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Overlapping laws and regulations
-Open areas, which are one of the three possible JFM areas, falls under customary land that is under jurisdiction of chiefs. Under the JFM guideline on this type of land remain the property of the State under the jurisdiction of the Forestry Department and local communities are only contracted to manage the forests and retain a portion of profit from the sale of harvest. It is here critical to secure tenure rights and make provision to secure title to communities participating in JFM. Ownership of forest in open areas should be transferred to local communities who own the land.
-The JFM guideline requires the community to sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), yet the community is not a legal person. The community should be incorporated or recognized as a legal person within the Forests Act or other relevant legislations.
-Several acts promote and regulate the protection of the environment and only three of these, namely Fisheries Bill, the Zambia Wildlife Act and the Forests Act of 1999 mention benefit sharing and in terms of actual execution and management of a benefit sharing arrangement, however, this has only happened in the wildlife sector. This is conflicting with one of the most fundamental elements of making natural resource management community based and possible, namely that benefit generation and sharing is taken place.
-The Water Act was enacted in 1949 is outdated and makes no provision for local communities participation. Government has control in water resources management. This is conflicting in JFM areas, where the communities are defined as the main managers.
There is an overlap in terms of functions between the Forestry Department and the Energy Regulation Board. The Board regulates forest products such as firewood and charcoal derivatives outside gazetted forest areas (open areas) that should be the mandate of the Forestry Department.
The Forests Act and Zambia Wildlife Act must be amended to allow a Community Resource Board (CRB) to exist in a JFM area to perform the functions of the committees of JFM, the Area Resource Management Committee (ARMC)/Village Resource Management Committee (VRMC), and vice versa. (More examples can be found in the reports from Provincial Forestry Action Program (PFAP).
