, for the government, the barrier standing in the way of the only alternative funding sources for reconstruction, foreign tourism investment. Using the theoretical underpinnings of climate justice, we argue that the causers of climate change, who are generally the inheritors of the historic colonization, exploitation and impoverishment of these states, will effectively benefit from the intensity of Hurricane Irma, given that they will eventually get access to Barbudan land if the communal land rights are revoked.