Land tenure and farm management efficiency: the case of paddy and cinnamon production in customary land areas of Sumatra

This study attempts to identify the impacts of land tenure institutions on the efficiency of farm management based on a case study of lowland paddy (rice) and upland cinnamon production in customary land areas of Sumatra. While the traditional joint-family ownership system is found to exist in paddy land, more individualised ownership systems are widely observed in upland areas. Yet, we found no statistical evidence that residual profit per unit of land is affected by land tenure institutions in either the lowlands or uplands, indicating that the prevailing land tenure institutions are equally conducive to efficient farm management.     

Evolution of land tenure institutions and development of agroforestry: evidence from customary land areas of Sumatra

It is widely believed that land tenure insecurity under a customary tenure system leads to a socially inefficient resource allocation. This article demonstrates that the practice of granting secure individual ownership to tree planters spurs earlier tree planting, which is inefficient from the private point of view but could be efficient from the viewpoint of the global environment. Regression analysis, based on primary data collected in Sumatra, indicates that an expected increase in tenure security in fact led to early tree planting. It is also found that customary land tenure institutions have been evolving towards greater tenure security responding to increasing scarcity of land.     

Market-based grazing land transfers and customary institutions in the management of rangelands: Two case studies on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

Beginning in the early 1990’s, grazing lands once held in common were contracted to individual households in the rangeland regions of China. The resulting fragmentation of rangelands has led to ecological and social problems. As China seeks to address intractable poverty and rangeland degradation, attention has turned to rental, or transfer, of contracted grazing land as a market-based approach to re-aggregating grazing land into larger units that support economies of scale. However, given that many pastoral regions still maintain community customary institutions, what the relationship between market mechanisms and local customary institutions should be in rangeland management needs further analysis. This paper applies comparative case studies of two types of relationships between market mechanisms and customary institutions: (1) market mechanisms that replace customary institutions in the case of Axi village, and (2) market mechanisms that are embedded within customary institutions in Xiareer village. This allows contrast of the impacts of differing approaches on livelihoods, livestock production, and wealth differentiation among pastoral households. We found that there is a higher level of livestock mortality, lower livestock productivity, and higher livestock production cost in Axi Village compared to Xiareer Village. In addition, household asset levels are higher and there is less income differentiation in Xiareer Village. It is concluded that embedding market mechanisms within customary institutions has had notable benefits for the herders of Xiareer Village, because it is a better fit to the coupled pastoral social-ecological system. Based on these findings, we argue that in pastoral communities where the rangeland transfer system for contracted grazing land has not yet been implemented, it is critical to reconsider China’s current policy approach to pay greater attention to the innovative management systems being developed in local regions. Instead of considering market-based approaches as oppositional to traditional institutions, options that derive from the interaction of market-based and customary institutions should be considered.     

Registration and release of customary-land for private enterprise: Lessons from Papua New Guinea

Land held under customary tenure has proven difficult to register and release for private enterprise globally. This is because the costs of developing secure rights to land held under communal ownership is high given that such ownership rules out a ‘pay-to-use-the-property’ system while punitive negotiation and policing costs make a ‘pay-him-not-to-use-the-property’ system ineffective (Demsetz, 1967, p. 355). Here I document reforms to institutions governing access to land held under customary title in Papua New Guinea that has imbedded collective ownership whilst allowing for a ‘pay-to-use-the-land’ for private enterprise. Reforms put in place over the past decade have allowed for voluntary incorporation of landowning clans, the registration of their land, and the leasing of this land for up to 99 years. The ongoing reforms provide lessons both for Papua New Guinea and for others wrestling with the challenges of making available land held by customary groups for individual enterprise.     

Possibilities and Constraints of Market‐Led Land Reforms in Southern Africa: An Analysis of Transfers of Commercial Farmland in Postcolonial Zimbabwe, 1980–2000

This paper provides a systematic basis, hitherto missing in the current scholarship, to quantify land transfers in Zimbabwe after 1980. It uses title deed information to determine year of sale via a number of sources. The main finding of this research is that a great deal of land changed ownership during this period, which, if the government had been committed to land reform, it could have acted upon. Evidence suggests as much as 67 per cent of white‐owned land changed ownership after 1980. The second is that, while a large amount of land did change hands, it was not the 80 per cent that many white farmers and their supporters have claimed. The figure of 69 per cent is still very high, but it is apparent that much of this did not represent ‘true’ transfer of land. By further investigating the land that did change hands, this paper also raises questions about (a) the possibilities of market‐led land reform in Zimbabwe and Southern Africa, and (b) the relationship between white capital and the new political elite in the postcolonial state.     

