Fenced in: Common property struggles in the management of communal rangelands in central Eastern Cape Province,South Africa

This paper takes as its starting point the assertion that current rangeland management in the central Eastern Cape Province (former Ciskei) of South Africa, is characterised primarily by an ‘open-access’ approach. Empirical material drawn from three case-study communities in the region is used to examine the main barriers to management of rangeland as a ‘commons’. The general inability to define and enforce rights to particular grazing resources in the face of competing claims from ‘outsiders’, as well as inadequate local institutions responsible for rangeland management are highlighted as being of key importance. These are often exacerbated by lack of available grazing land, diffuse user groups and local political and ethnic divisions. Many of these problems have a strong legacy in historical apartheid policies such as forced resettlement and betterment planning.     

Is there a forest transition outside forests? Trajectories of farm trees and effects on ecosystem services in an agricultural landscape in Eastern Germany

Most industrial countries have experienced a transformation of land use: from decreasing to expanding forest areas, the so-called forest transition. Outside closed forests, European rural landscapes exhibit a diversity of tree-based agricultural systems, but the question of whether this forest transition has also affected ‘trees outside forests’ has rarely been studied. The aim of this study is to analyze the spatial-temporal dynamics of farm trees and woodlands in an agricultural landscape in Eastern Germany from 1964 to 2008, based on aerial photographs and digital orthophotos. Taking a landscape ecological perspective, we quantify farm tree dynamics, disentangle processes of gain and loss in the socialist and post-socialist periods of Eastern Germany, and assess differences in ecosystem services provided by farm trees. A substantial increase of overall tree cover by 24.8% was observed for the selected time period, but trajectories have been disparate across different farm tree classes. The increase in tree cover was stronger in steep valleys than on hills and plateaus, indicating a significant interdependence between topography and trajectories of change. Patch numbers of farm trees did not increase, which suggests that the expansion of tree cover is mostly due to a spatial expansion of previously existing tree patches. Overall net gains in tree cover were rather similar during the socialist and post-socialist eras. The general increase in tree cover was accompanied by increase in agriculture-related ecosystem service provision, but the increase in pollination and pest control services was much lower than that in water purification services. These findings present the first empirical evidence from an industrialized country that there is also an ongoing ‘forest transition’ outside closed forests. Potential, partially counteracting drivers of change during the socialist and post-socialist periods have mainly been related to farm policies and the environmental consciousness of land users and society as a whole.     

土地产权及其流转制度改革的路径选择

研究目的:探寻中国土地产权及其流转制度的改革的路径。研究方法:通过Williamson4个层次的分析框架,分析1949年以来农村和城市土地产权及其流转制度的变迁过程。研究结果:中国土地产权和流转制度的变迁,不仅是法律问题,还受到文化、治理、经济行为等因素的共同影响。研究结论:农村和城市内部的改革虽然在时序上不同,但它们在路径选择逻辑上的共性,可以为各自改革提供参考。     

Why David sometimes defeats Goliath: The power of actors in disprivileged land-use policy networks

Since the 19th century, Danish policies regarding land use in the wider countryside have been strongly influenced by two competing policy networks. In the period 1866–1970, a strong ‘land reclamation network’ was privileged at the expense of a weak ‘nature protection network’. In contrast, during the last couple of decades, the situation has been turned on its head. Here, a strong nature protection network has been privileged at the expense of a weaker ‘land reclamation network’. In each of the above stable periods, however, a detailed case study of decision-making regarding a rejected project shows that sometimes the weaker network is able to defeat a stronger network in relation to concrete project decisions regarding the use of water bodies. Why is it that even very strong policy communities cannot expect to have all projects they support implemented? Adding the concepts of policy venue and policy image [Baumgartner, F.R., Jones, B.D., 1993. Agendas and Instability in American Politics. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London] to the rather static policy network approach provides an explanation—a theoretical framework which, for example, can be applied to decisions/non-decisions regarding nature restoration projects in those countries who during recent years have been trying to move beyond water body protection to restoration of water bodies to their natural state.     

