Tenure and claims over forests and land are highly contested throughout Asia where states retain full ownership of land. Competition for land for investment, resource extraction, and conservation is becoming more common. The conflict takes place between local communities and indigenous peoples and external Government agencies and developers. This paper sheds light on how conflict begins, how it affects actors involved and how it can be successfully managed.

This paper represents a provisional attempt to assess whether Zimbabwe’s land reform coherently addresses the issue of poverty reduction. It examines the short-term outcome(s) of the reform programme in relation to its initial objectives. More specifically, it examines its impact on farm-workers. The majority of farm workers lost jobs in the process as well as access to housing and social services such as health care and schools.

Aims to estimate the annual direct use value of an average hectare of the communal rangeland in Botswana, based on an anlalysis of secondary data. Exercise incorporates the three major direft uses, both marketed and non-marketed, of rangelands: livestock, wildlife and gathering

In South Africa, provision of affordable, well-situated housing close to existing services and work places is hampered by the high cost and scarcity of appropriate land. Consequently, most new low-income housing projects have been developed on the urban periphery. This tends to entrench the spatial differentiation of residential areas by race and class characteristics of the apartheid era and increased the cost of providing services to low-income housing projects inhabitants.

This article discusses the enclosure of rangelands and registration of exclusive rights to grazing by individuals or groups of pastoralists. This trend has been increasing greatly over the last twenty years. This occurs because:it is encouraged by governments, planners and multi-lateral donor agencies in an attempt to 'rationalise'the use of rangelands.

Land degradation in the Philippines is a serious environmental problem with long-term implications for the sustainability of agricultural production. Protection of the resource base has thus become a policy priority, whether in terms of improving crop management in the lowlands or more urgently, arresting soil erosion in the uplands. This review aims to compile and evaluate estimates of the costs of land degradation; then analyze the costs, benefits, and equity implications of priority measures to protect soil resources; and lastly, draw implications for policy.

The Kumasi peri-urban area is characterised by high rates of conversion of agricultural land to private housing. Kumasi, Ghana, is also situated across a major drainage divide, resulting in a range of water quality and supply problems. Collaborative DFID-funded research by Royal Holloway, University of London, with government and NGO partners in Ghana, aims to develop and pilot a sustainable co-management approach to peri- urban watersheds.

Based on worldwide experience and encouraging evidence from country pilots in African countries such as Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania,and Uganda, this new report suggests a series of ten steps that may help to revolutionise agricultural production and eradicate poverty in Africa. These steps include improving tenure security over individual and communal lands, increasing land access and tenure for poor and vulnerable families, resolving land disputes, managing better public land, and increasing efficiency and transparency in land administration services. 

This report discusses the potential benefits of, and the current challenges for, agricultural land investment in Tanzania and Mozambique. The paper finds that there is little, if any, development potential in these investments. Indeed, the economic growth potential of investments in agricultural land is questionable due to an inadequate regulatory framework governing foreign direct investments (FDI) in the sector.

This article begins with an investigation into woodland management in Mali and moves onto a discussion of some of the fundamental practical problems associated with a major part of forest policy in Mali.

Angola, like Mozambique, inherited its legal framework from the Portuguese Civil Code, which was not based on a traditional African concept of community occupation under customary law. With Portuguese settlement, large areas of land were appropriated for and incorporated into the colonial cadastre (the formally surveyed and officially recorded land boundaries of the land concessions granted by the state). After winning independence from Portugal in 1975 the new Angolan government, influenced by socialist principles, affirmed the constitutional role of the state as the owner of all land.

With an estimated 40 percent of people in Africa, South America and Asia living in drylands, land degradation poses a significant threat to food security and survival. This report looks at the relationship between gender and dryland management based on an analysis of field experiences in Africa and Asia. Highlighting the roles of women and men in dryland areas for food security, land conservation/desertification, and the conservation of biodiversity, it makes available key findings on a number of projects and programs in the regions.