论土地制度的公私矛盾

研究目的：梳理土地制度的公私关系,探讨土地制度运行的内在规律。研究方法：归纳与演绎、文献研究法、比较分析法。研究结果：土地制度是人类进入文明社会（出现国家及法律）以后的基础性制度,并交替存在着公有制、私有制等制度形态;无论是实践中还是在理论上,土地公有制与私有制选择始终是一对矛盾,但产权是否清晰与土地公有私有无关,财产权神圣不可侵犯应同等保护公私财产,平等保护财产权并非追求财产平等。研究结论：土地作为自然资源的本质属性决定了其产权制度的基本特征,土地所有制度属于政治范畴,土地产权制度与财富分配机制属于经济问题,土地制度规则应遵循公权与私权均衡,公利与私利分野。     

Policy Discourses on Women's Land Rights in Sub–Saharan Africa: The Implications of the Re–turn to the Customary

This article examines some contemporary policy discourses on land tenure reform in sub–Saharan Africa and their implications for women's interests in land. It demonstrates an emerging consensus among a range of influential policy institutions, lawyers and academics about the potential of so–called customary systems of land tenure to meet the needs of all land users and claimants. This consensus, which has arisen out of critiques of past attempts at land titling and registration, particularly in Kenya, is rooted in modernizing discourses and/or evolutionary theories of land tenure and embraces particular and contested understandings of customary law and legal pluralism. It has also fed into a wide–ranging critique of the failures of the post–colonial state in Africa, which has been important in the current retreat of the state under structural adjustment programmes. African women lawyers, a minority dissenting voice, are much more equivocal about trusting the customary, preferring instead to look to the State for laws to protect women's interests. We agree that there are considerable problems with so–called customary systems of land tenure and administration for achieving gender justice with respect to women's land claims. Insufficient attention is being paid to power relations in the countryside and their implications for social groups, such as women, who are not well positioned and represented in local level power structures. But considerable changes to political and legal practices and cultures will be needed before African states can begin to deliver gender justice with respect to land.     

Cutting the web of interests: Pitfalls of formalizing property rights

Property rights to land can be thought of as a web of interests, with many different parties having a right to use, regulate, or manage the resource, which may be based on a range of customary institutions or local norms as well as state law. These interests often play a critical role in livelihoods, social relations, and ecological functions. The formalization of property rights has historically led to a cutting of this web, creating more exclusive forms of rights over the resource. Drawing from case studies in Kenya the paper emphasizes the risk of excluding legitimate claimants in formalization processes that focus on individual titling. By collapsing all rights within individuals, such programs have negated the distinct multiple claims by women, youths, and seasonal users, among others. We examine ways in which formalization processes can secure diverse claims, and highlight the need for a better understanding of the social and ecological implications of existing land tenure before they are undermined by formalization.     

Land registration effectiveness in a state-subsidised housing project in Mbekweni,South Africa

As part of a programme examining the effectiveness of land tenure forms − tenure administration system combinations, the paper examines how and why beneficiaries use land registration in Project 2, a state subsidised housing project in Mbekweni, South Africa. The ownership − registration combination can have a number of negative consequences when policy makers focus on economics alone, rather than the complete set of factors that are critical for registered ownership to work in poor urban communities. South Africa’s state-subsidised housing programme has created up to 3.7 million housing opportunities. Off-register secondary transactions constitute a major problem when the properties registered in ownership. Building on a series of related case studies, an evaluative schema classifying an ownership − registration combination as strong, semi-strong, semi-weak or weak is presented, along with the main findings from three previously reported case studies where the combination was classified as semi-strong. The beneficiaries in Project 2 were predominantly in-migrants from a rural customary area, and based on earlier work and the literature, a weak or semi-weak classification was expected. However, the case was classified as semi-strong. Ongoing, visible administration is possibly a major factor underlying this classification.     

关于农村土地流转几个问题的理论思考

研究目的：澄清土地流转问题上存在的关于农村土地制度的性质、农业的特点、私有化等重大理论问题上的认识误区。 研究方法：规范分析法。研究结果：（1）现行农村土地制度是一种具有公私相互融合性质和特点的所有制类型,是一种特殊的混合所有制模式;（2）农业经济已经具有了现代农业的许多特点,不完全是小农经济;（3）私有化有一般与特殊两种含义,包括土地流转在内的土地制度变革不存在所有权意义上的私有化,但从经营权看是私有化过程。 研究结论：对农村土地制度进行以土地流转为核心的制度创新的前提是对农村土地的社会性质、农业经济的特点、私有化等重大问题做出实事求是的分析和评价。     