Accelerated restructuring in rural China fueled by ‘increasing vs. decreasing balance’ land-use policy for dealing with hollowed villages

Rapid industrialization and urbanization in China has produced a unique phenomenon of ‘village-hollowing’, shaped by the dual-track structure of socio-economic development. This paper analyzes the phenomenon of ‘village-hollowing’, identifying the processes and influences that have driven their evolution, and highlighting the challenge that the locking-up of unused rural housing land in ‘hollowed villages’ presents for China in the context of concerns over urban development and food security. The paper examines the ‘increasing vs. decreasing balance’ land-use policy has been adopted by the Chinese government in response to the problem, which seeks to balance increases in urban construction land with a reduction in rural construction land. The implementation of the scheme is discussed through a case study of Huantai county in Shandong province, drawing attention to its contested and contingent nature. It is argued that the policy is a top-down approach to rural restructuring that necessarily requires the acquiescence of local actors. However, it is noted that failures to adequate engage with local actors has led to resistance to the policy, including violent protests against the demolition of housing. The paper suggests that lessons might be learned from Europe by incorporating elements of ‘bottom-up’ planning into the process. As such, the paper demonstrates that rural restructuring in China is a dynamic, multi-scalar and hybrid process that shares common elements and experiences with rural restructuring in Europe and elsewhere, but which is also strongly shaped by the distinctive political, economic, social and cultural context of China.     

Land-use change in the ‘edgelands’: Policies and pressures in London's rural–urban fringe

Green Belt policies have helped to create chaotic landscapes at the rural–urban interfaces of the United Kingdom's largest cities. Their prime functions, to control urban sprawl and preserve an encircling green girdle to separate the urban from the open countryside, have created ‘edgelands’ that have been remarkably dynamic despite relatively strong controls on certain types of development. A detailed case study of one part of London's Metropolitan Green Belt, drawing upon analysis of planning registers, reveals long-term trends in land-use change linked to the development controls operated within the context of the Green Belt and the adjacent built-up area. This paper also outlines the history of the Green Belt policy in the United Kingdom (UK) and discusses recently proposed policy changes that have provoked ongoing debate about this form of control on urban sprawl and its consequences for the land use of Green Belts and the edgelands.     

Intermediate levels of property rights and the emerging housing market in Ho Chi Minh City,Vietnam

Vietnam introduced a Policy of Renovation (‘Doi Moi’ Policy) to restructure the economy in 1986. Under this policy, the Land Use Right Certificate was introduced as a form of tenure for agricultural land and urban land, according to the Land Laws of 1987 and 1993, respectively. However, by 2001, most properties and/or land in Vietnam still did not have a legal title. Although Vietnam's land reforms in the 1990s provided some of the weakest private rights among the transition countries, big cities like Ho Chi Minh City are presently homes to thriving housing markets. Transactions of ‘property without a physical entity and legal title’ in the real estate market show how property ownership can be formed in order to operate within different institutional contexts. This paper highlights that ‘intermediate levels of property rights’ are the driving forces behind the thriving housing market in Ho Chi Minh City.     

Making the ‘rules of the game’: Constituting territory and authority in Nicaragua's indigenous communities

Indigenous communities, particularly in Latin America, are increasingly winning recognition of rights to lands and forests that they have managed or used historically under customary institutions. If property refers to ‘the rules of the game’, this article uses the constitution of indigenous communal territories in Nicaragua to examine the process of ‘making the rules’. Specifically, the recognition of rights by central governments leads to political contestations over both territory and authority as communities and indigenous political leaders vie for different configurations of both lands and new territorial authorities. That is, the process of constituting large collective territories is intimately related to the constitution of authority, as it involves not only the negotiation of physical boundaries but also the recognition of an existing authority structure – or the creation of a new entity – to represent the beneficiaries. In Nicaragua's North Atlantic Autonomous Region, then, the decision over ‘which configuration of territory’ is ultimately a political negotiation over which ‘authority’ will have the right to control and enforce access to which rights and benefits from land and natural resources.     

