Land acquisitions, either driven by foreign investments or domestic investment needs have continued to polarize opinions. When this research was proposed, it was premised on arguments by scholars Ruth Meinzen-Dick and Helen Markelova, who had analysed agricultural land deals, and argued that there were potentially two schools of thought about foreign acquisitions over agricultural land.

The present paper aims to demonstrate how the state land ownership affects development of agricultural sector in Uzbekistan, and what are its strengths and weaknesses. It highlights the importance of secure land right regardless of ownership. Land in Uzbekistan is state-owned; the exclusive state ownership of land was first incorporated in the 1992 Constitution. The official rationale was to ensure food security and social stability; another concern was the state-run irrigation system, operation of which would be hampered in the event of land privatization.

This study emerged out of an identified need to document social
processes leading to land insecurity, and those leading to investment
and sustainable use of lands by rural populations. Focusing on the
Delta and Dry Zone, the main paddy producing regions of Myanmar,
this analysis unravels the powers at play in shaping rural households’
relationship to land. From British colonization to the 2012 reforms,
many issues have remained relatively unchanged with regards to
local dynamics of landlessness, exclusion processes, local power plays,

Across the tropics, development banks and conservation donors are investing millions in property mapping and registration projects to improve accountability for deforestation. An evaluation of the effectiveness and accuracy of existing environmental registries is crucial to assure the success of future efforts. This study presents an evaluation of deforestation and registration behavior in response to one of the largest of these property registration programs to date — the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) in the Amazonian state of Pará.

These Regulations, made in terms of section 45 of the Communal Land Reform Act, concern the application for and the registration of an occupational land right. An application for an occupational land right is made in the form of Form E as set out in Annexure 1 to the communal land board. An occupational land right was introduced in the principal Act by the Communal Land Reform Amendment Act, 2013 and means a right to occupy a portion of communal land for the provision of public services granted under section 36A.

This issue paper No. 6 of the Rangelands Series consolidates a set of case studies which document how pastoralists plan landvand resource use in pastoral and agro-pastoral areas of Ethiopia. 

This publication is the result of the workshop on “Responding to Climate Change and Tenure Insecurity in Small Island Developing States – The Role of Land Professionals” held in Christchurch, New Zealand 30 April – 1 May 2016 in connection with the FIG Working Week 2016. It includes a report of the seminar and a FIG Christchurch Declaration as the main outcome of the workshop.

Disputes over land are a prominent feature of many situations of protracted violent conflict in Burundi, Uganda and South Sudan. Research conducted as part of the programme ‘Grounding Land Governance’ underscores that war reshuffles access and ownership, but also critically changes the ways in which land is governed. Land issues often come to resonate with other conflicts in society, thereby affecting overall stability. This makes interventions in land governance politically sensitive.

After conflict, governments and donors often feel a need for up-scaling and modernizing land use. There is an ambition to achieve economic recovery and contribute to food security through stimulating large-scale investment in land. Our research in Uganda, Burundi and South Sudan suggests that policymakers should be extremely careful when promoting large-scale land acquisitions, both foreign and national. Especially in the difficult transition from war to peace, large-scale appropriation of land risks becoming a threat to tenure security and the recovery of rural livelihoods.

In post-conflict settings, securing tenure of local smallholders is considered of major importance to reduce and prevent local land disputes, to contribute to the recovery of rural livelihoods, and to improve agricultural production. Registration and other ways of formalizing land ownership are generally believed to significantly enhance local tenure security and rural development.

India’s ambitious development agenda involves facilitating investment for economic growth, infrastructure development, and social progress. Yet, thousands of investment projects have been stalled to date, raising red flags for the health of the country’s financial regulatory systems, public sector banks, and investment community. While official reasons given for stalled projects remain opaque, deep contestation leading to conflict on public (and private) lands must be better understood as a substantive risk to investments.

Ill-regulated land acquisition and unilateral land concessions may often trigger forced relocations, conflicts and human rights abuses. This course introduces the concept of Free, Prior and Informed Consent that indigenous people and small family farmers can use to protect their customary or traditional land rights. The process ensures that communities can participate in decision-making processes and that their concerns, priorities and preferences are accommodated in any project affecting their lands, territories and resources.