Land use determines interest in conservation easements among private landowners

Protection of private lands through conservation easements has garnered recent attention from scientists and conservation practitioners. Questions remain, however, about the specific characteristics and activities driving landowners’ interest in conservation easements and their willingness to consider granting them. Resolving these questions could improve prospects for private land conservation by helping land conservation organizations identify and better understand potential easement grantors. We conducted a survey of 513 private landowners in a peri-urban fringe area in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, USA. Logistic regression analysis returned seven significant predictors of landowner willingness to consider granting conservation easements. Participation in environmental organizations, recreational land-use activities, wild food gathering, and land entitlement were the strongest factors promoting interest in conservation easements. Long-term residency, male gender, and hunting or fishing, on the other hand, significantly decreased the likelihood of considering conservation easements. The findings suggest that landowners most interested in to granting conservation easements are active land users. Notably, among all the land-use activities reported, the most frequent and the most important in predicting interest in conservation easements are those undertaken for recreational and subsistence, rather than economic, purposes. This suggests that while easements might be appropriate for working lands, their role in reconciling land use with conservation requires a flexible definition of work.     

Tenure,land rights,and farmer investment incentives in China

The goal of this paper is to understand the nature of the property rights associated with China's land tenure systems and to study the impact of these property rights on agricultural production efficiency. The results show that land tenure and associated property rights in rural China affect the production behavior of farmers. The most robust finding is that the right to use land for long periods of time encourages the use of land-saving investments. While the results show that land tenure affects agricultural production decisions, the difference between collective and private plots, however, is small compared to the private plot - communal productivity gap that existed in the pre-reform period.     

Compulsory purchase for biodiversity conservation in the Netherlands

Policy instruments are the building blocks of land use policies. Instrumentation of policies relates to values. Compulsory purchase is a direct government instrument that may be an effective way to implement policies of biodiversity conservation and the allocation of land for recreational use. It is, however, in many contexts, politically controversial. The Netherlands’ Government has endorsed policies that involve compulsory purchase in up to 10% of land purchases. This paper reviews if this 10%-ceiling can structure relationships between landowners and government agencies in such a way that it relieves constraints imposed by land availability for biodiversity conservation and the provision of recreational areas. The analysis consists of (1) the background of this 10%-ceiling, (2) the actual procedures of compulsory purchase, by analysis of Royal Decrees, (3) the actual compulsory purchases, and (4) the indirect instrumental effects of the use of this instrument. The paper concludes that the 10%-ceiling does not lift the constraints of land availability, but does influence the relationship between stakeholders, the implementation of biodiversity objectives, and land policy strategies. Nevertheless, compulsory purchase may provide possibilities to acquire land necessary for a consolidated natural area.     

Forest conservation programs and the landowners who prefer them: Profiling family forest owners in the New York City watershed

Voluntary forest conservation programs offer family forest owners (FFO) financial incentives in exchange for legally-binding land use restrictions and/or management obligations. Protecting family forests in the Catskill Mountains region of New York is an important policy objective, as these watersheds provide clean drinking water to New York City. Multiple methods were used to elicit preferences for forest conservation program attributes and to identify potential barriers to participation. Respondents to a mailed survey were grouped according to the program attribute that most influenced their likely participation into forest conservation programs. Respondents were identified as time-sensitive, payment value-sensitive, rights-sensitive, payment mode-sensitive, or harvest-sensitive. Comparing groups revealed significant differences in age, attitudes towards harvesting trees, income, and importance of timber production. Supplemental qualitative data was collected during three focus groups of survey respondents and analyzed for general themes. Focus group discussions revealed a lack of knowledge about conservation easement programs, reluctance to burden landowners’ children with encumbered land inheritances, concerns for resale values and tax assessment, and a simmering animosity towards New York City’s watershed management efforts. We offer strategies to address these concerns and to design programs that will foster greater participation among FFOs in the region.     

Formalisation of land rights in the South: An overview

Formalisation of property rights has recently been proposed as a way of reducing poverty. The poor, it is said, do not lack assets, they lack only the formal, protected rights necessary to make these assets engines of entrepreneurship, thriving markets, and information networks. Historical evidence with regard to formalisation programmes is, however, mixed at best, and current universalist proposals contain numerous flaws. A more context-specific and flexible approach is needed, with greater attention to local settings and specific objectives and tools. Property formalisation should not be considered merely a technical tool but must take account of politics and culture.     