The contested environmental governance of Maori-owned native forests in South Island,Aotearoa/New Zealand

In this study we set out to critically examine the environmental governance of native forests owned and managed by the Maori in New Zealand, with a specific focus on ‘SILNA’ lands given to the South island Maori as compensation lands for lost ancestral tribal lands. We will interrogate reasons for different forestry pathways in terms of how the process of European colonisation unfolded politically and spatially, the response of the Maori SILNA forest owners to pressures linked to land allocation and land rights issues over time, and the repercussions of these responses for biodiversity preservation in indigenous forest management systems. In order to unravel the complex environmental governance processes at play in the New Zealand context, we will pay particular attention to ‘exogenous’ (i.e. propelling forces outside Maori communities) and ‘endogenous’ regulation mechanisms (i.e. regulation of native forest management within SILNA forest blocks). New Zealand is a particularly appropriate setting as Maori governance, forest management and land rights issues have come to the fore over the past decades. Our findings suggest that Maori SILNA forest owners have used the full spectrum of forest management pathways, ranging from outright clearfelling and associated biodiversity depletion to forest preservation. The study highlights the complex interplay between endogenous environmental governance processes (actor embeddedness with their land and the role played by trusts and committees in particular) and exogenous drivers, in particular through the influence of international logging companies, and the policy environment which has sent mixed, and at times confusing, messages to Maori SILNA native forest owners.     

长江中游城市群土地利用生态风险分析——以长株潭城市群为例

为揭示城市群发展对区域生态风险的影响,以位于长江经济带的长株潭城市群为研究区,利用1993-2013年Landsat遥感数据,定量获取土地利用变化特征,并基于移动窗口的景观生态风险指数,获得区域空间连续的生态风险指数等级分布图,分析长株潭城市群土地利用动态变化及生态风险时空变化特征。结果表明,近20年来,研究区土地利用变化较为显著,建设用地呈持续增加的趋势,耕地、林地面积在波动中减少且变化明显;近20年,生态风险等级面积变化显著,低风险区波动减少,中等风险区先减少后增加,较高风险区、高风险区均波动性增加。本研究为长株潭城市群土地资源可持续利用、生态风险的有效防范,以及对城市建设用地开发边界和生态红线的确定提供了参考,也为区域生态风险定量评价提供了有效的技术方法。     

Land administration “best practice” providing the infrastructure for land policy implementation

Land administration systems, and particularly their core cadastral components, are an important infrastructure which facilitates the implementation of land use policies. While most land administration systems traditionally have a primary objective of supporting the operation of land markets, they are increasingly evolving into a broader land information infrastructure which supports economic development, environmental management and social stability in both developed and developing countries. While a great deal of attention is given to land use policies worldwide concerned with such areas as forest management, coastal zone management, environmental sustainability and managing the urban environment, less attention is given to the infrastructures which facilitate the implementation of the associated policies and programmes. Importantly, all these activities rely on some form of land administration infrastructure which permits the complex range of rights, restrictions and responsibilities in land to be identified, mapped and managed as a basis for policy formulation and implementation. As a result, there is an increasing interest in the concept of land administration infrastructures and their core cadastres, in the principles and policies concerned with establishing such infrastructures and in “best practices”. In addressing this need, this paper attempts to explain the evolving concept of land administration infrastructures, the concept of “best practice” and the concept of a land administration “tool box” of principles, policies, laws and technologies which are useful in reforming or re-engineering land administration systems in support of a broader land policy agenda.     

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.     

Urban and tourist land use patterns and water consumption: Evidence from Mallorca,Balearic Islands

The island of Mallorca is the main Balearic resort and sustainable water management is a key challenge for the economic and ecological sustainability of tourism as the main economic activity. The critical water supply situation on the island is being exacerbated by the extension of the tourist base to so-called “quality tourism”. Since the mid 1990s, low-density residential tourist land uses associated with second homes and more affluent urban dwellers have spread around existing mass tourist urban centres. Increasing water consumption for outdoor uses (gardens, swimming pools) is a direct consequence of this development. Available water consumption data mask the impact of residential tourism on water consumption levels. The objective of the present paper is to compare per capita water consumption in quality tourist, mass tourist and residential urban areas, and to provide quantitative information on the magnitude of water consumption by gardens and swimming pools as water-related leisure structures. The analysis combines water consumption data with a land use geodatabase at the sub-parcel scale, a detailed population inventory, and an estimate of pool water use. The results show that quality tourism produces higher water consumption levels per capita than mass tourism. Garden irrigation is the single main cause of the high water consumption in quality tourist areas and accounts for more than 70% of these areas’ total consumption in summer. But even in mass tourist and residential areas, garden irrigation accounts for up to 30% and 20%, respectively, of total water consumption in summer. Individually owned swimming pools cause an additional average water consumption of 22 litres/person/day. The proliferation of swimming pools and lavish ‘Atlantic’ gardens may turn out as one of the biggest threats to sustainable water management on the island of Mallorca and in other tourist destinations adapting the quality tourist model.     

