Les conflits fonciers et leur résolution à l’échelle locale dans un contexte de marchandisation de la terre. Une étude de cas dans les Hautes Terres à Madagascar.

Advances in Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) have revolutionized the geospatial industry around the globe. Recently, the Government of Zimbabwe realized the need to adopt GNSS- Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) for boundary mapping of farms to ensure security of tenure. In order to fully utilize the proposed CORS network there is need to ascertain the readiness of stakeholders involved in the land delivery value chain.

Existing land governance system in Zimbabwe subjects vulnerable groups such as women to ‘land corruption’, which entrenches the already existing gendered land inequalities. This study used secondary data and found that Zimbabwe has witnessed various forms of corruption in general and land corruption, in particular, despite the country having the requisite policy, legal and institutional frameworks as well as other mechanisms to curb the scourge of corruption.

Kenya’s development context is greatly influenced by land use and ownership. Consequently land holds immense cultural, spiritual and socio-political significance for nearly all communities. However, proper utilization of land has been besmirched by numerous challenges. Vulnerable and marginalized groups such as women, children and youth have borne the brunt of land challenges. The Constitution of Kenya, 2010 in appreciation of these complex dynamics has sought to provide a blue print for the realization of land reforms.

Based on government statistics and interviews with villagers across Malawi this article argues that customary matrilineal and patrilineal land tenure systems serve to weaken security of land tenure for some family members as well as obstructing the creation of gender-neutral inheritance of lands. Data from the National Census of Agriculture and Livestock 2007and the 2008 Population and Housing Census are used to characterize marriage systems and landholding patterns of local communities. Marriage systems correspond to customary land-tenure patterns of matrilineal or patrilineal cultures.

Most of the land in sub-Saharan Africa is governed under various forms of customary tenure. Over the past three decades a quiet paradigm shift has been taking place transforming the way such landl is governed. Driven in part by adaptations to changing context but also accelerated by neo-liberal reforms, this shift has created a ‘new’ customary tenure in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper reviews some of the evidence and analyses the ways in which this neo-liberalisation of customary tenure has been transforming relations of production and how land is governed in sub-Saharan Africa.

We analyze the impact of land fragmentation on production diversification in rural Albania. Albania represents a particularly interesting case for studying land fragmentation as the fragmentation is a direct outcome of land reforms. The results indicate that land fragmentation is an important driver of production diversification of farm households in Albania. We find that land fragmentation stimulates significantly more diversification for subsistence farm households than for market-oriented households.

ABSTRACTED FROM INTRODUCTION: This paper traces the implications of key agrarian transformations −particularly the reforms in land policy and emerging land relations− for livelihood security and vulnerability. Part of a broader societal transformation and globalization of economies, these new development trajectories include commercialization of farmers’ produce, contract farming, cooperative sector reform, rising landlessness and tenant farming, and the end of exclusive dependence on land for earning a living.

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.

The rubber tree is native to the humid tropics and has traditionally been cropped in the equatorial zone between 108Nand 108S; in mainland Southeast Asia this includes portions of southern Thailand, southeastern Vietnam, and southern Myanmar. In the early 1950s, the Chinese government began to invest in growing rubber in environments perceived to be ecologically marginal and eventually established state rubber plantations in areas that lie as far north as 228 north latitude.

Sudden and gradual land use changes can result in different socio-ecological systems, sometimes referred to as regime shifts. The Lao PDR (Laos) has been reported to show early signs of such regime shifts in land systems with potentially major socio-ecological implications. However, given the complex mosaic of different land systems, including shifting cultivation, such changes are not easily assessed using traditional land cover data. Moreover, regime shifts in land systems are difficult to simulate with traditional land cover modelling approaches.