SUMMARY: Despite a centralized political system, nation-wide legal reforms, and similar high housing demand pressures, property rights have evolved differently in Vietnam’s two leading cities Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City during the transition period. Using ethnographic fieldwork and a hedonic price model, the study shows that the two land and housing markets price tenure ambiguity differently. The different price structures indicate the importance of norms, as socially constructed by local political interests and culture, in the efficacy of land title regularization programs.

Ethnic minorities in the mountainous forest regions of northern Thailand and northern Vietnam live in a particularly restrictive political, social and economic environment. Widespread degradation of land, water and forest resources has adverse effects on the livelihoods of these groups. Given the dramatically increasing scarcity of natural resources, regulation of resource access and allocation are becoming fundamental for the development of sustainable resource management, in which an active participation of the local population in planning and implementation is a crucial prerequisite.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE OPENING PARAGRAPHS: This article focuses not on the effects of corruption in Laos, on the Lao economy or the lives of individuals, but rather on what sustains it and makes it difficult to control, much less eradicate. In particular, it examines the political culture of corruption that has developed in the Lao PDR since its inauguration in 1975.

The government of Laos has identified the eradication of poverty as a priority. Given the primarily agricultural character of the country, it has selected land reform as a core policy to reach this goal. The policy has two major aims: to increase land tenure security in order to encourage farmer involvement in intensive farming, and to eliminate slash-and-burn agriculture to protect the environment in a country still rich in forest resources.

While Vietnam's reforms provided some of the weakest legal private property rights amongst the transitions countries, cities like Ho Chi Minh City have booming domestic real estate markets. Interestingly, while most properties in 2001 did not have legal title, those on the market did advertise a variety of property rights claims. Employing a hedonic price model to analyse the pattern of prices at which sellers offer properties in Ho Chi Minh City, this study examines how this market values property rights.

The process of decollectivization in Vietnam, leading up to the 1993 Land Law, ensured farming households the rights to market their own produce and to transfer, exchange, lease, inherit, and mortgage their land-use rights. These changes imply a reworking of relations between state, market, and household, but also within households. Although the allocation of agricultural land in northern Vietnam was relatively equitable, allocation by the state represents only one channel of entitlements to land.

This study explores urbanization and flood events in the northern coast of Central Java with river basin as its unit of analysis. Two types of analysis were applied (i.e., spatial data and non-spatial data analysis) at four river basin areas in Central Java—Indonesia. The spatial analysis is focused on the assessment of LULC change in 2009–2018 based on Landsat Imagery. The non-spatial data (i.e., rural-urban classification and flood events) were overlaid with results of spatial data analyses.

The restoration and improvement of natural capital (NC) in rural areas represents one of the main objectives of the EU’s rural development policy (RDP). In addition to creating environmental and biodiversity benefits, NC represents an important territorial asset and a basis to generate socio-economic second-order effects for economic competitiveness and rural viability. However, the regional capability to valorise NC depends on the specific regional context, needs and potentials, as well as targeted policy support.

Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs) have recently been introduced as key element in the greening of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. In 2015, farmers across the EU have implemented EFAs for the first time. Data for German federal states indicate a strong variance in EFA decisions with an overall dominance of catch crops, nitrogen fixing crops and fallow land – two of which bear limited benefits for biodiversity conservation. This article explores how experts explain EFA choices.

Since, the Common Agricultural Policies (CAP) reform in 2003, many efforts have been made at the European level to promote a more environmentally friendly agriculture. In order to oblige farmers to manage their land sustainably, the GAEC (Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions) were introduced as part of the Cross Compliance mechanism. Among the standards indicated, the protection of soils against erosion and the maintenance of soil organic matter and soil structure were two pillars to protect and enhance the soil quality and functions.

Most stakeholder-based research concerning agri-environmental schemes (AES) derives from work engaging with farmers and land managers. Consequently, the voices and opinions of other actors involved in AES tends to be unrepresented in the wider literature. One group of actors that seem particularly overlooked in this respect are private (independent) farm advisors (i.e., the consultants contracted by farmers and land managers to advise-on AES and agronomic matters).

Due to the multidisciplinary nature of landscape research, many different systems and methods for landscape identification and classification exist. This paper provides a systematic review of 54 contemporary landscape characterisation approaches from all over the world, with the aim of identifying major methodological strategies. Multivariate statistical analyses revealed segregation of the approaches according to the landscape concept applied, the degree of observer independence and various other factors involved in the landscape characterisation process.