The direct use value of municipal commonage goods and services to urban households in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

To redress past racial discrepancies in ownership and tenure, the ANC government of South Africa initiated programmes to make land accessible to the previously disadvantaged. A key component of the national land reform programme was the provision of commonage lands to urban municipalities for use by the urban poor. However, there has been no assessment of the contribution that urban commonage makes to previously disadvantaged households. This study assessed the economic benefits of the commonage programme to local households, through an in-depth survey of 90 households across three small towns in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. We examined the marketed and non-marketed consumptive direct-use values of land-based livelihoods on commonage, calculated via the ‘own reported values’ approach. The results indicate that a proportion of South Africa's urban population rely to some degree on municipal commonage for part of their livelihoods. Commonage contributions to total livelihood incomes ranged between 14 and 20%. If the contributions from commonage were excluded, the incomes of over 10% of households in each study town would drop below the poverty line. Overall, the value of harvests from commonage was worth over R1 000 (US$ 142) per hectare per year and over R4.7 million (US$ 0.68 million) per commonage per year. However, the extent and nature of use and reliance was not uniform among households, so that we developed a typology of commonage users, with four types being identified. However, rapidly growing urban populations and high levels of poverty potentially threaten the sustainability of commonage resource use. Yet the national land reform programme focuses largely on the transfer of land to municipalities and not on sustainable management. Municipalities, in turn, invest relatively little in commonage management, and the little they do is focussed on livestock production. Non-timber forest products are not considered at all, even though this study shows that they are a vital resource for the urban poor, notably for energy and construction materials.     

Land suitability evaluation for development using a matter-element model: A case study in Zengcheng, Guangzhou, China

Land suitability evaluation can assist in the efficient use of land resources at a regional level. This is an important issue because of the pressures that an increasing population and economic growth have put on limited land resources. Matter-element theory, which was first put forward by the Chinese mathematician Cai Wen, has shown potential for solving incompatibility problems. Based on the matter-element model, this paper uses land use, roads, water bodies, population density, distance from center of the city, geodetic height, and slope as factors in modeling land suitability for development. Zengcheng, an urban-rural administration was used as a case study for applying the matter-element model to assessing the suitability of land for development. The model was cross referenced with local urban plans for verification and the results of this study show that the model constructed was effective at assessing the suitability of land for development. According to both the classification map created using the matter-element model and the statistics on the of land suitability classes, the study area was found to have a considerable amount of land which is highly suitable for development. After the category ‘highly suitable’, the next largest total land area was in the category of ‘not suitable’ for development, while there was relatively little land classified as moderately and marginally suitable. The percentage of the total land area of each class of suitability was 41.80%, 34.22%, 16.35% and 7.64%, respectively. Apart from this, the study also demonstrated the advantage of matter-element models over fuzzy theory, as they provide much more information. For example, all integrated degree of all classes in the paper had ranges from −1 to 1, but differed from each other by percentage. In the category of ‘highly suitable’ only 45.51% of matter-elements fully conformed to the criteria (those within a range of 0-0.5925), while the remainder (54.49%) did not corresponded to the requirements of the category, but did have the potential to do so with relatively few changes (those within a range of −0.3923-0 degrees). This data provides us with an understanding of the potential and limitation to development of the land in the region.     

Urban spill over vs. local urban sprawl: Entangling land-use regulations in the urban growth of China's megacities

Rather than a bad case of urban sprawl, the physical expansion of China's megacities may be viewed as a combination of ‘urban spill over’ and ‘local urban sprawl’. This paper reviews land use regulations in their institutional context and argues that conflicts in land use regulation are related to ideologies of land ownership and embedded in different planning doctrines. These hypotheses are investigated with special reference to Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province in southern China. The evidence suggests that entangled land use regulations for “urban” and “rural” land have imposed serious constraints on urban growth, while the contradictions of different policies and regulations in the use of rural lands for urban construction have led to intensive and unhealthy competition among stakeholders. As a result, not only have the costs of land conversion from rural to urban uses increased, but the spatial development of Guangzhou has been distorted. The implications of these failures for future policy are discussed with emphasis on the reform of the land use regulation system.     