Resource degradation and adoption of land conservation technologies in the Ethiopian Highlands: A case study in Andit Tid,North Shewa

This paper reports results from a study of resource degradation and conservation behavior of peasant households in a degraded part of the Ethiopian highlands. Peasant households' choice of conservation technologies is modeled as a two-stage process: recognition of the erosion problem, and adoption and level of use of control practices. An ordinal logit model is used to explain parcel-level perception of the threat of the erosion problem and the extent of use of conservation practices. Results show the importance of perception of the threat of soil erosion, household, land and farm characteristics; perception of technology-specific attributes, and land quality differentials in shaping conservation decisions of peasants. Furthermore, where poverty is widespread and appropriate support policies are lacking, results indicate that population pressure per se is unable to encourage sustainable land use. The challenge of breaking the poverty-environment trap and initiating sustainable intensification thus require policy incentives and technologies that confer short-term benefits to the poor while conserving the resource base.     

Distinguishing ambivalence from indifference: A study of attitudes toward land trusts among members and nonmembers

Private, not-for-profit land trusts have become major players in U.S. conservation efforts in the last 50 years. During this period membership in land trust organizations has grown. Despite the expansion of land trusts and land trust membership, little is known about public attitudes and beliefs about these organizations. To address this gap, we fielded a mail survey to members of a regional land trust in Indiana and a sample of nonmembers that reside in the areas served by that organization. In addition to examining differences in land trust members and nonmembers in terms of their demographic characteristics, recreation habits, awareness and use of land trust properties; we examined land trust beliefs and attitudes. Drawing from recent developments in attitude theory, the study employed a two-dimensional/bivariate model that allowed us to assess attitudes and distinguish between two forms of neutral attitudes toward land trusts – ambivalence (equal positive and negative feelings) and indifference (lack of any feelings). The study results indicated that, on average, land trust members were slightly older, better educated, and had lived in the area for shorter period of time than nonmembers. Members were also more likely to engage in non-consumptive outdoor activities like hiking and bird watching, while nonmembers were more likely to fish and hunt. Members also tended to have more positive attitudes toward land trusts and were more likely to express positive associations with land trusts. Nonmember attitudes demonstrated greater variability; specifically compared to members, nonmembers were more like to hold indifferent, ambivalent, or negative attitudes toward land trusts. Additional analysis comparing these three non-member groups provided insight into differences in their behaviors, knowledge, and underlying beliefs. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for organizational policy and outreach efforts.     

Equity in informal land delivery: Insights from Enugu, Nigeria

Mounting exclusionary forces have made the task of achieving equity in urban land delivery more elusive than it has ever been. Statistics show that, in practice, most land for urban development (especially that occupied by the poor) is supplied outside state regulatory frameworks and there is overwhelming evidence of the importance of secure access to land and housing to the livelihood strategies of poor urban households. This paper, therefore, explores the issue of equity in informal channels of land delivery by drawing from insights gained from a recently concluded DFID-funded research of informal land delivery processes and access to land for the poor in Enugu, Nigeria. It finds that escalating costs and the resistance of pre-capitalist elements (some aspects of traditional culture) have meant that informal channels of land delivery are increasingly failing to meet equity concerns in providing access to land in cities, and that poor city immigrants and other vulnerable groups, especially women, are particularly disadvantaged.     

Redefining property rights over collective land in the urban redevelopment of Shenzhen,China

Urban development in China is based on two types of land ownership, namely, state land owned by states and collective land owned by village collectives. Legally speaking, urban development must be based on state land. In practice, informal development based on collective land has played important roles in the rapid urbanization process over the past decades. Nonetheless, the vague property rights over collective land have led to inferior and suboptimal development outcomes in expansive urban areas. The redevelopment of collective land has become an important means to sustain urban development in an ongoing urbanization process. By adopting theoretical perspectives from New Institutional Economics, this study presents an integrated conceptual framework on the institutional arrangements of land property rights and transaction costs to understand the changes in land policies and their institutional implications for the redevelopment of collective land in Shenzhen, China. The findings reveal that the new policies have redefined the relationship among the government, village collectives, and real estate developers as well as their property rights over collective land. The change of institutional arrangements in land property rights has significantly reduced the transaction costs in the redevelopment process and effectively promoted land redevelopment activities.     

