Indigenous & Community Land Rights

"This study highlights lessons from recent policy, law and practice to improve and secure access to rural land for poorer groups. It focuses on Africa, Latin America and Asia, while also referring to experience from Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.

From the foreword: "A major goal of CFI's mission in Cambodia is to support the involvement of civil society in the management of forests. Rural communities have a special role to play as forest stewards, both due to their logistical proximity to natural forests, but also because of their dependency upon these resources for shelter, water, fuel and food.

Land is the repository of memory and keeps traces of the past in the absence of a strong written tradition. It is perceived as an open book from which anyone can read and learn about local history: place names, old roads, legends and stories attached to places.

The Florida Everglades is a ecologically rich land and water environment that has gone through three phases. In the first phase, a small indigenous population drew its low-impact livelihood from the Everglades. During the second phase, the Everglades was drained, plowed, developed, and seriously damaged, while helping to support a booming South Florida economy.

Should north Australia's extensive populations of feral animals be eradicated for conservation, or exploited as a rare opportunity for Indigenous enterprise in remote regions?

This paper is a review of the Land Use Act of 1978 with a view to examining the implications of the Act for security of tenure and environmental conservation.