黑龙江省农林用地确权和争议调处问题调查研究

研究目的:研究黑龙江省农地与林地确权及权属纠纷案件的解决办法,为国家有关部门和黑龙江省政府决策提供客观依据。研究方法:文献资料法、实证分析法和理论研究法。研究结论:调整林区土地管理的相关法律关系;林地作为不动产其物权应实行集中统一确权登记;细化现行的地权管理政策及措施;进一步强化各级政府土地权属管理的职能,增加地权争议特别是农林矛盾调处工作力量。     

Land ownership in the United Kingdom: Trends,preferences and future challenges

The relation between population, land use and land ownership has been little explored by academic researchers, and the redistribution of land ownership has largely disappeared from political debate. This article, while recognising the fragmented and limited data available on land ownership, seeks to summarise the broad changes in land ownership during the past century, distinguishing the three main types: private, state and communal tenure, as well as freehold and leasehold tenures. After considering the effects of the spatial planning system upon land use, it addresses some critical emerging issues, such as environmental protection, risk assessment, and housing land supply, and suggests some future directions for land ownership and the role of the state.     

The spatial expression of physical development controls in a fast growing Ghanaian city

This paper illustrates the fine spatial expression of regulatory controls through field visits, a survey of 364 systematically sampled homebuilders and interviews with customary land managers and key city officials in Sekondi-Takoradi. The research found that, development controls were hardly implemented and enforced, and that, public officials had largely acquiesced to the activities of chiefs and homebuilders who flout regulations without the fear of sanctions. This loss of legitimacy of planning ideals reflects the cultural dimension to the acceptance of centralized planning rooted in the experiences of the advanced world as well as the weak fragmented and poorly equipped land sector institutions. Therefore building institutional capacity and contextualizing planning ideals are key for managing rapidly growing cities in emerging economies. However, residential development initiated by state institutions on state lands was better planned than occurring on customary lands, hence suggesting the need for more innovative government interventions in the physical development process.     

Exclusive versus inclusive devolution in forest management: Insights from forest land allocation in Vietnam's Central Highlands

The devolution of forest management is high on the agenda in international forest policy. Devolution is generally conceived as a policy that aims to include a more diverse set of actors in forest management. One of the most problematic outcomes of devolution policies, therefore, is their tendency to exclude the claims of some local actors. This paper examines the exclusionary effects of devolutions in settings characterized by overlapping state and customary regulations and links these effects to exclusive notions of property and governance contained in particular devolution policies. The paper draws on insights gained in a pilot initiative of forest devolution in Vietnam's Central Highlands. Forest land allocation, as the initiative is called in Vietnam, took an exclusive approach to devolution by assigning ownership-type rights on forest to local actors, obliging those to protect the forest against encroachment by other actors, and centering governance in the state. In this particular case, exclusive devolution failed to diminish the gap between state and customary regulations, created conflicts among local actors, and contributed to forest loss. The unintended outcomes of exclusive devolution suggest the need for an inclusive approach to devolution that accommodates diverse kinds of overlapping claims made by multiple actors. The key elements of inclusive devolution are proprietary but not ownership rights granted to individual users and nested governance relations involving state and customary actors.     

Institutionalization of common land property in Portugal: Tragic trends between “Commons” and “Anticommons”

The use and exploitation of natural resources is generally structured by institutions, especially by property institutions. The main objective of this paper is to present a diachronic analysis of the institutionalization of common land property in Portugal. The several types of ownership may be largely explained by common land history. We intend to draw an outline of the emergence, evolution and transition of common land from the late nineteenth century to the present day, using the matrix proposed by Heller. The economic problem of the optimal level of appropriation is recurrent in studies that analyze the economic implications of property rights. Thus, it is imperative to analyze whether or not the dimension of common land ownership is relevant to its efficient exploitation.In essence, we infer that common land ownership in the 1st period (1850–1926) may be classified as limited-access commons (limited access to commoners) with a relatively small average size of 50 ha. This common land was primarily used for grazing, firewood collecting and shrub extraction. In the second period (1926–1974), the State dictatorship invoked the public interest (forest easements) and took possession of more than 80% of common land, promoting the transition from limited-access commons to state ownership. The units of commons were aggregated in forest perimeters for Silviculture activity, the average size being greater than 3400 ha. Finally, we analyzed the institutionalization of common land ownership in the period after the democratic revolution on April 25th 1974. We concluded that the incipient legal and institutional frameworks revealed an inability to integrate an effective title to these territories to give way to a better classification of limited-exclusion anticommons. The Heller matrix approach revealed to be a useful tool, however insufficient to study holistically Portuguese common land institutionalization. In our preliminary conclusions the Heller matrix appears to be an ill-posed problem (no continuum). It allows for the reversibility between different property regimes that involve great simplifications in the epistemology of property rights.     

