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Recent years have witnessed a growing recognition of the importance of providing ruralpopulations with more secure tenure to land and other natural resources, not least in Africawhere approximately 80 percent of all land is still unregistered. At the same time there hasbeen a rethinking of approaches for securing local tenure rights in practice. Experience hasshown that the conventional approach, i.e., individual freehold titling, has often not workedwell in areas where communal forms of customary tenure predominate. This insight, in turn,has led to an interest in what could be referred to as the “community-based” approach totenure formalization, i.e., where rights to own or manage land and other natural resources areformalized at the level of the community as a collective landholding unit. Mozambique is oneof the countries which has adopted this approach in its land policy and legislation.This paper aims at discussing some issues and challenges when implementing theMozambican tenure reform in practice. Data were collected through two separate field studiesin respectively Niassa and Nampula provinces in Northern Mozambique, and are based onqualitative interviews with key informants and groups of local leaders and members ofdelimited communities. In addition, representatives of district and provincial governmentagencies, implementing NGOs, and farmer organizations were interviewed for supplementaryinformation and viewpoints. Based on our findings, the paper specifically addresses questionsrelated to the constitution of the community as a collective landholding unit; representationand governance of land within these units; a possible differentiation in communitymembership status; and, finally, effects on local economic development.Keywords: Land tenure reform, community-based land tenure approach, Niassa province,Nampula province, Mozambique