The central objective of this working paper produced by Jean-Christophe Diepart and Thol Sem, is to examine the recognition and formalisation of peasants’ land rights against the backdrop of Cambodian history and political economy of land and agrarian change.

It aims to understand how colonialism, war, socialism and the regional integration against a neoliberal background have shaped the land rights of smallholder farmers in contemporary Cambodia.

Mainland Southeast Asia (MSA) has seen sweeping upland land use changes in the past decades, with transition from primarily subsistence shifting cultivation to annual commodity cropping. This transition holds implications for local upland communities and ecosystems. Due to its particular political regime, Myanmar is at the tail of this development.

Shortly after the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) was founded in 1945, the organization had started to support member countries addressing structural problems in agriculture with land fragmentation and small holding and farm sizes through the development of land consolidation instruments (Binns, 1950). During the 1950s and 1960s, FAO provided technical assistance to the development of land consolidation in member countries in Europe such as Turkey, Greece, Spain and Cyprus, but also in the Near East and Asia (Meliczek, 1973).

In Sierra Leone, the well-being and livelihoods of many people, particularly the rural poor, are based on secure and equitable access to land, fisheries and forests. Increasing pressure on these resources in recent years has led to an escalation of conflict over access to natural resources.

The Annual Country Reviews reflect upon current land issues in the Mekong Region, and has been produced for researchers, practitioners and policy advocates operating in the field. Specialists have been selected from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam to briefly answer the following two questions:

1. What are the most pressing issues involving land governance in your country?

2. What are the most important issues for the researcher on land?

Like in any other part of the country, land degradation resulting from water erosion and nutrient depletion is one of the most challenging problems for farmers in the Central Rift Valley (CRV) of Ethiopia. Nevertheless, investments in land management to reduce land degradation and increase agricultural production by smallholder farmers have been limited. In addition, public and private sector organizations have never collaborated to stimulate (investments in) land improvement.

Liquid biofuel from oil crops are broadly promoted globally, among which biofuel from perennial wood species, as well as from bushes and small trees such as jatropha. In China, oil-bearing small trees, which mainly grow on slope land, are applied as so-called bioenergy and oil forests for liquid biofuel production. The national government in China has devised a series of laws and policies to promote bioenergy and oil forest programs. In this study, the focus is on jatropha and camellia programs.

In contrast to their sedentary image, farmers in Central and South Mali are surprisingly mobile. Many have settled in scattered farming hamlets where they are rapidly expanding the areas under agriculture. This study focuses on farmers’ mobility in relation to accessing land in two regions in Mali where farming conditions are very different regarding rainfall, population growth and opportunities for income generation. It is shown that differences in farming conditions in the two regions have shaped the different temporal and spatial dimensions of farmers’ mobility.

In dit rapport is de methodiek van de Community of Practice (CoP) beschreven. Dit is geïllustreerd aan de hand van een praktijkvoorbeeld in het reconstructiegebied Beerze Reusel. Een CoP is onder andere geschikt om complexe problemen aan te pakken waar meerdere partijen bij betrokken zijn en waarbij niemand tot een geschikte oplossing kan komen. Daarnaast zijn praktische handvatten vermeld voor organisaties die in de toekomst met een CoP aan de slag willen. In this report the method Community of Practice (CoP) is described.