土地行政公益诉讼制度构建

研究目的:指出当前违法用地问题突出,分析土地制度还存在的不完善之处,提出立法对策和法律架构。研究方法:统计分析法、法理推断法、对比研究法。研究结果:(1)主要依靠行政权力进行监管、保护的模式不利于实现国家土地资源安全;(2)健全社会公益监督机制有助于提升土地资源的监管、保护力度及其效果。研究结论:构建行政与公益诉讼特殊司法救济双轨并行保护模式。     

Land consolidation,customary lands,and Ghana's Northern Savannah Ecological Zone: An evaluation of the possibilities and pitfalls

Land fragmentation has been identified to greatly undermine crop production in many countries. In the case of Ghana’s customary tenure system, household farmlands are relatively small and are highly fragmented. Recent agricultural drives, however, have focused on farm level interventions that are ad hoc with short-term benefits. A sustainable long-term application of land consolidation which reorganises farmlands may improve yields, reduce the cost of production and improve the incomes of farmers. The successful implementation of land consolidation depends greatly on the suitability of local conditions with respect to land tenure and land use. However, in Ghana’s customary lands, the alignment between the requirements for land consolidation and existing conditions remains unexplored. This study investigated the feasibility of land consolidation within the customary tenure by juxtaposing the local conditions of the study areas with the baseline conditions for land consolidation outlined in literature. Using both qualitative and spatial data, the study revealed some traits of convergence and divergence with respect to the baseline conditions in the study areas. For example, conditions such as the existence of land fragmentation, suitable topography and soil distribution were fully met. Conditions such as the existence of a land bank, technical expertise, and infrastructure and supportive legal frameworks were partially met. The remaining conditions such as the willingness to participate, availability of a land information system and favorable land ownership structure were non-existent. The circumstances surrounding these unmet conditions are deeply embedded in customs and traditions that hardly yield to change. Since these conditions are fundamental for land consolidation, their absence negates the feasibility of land consolidation under the current tenure system of the study areas.     

Customary land allocation,urbanization and land use planning in Ghana: Implications for food systems in the Wa Municipality

Food insecurity remains persistent in the Global South due to constraints in food production capacities and intricate land tenure systems that stifle investment in agriculture. In the urbanized regions, uncontrolled urbanization and non-compliant land use systems have further worsened the potentials for urban food production. This research is based on a case study of the Wa Municipality in order to assess the influences of customary land allocation and peri-urbanization on land use planning and foods systems in Ghana using explorative and narrative research approaches. The study identified that customary stakeholders responsible for allocating such lands in the Wa Municipality were indiscriminately converting large tracts of hitherto agricultural lands to urban land uses. Statutorily prepared land use plans are hardly enforced and the planning priorities are on residential and commercial land uses that command higher land values to the detriment of agricultural lands. Weak institutional linkages also characterize the mandated planning and land administration institutions, with a planning system that is reactive rather than proactive in addressing development control challenges across the country. There is the need for planning authorities to adopt participatory land uses planning together with customary landholders and educating them on the essence of comprehensive land use planning approaches. Based on the findings, local governments need to partner landowners to identify and reserve high potential agricultural land for sustainable urban food production.     

土地资源对中国经济的“增长阻尼”研究——基于改进的二级CES生产函数

研究目的:定量测度符合中国土地资源特点的"增长阻尼",为制定土地资源宏观调控目标提供指导。研究方法:构建改进的二级CES生产函数作为基础模型,并修正前提假设,使其更符合中国土地资源的特点。研究结果:土地资源约束对中国经济增长影响较大,中国现在每年的经济增长速度比在没有土地资源约束的情形下降低0.7512%。研究结论:有效贯彻和执行土地资源保护政策,加上技术进步和日益下降的土地份额,未来的中国经济仍将保持稳步增长态势。     

新集体林权制度改革下森林资源变化趋势分析

集体林权制度改革把集体林地承包给农户经营,农户对林木具有所有权、处置权和收益权,这一重大举措,对森林资源数量和质量必将产生重要影响。以福建省邵武市为研究对象,利用林改前后两次森林资源规划设计调查数据,分析了林地面积、森林蓄积、森林覆盖率,各林种、年龄、优势树种、起源和权属的森林面积和蓄积结构,以及林地生产力等变化趋势。研究表明,集体林权制度改革有利于森林资源数量的增加和质量的提高。