Reconciling moral and legal collective entitlement: Implications for community-based land reform

This paper discusses the drawing and contesting of social boundaries in the enactment of collective land rights, and the implications for land reform policies based around the notion of ‘community’ entitlement. Drawing on recent research in the crofting areas of Scotland, the paper explores the tensions arising when legal collective rights—or proposed changes to them—do not coincide with perceived moral claims to land. Examining the enactment of existing collective rights demonstrates how contested moral assumptions underpinning crofting identities, discourses and land use practices qualify and disqualify individuals as members of an imagined ‘crofting community’, and shape de facto access to and control over land-based resources. Some of the key policy implications of these findings are discussed with particular reference to Scottish land reform.     

Violent visions of an ownership society: The land administration project in Petén, Guatemala

This article is a case study of phase one of the World Bank's land administration project in Petén, Guatemala. Although the project's stated aims are merely to formalize an existing set of individual landed property rights, this development intervention necessarily changes the property regime, thereby changing underlying relationships that land as property embodies. Impact evaluations conducted by development economists may fail to substantively address displacement and violence that occur as a short-term effect of the project and long-term disparate impacts of the project that may exacerbate existing inequalities. The case of Petén also highlights the possibility for violent enforcement of property boundaries, where conflict surges between the disenfranchised and those who gain power under the new property regime.     

Potential hazards of land policy: Conservation,rural development and fire use in the Brazilian Amazon

With growing awareness of fire hazard as an environmental threat within tropical rainforests, the state of Brazil initiated a set of fire control policies aimed at monitoring and ameliorating fire hazard in the Amazon region. These policies were developed in the aftermath of large-scale fire events and reflect a conservationist discourse that responded to internal as well as international environmental concerns. In doing so, the policies have framed the “fire problem” around those who use fire in their land use practices, in particular small-scale agriculturalists. Yet, land policy in general has repeatedly failed to address the institutional arrangements which compel small-scale farmers to use fire in their agricultural practices and the underlying development processes that have made the landscape more vulnerable to accidental spread of fire. Using regional level data on small-scale farmers, I suggest that the conservation oriented approach of fire policy may not be enough to curtail accidental fire events and instead that the fire issue needs to be positioned within rural development as well.     

Gender inequalities in ownership and control of land in Africa: myth and reality

Lack of clarity behind measurement and interpretation of statistics on gender and land leads to an inability to clearly articulate a policy response to the potential inequalities faced by women and men. This article sets out to explore, conceptually and empirically, the levels and relative inequalities in land rights between women and men in African countries. The first section of the article engages in a conceptual discussion of how to measure gendered‐land outcomes, what ownership and control mean in different contexts, and why attention to these factors is important for the development of gender and land statistics. The second section of the article systematically reviews existing evidence from microlevel large sample studies to summarize recent trends in land access, ownership, and control by sex. The third section presents new statistics from a variety of nationally representative and large‐scale unpublished data on gender and land in Africa. Results provide not only a nuanced understanding of the importance of measuring land indicators for gendered development in Africa and globally but also new statistics on a variety of land outcomes to aid stakeholders in the discussion of gender‐land inequalities.     

Conversion of agricultural and forest land to other purposes in the context of land protection: Evidence from Polish experience

The protection of agricultural land and forests is a relatively new concept in Poland, and it began with forest protection in the 1920s. The first regulations on the protection of agricultural land were introduced only in the 1960s. Agricultural land and forests received comprehensive protection pursuant to the provisions of the Act of 26 October 1977 on the protection of agricultural land, forests and land recultivation. This legal act set the foundations for the protection of farmland and forests in successive decades.The aim of this study was to determine the influence of farmland and forest protection on spatial planning and to highlight the loss of agricultural and forest land resulting from conversion to other purposes. Legal regulations pertaining to spatial planning and the protection of agricultural and land forests were analysed. The scale of the problem was identified, and future land-use types were forecast based on the data developed by Statistics Poland (GUS). The existing spatial plans (municipal master plan - MMP) were analysed to determine the conversion loss index (CLI) associated with the conversion of agricultural land and forests to other uses. Legal regulations pertaining to the protection of agricultural land and forests were also analysed, and the extent of the relevant conversion measures was determined. The study demonstrated that urban development and the inevitable urbanization of rural areas contribute to the loss of agricultural and forest land that are converted to other uses.     