基于山水视野约束的城镇立体空间开发潜力评价

研究目的：为了明晰城镇立体空间开发潜力,促进城市土地利用模式从“摊大饼式”的外延拓张转向“错落有致”的立体扩展,破解新型城镇化进程中的资源瓶颈、景观限制和发展矛盾,保障土地管理目标的实现,支撑宏观经济调控的效率改善,推动城市景观环境改善,引导城市均衡化发展。研究方法：DSSPM模型,潜力评价。研究结果：通过引入数字立体空间潜力模型（DSSPM）,融合适宜性评价、经济需求分析和限制修正,构建了基于山水视野约束的立体空间开发评价模型与方法,并以广西柳州市为例进行实证研究,得出柳州市城镇立体空间开发3D潜力图。研究结论：通过笔者提出的模型能够直观、有效地摸清城市立体空间潜力,有利于指导和促进城镇立体空间有序合理开发,保证市民“望得见山、看得见水”。     

Forest transitions: An introduction

When people speak about ‘forest transitions’, they generalize about the ways in which the extent of forested land changes as societies undergo industrialization and urbanization. Alexander Mather coined the term ‘forest transition’, outlined a theory to explain it, and carried out a series of careful historical studies to illustrate the idea. The papers assembled in this special issue both extend and deepen Mather's pathbreaking work. They suggest that the idea of the forest transition, like the much critiqued idea of a demographic transition in population studies, has become a useful theoretical tool for understanding contemporary land use changes.     

Land economic rent computation for urban planning and fiscal purposes

This article proposes an innovative methodology to compute economic rents of land designed to current or potential offices uses. It consists in the establishment of a cause-and-effect relation between offices’ price levels and correspondent levels of land rent, considering the main factors that influence property prices, the ones that guide public and private activities’ location decisions and the inter-dependencies between land and real estate property markets. The rationale subjacent to this research is that land economic rent is determined by the difference between offices market price and a set of costs correspondent to land acquisition, planning and building processes, and a profit margin. An assessment of surplus values is provided in order to compute it as the difference between total land market value (land economic rent plus economic return on land use) and correspondent tributary patrimonial-value according to legal valuation proceedings (settled on property law). In order to reach these goals, variables that exert influence on urban planning and municipal management were identified, an urban management information system was designed and implemented, and an integrated and interactive model to support decisions in urban planning – concerning real estate offices and land prices and characteristics – was developed. These tools were applied as a case study to Oporto city (Portugal). They embody updating functionalities, setting up as an on-going support to policies of municipal land use management (particularly applied to offices uses). A proposal is made to integrate similar models in territorial plans as valuation tools to support better approaches to assess the impact of planning decisions on real estate and land values, thus informing a more equitable, efficient and local-based tax basis. Implications of this analysis for urban planning and fiscal settings are proposed.     

Recent trends in the supply of land for industrial development in Hong Kong: A case study in planned decentralization

Summary

Although free enterprise remains the dominant characteristic of the Hong Kong economy, new land supply is controlled largely by the Hong Kong Government. Rather than establish a detailed system of development plans and controls, the Government has been able to achieve substantial decentralization of housing and industry through the location of new land release. The evidence suggests that industrial developers have been willing to build and industrialists to locate in decentralized areas, especially those close to the main urban areas. Furthermore, although vacancy rates are generally higher and rental levels lower in decentralized compared to centralized locations, the extent of the differences over time is not as pronounced as might be expected. Indeed, the overall strength of demand for industrial land, other than in the recent slump, has necessitated special policies to protect land for low‐density industrial users in decentralized locations. As planned decentralization approaches completion, attention is beginning to focus upon redevelopment in the older urban areas and upon the consequences of the Sino‐British Joint Declaration of 1985. Overall, recent land policies in Hong Kong offer the British observer some useful indications of the impact of government intervention in land use on existing property markets.