Land grabbing: A review of extent and possible consequences in Romania

Land grabbing represents a fundamental problem in the transitional and post-transitional economies. The transfer of land property rights impose a dramatically change of agricultural production structure, including affecting the food safety and security. The main aim of this article is the analysis of the possible effects and transformation imposed by the transfer of land property in a post-transitional agricultural economy and to identify possible solution in valuing the lands as main production factors. Also in the study are taking into consideration the effects of Common Agricultural Policy financing mechanism in supporting land transfers.     

Trends in land ownership fragmentation during the last 230 years in Czechia,and a projection of future developments

A high level of fragmentation of farmland ownership is an important underlying cause of land degradation and, at the same time, an obstacle to sustainable land management. This study makes the first-ever analysis of long-term trends in the rate of fragmentation. Our study covers the period from the earliest stages of the current form of ownership patterns at the end of the 18th century until the present day. On the basis of significant predictors that have been identified (initial fragmentation, population growth, historical development of inheritance laws and of the land market, natural soil fertility and landscape type), we go on to project probable developments for the period from 2016 to 2045. A total of 102,984 land parcels in 56 cadastral units in the territory of Czechia have been analysed on the basis of data from four years (1785, 1840, 1950, 2015). Our study considers the development of two basic indicators of fragmentation – Mean Parcel Size and Number of Owners per 100 ha. The Mean Parcel Size has decreased over a period of 230 years from 1.08 ha to 0.64 ha, at a mean rate of −0.26% year⁻¹. During the same period, the Number of Owners per 100 ha has risen from 17.50 to 79.66, at a mean rate of 0.61% year⁻¹. A detailed analysis of the development trends confirms significant spatial variability and also time variability of the rates of the two indicators. The analysis also shows their mutual complementarity: growth in the rate of one of the indicators is usually accompanied by a drop in the other. The general trend that we project for the territory of Czechia in the upcoming 30 years is that there will be further diminution of the physical size of land parcels (continuing fragmentation of land parcels) accompanied by a reduction in the Number of Owners (defragmentation of land ownership).     

Securing land and property rights in sub-Saharan Africa: The role of local institutions

Central governments have neither the capacity nor the local knowledge to implement a just, large-scale national land registration system. Support to local institutions to undertake intermediate forms of land registration has been shown to be far more effective in many places—although these need careful checks on abuses by powerful local (and external) interests, measures to limit disputes (too many of which can overwhelm any institution) and measures to ensure that the needs of those with the least power – typically women, migrants, tenants and pastoralists – are given due weight. These locally grounded systems can also provide the foundation for more formal registration systems, as needs and government capacities develop. Even if there are the funds and the institutional capacity to provide formal land title registration to everyone in ways that are fair and that recognize local diversity and complexity, and could manage disputes, this may often not be needed. For the vast majority of people, cheaper, simpler, locally grounded systems of rights registration can better meet their needs for secure tenure.     

Formalisation of land rights: Some empirical evidence from Mali, Niger and South Africa

In this paper, we re-interpret three cases of research previously carried out in Mali, Niger and South Africa in light of the recent debate about formalisation of land rights that has emerged since the publication of Hernando de Soto's ‘Mystery of Capital’. The Malian case shows that lack of broad access to formalisation processes in high-pressure areas may play into the hands of those with power, information, and resources. The case also demonstrates that timing of formalisation efforts in urban areas characterised by rapid expansion is crucial in terms of distributive outcomes. The Nigerien case demonstrates how impending formalisation led to a scramble for land and increased conflicts in a context of institutional competition and limited administrative capacity. The South African case shows that the very process of surveying and registering rights may also change the rights themselves. Formalisation procedures may also amplify the tension between individual and communal rights, and boost privatisation.     

Unravelling the dynamics of access to farmland in Tigray,Ethiopia: The ‘emerging land market’ revisited

This article uses ethnographic evidence from Tigray to revisit the debate on informal rural land markets in present-day Ethiopia. It explores informal farmland rental from a historico-anthropological, micro-analytical perspective in relation to the formal allocation of land use rights and to other informal land transfer practices. It shows how different rationales for land rental give rise to different socially embedded tenancy configurations. On the basis of this empirical evidence, the paper questions the appropriateness of the common idea that in Ethiopia ‘the land rental market is expanding’. It argues that research and policy thinking on land in Ethiopia could gain analytical power and relevance by adopting a less monolithic and abstract view on people's informal land transfer practices.