Factors of vulnerability: How large-scale land acquisitions take advantage of local and national weaknesses in Sierra Leone

Enticing economic benefits for host nations and the notion of large areas of land considered available are often put forward as the main reasons for large-scale land acquisition in many areas of sub-Saharan Africa. However, country-level datasets of land acquisitions seem to indicate a clear divide between a majority of countries engaged in land acquisitions as investors and those involved as targets. We posit that there are socio-economic and governance factors that make the engagement between targets of land acquisitions and investors both unequal and attractive to large-scale investments. We then ask the question: what are the factors that make communities vulnerable to an unequal engagement with large-scale land-investing interests in Sierra Leone? We explore this question using local-level socio-economic data of households and communities in two settings where land acquisitions have occurred in Sierra Leone. We find that socio-economic characteristics of local populations, such as levels of education, the powerful role of traditional chiefs and corruption, make these areas easier targets for such land investments. Investors also exploit the poor economic situation of local areas by making alluring promises of development opportunities. The vulnerability of local people to land investors is further undermined by poor governance at the national level and external politico-financial interest in favor of such investments. Local populations are vulnerable to organized campaigns of land acquisitions by multi-national companies. Proper legal and institutional frameworks are required to protect local interests in these land deals.     

Afforestation and forestry land allocation in northern Vietnam: Analysing the gap between policy intentions and outcomes

Many tropical countries have recently implemented similar forest policies including large-scale afforestation programmes and the devolution of land-use rights. Their success in enhancing livelihoods and contributing to improved environmental services has been widely questioned. This paper discusses the impacts of state afforestation efforts and forestry land allocation on farmers’ land-use decisions in northern Vietnam. It links policy outcomes with factors located beyond the local level by analysing the decision-making process at the policy implementation stage. Our study suggests that the current national afforestation campaign has not successfully involved households in the forestry sector and that forestry land allocation to households has often disrupted existing land-use systems with little impact on afforestation. These discrepancies between policy intentions and outcomes are partly linked to the relative freedom provinces have to interpret and adapt policies during the implementation stage. In this respect, the political and economic context has played a significant role in providing particular financial and bureaucratic incentives to the former State Forest Enterprises and to civil servants. However, we argue that these actors have been allowed or even encouraged to take advantage of these incentives by national policy-makers thanks to: (1) the lack of clarity or the poor adequacy of the policies designed at the central level, and (2) the blurred character of prevailing national discourses promoting afforestation and community-based forest management. We recommend that national policy-makers allow flexibility in policy implementation but develop mechanisms of accountability and control between the provincial and the central authorities.     

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.     

Spatio-temporal variances and risk evaluation of land finance in China at the provincial level from 1998 to 2017

Excessive dependence on land finance (hereafter LF) in China’s urbanisation process has generated various problems and compromised the interests of future generations, hence a transformation from “land urbanisation” to “population urbanisation” is now called for. Nevertheless, before turning towards a new urbanisation strategy, the spatio-temporal variances of LF and associated risks for regional sustainability deserve further investigation. This study developed a comprehensive evaluation indicator system from administrative, economic, social and ecological perspectives, to evaluate the LF risks at provincial scale in mainland China from 1998 to 2017, applying the combined AHP-Entropy method and Multi-Criteria analysis. The results indicated that land transfer dependence remained high across all provinces over the last two decades, and the LF risk increased accordingly. In 2015, economic, social, and total risks of China as a whole all reached a “high” risk level, ecological risk was at the level of “critical”, although administrative risk kept going down and was at a “low” risk level in recent years, thanks to the persistent nation-wide effort on cracking down on corruption. Spatially, total LF risk generally presented a declining gradient from east to west. Through analysing the tentative and plausible causes to above spatio-temporal variances, five policy suggestions were put forward: (1) reforming current cadre assessment and fiscal decentralisation systems; (2) transforming the residential housing supply structure; (3) establishing a comprehensive land ecological conservation system; (4) promoting a flexible leasehold mechanism in primary land market; and (5) restructuring the industrial layout to defuse differentiated LF risks across provinces. With empirical data and comprehensive risk evaluations, this study contributed to improve our knowledge on the spatio-temporal patterns of LF and its associated risks at provincial scale, helped to inform future urbanisation policy designs and ultimately to promote regional sustainability for China and beyond.     

Adjusting policy to institutional,cultural and biophysical context conditions: The case of conservation banking in California

This paper examines the political construction of a policy instrument for matching particular institutional, biophysical and cultural context conditions in a social–ecological system, using the case of conservation banking in California as an example. The guiding research question is: How is policy design negotiated between various actors on its way from early formulation of ideas and principles to an accepted policy solution on a state or national level? The underlying assumption is that in order for a policy instrument to be implemented, it has to be adjusted to various context conditions. That is, it has to become accepted by affected actors associated with the institutional framework, and it has to gain local validity for implementation by actors related to a particular ecological and cultural context. We assume that ideas about policy adjustments are not only functionalistic questions determined for example by the materiality of the resource it governs, but are constructed and politically negotiated because these ideas may differ among the mental models of the associated actors. These actors are stakeholders affiliated with the policy process, i.e. authorities, public and private organizations, interest groups, firms or think tanks dealing with, or being shaped by, the policy at different stages of its development.As a result certain context conditions and related concerns such as institutional interplay or match to ecological particularities become inscribed in policy design as an outcome of power struggles, values, and interests. These in turn may vary at different stages of policy development and implementation. Each time the instrument is transferred in a new setting it is likely that the incipient policy design may be opened-up and begin a mutual adjustment process among the newly concerned actors. Thus, such policy developments are not immutable but are dynamic. In this paper, the creation of fit for policies on conservation banking to the issue of species protection in the State of California and later to the U.S. environmental governance domain, are analyzed to understand the instrument's emergence and development toward an established policy solution. The focus is on the negotiation processes among the enrolled actors and their strategies for matching the instrument to certain institutional, cultural and ecological context conditions on different scales. Changes in policy design, its underlying influences, actors’ interests, conflicts and perceived effects are identified, respectively.     

Assessing farmers’ risk preferences and their determinants in a marginal upland area of Vietnam: a comparison of multiple elicitation techniques

We examine the consistency of risk preference measures based on eight hypothetical elicitation methods and a lottery game applied to smallholder farmers in a marginal upland environment in Vietnam. Using these measures, we identify influencing factors of risk aversion via regression analysis, whereby unlike previous studies, we include several proxies of social capital such as social networks and norms. Data were collected from household heads and spouses separately in a random sample of 300 households. Although correlations between most of the various risk preference measures are all statistically highly significant, most are weak. On average, respondents have a high degree of risk aversion and specific characteristics—gender, age, idiosyncratic shocks, education, social norms, network‐reliance with extended family, and connections to local authorities—are significant determinants of risk preferences across most elicitation methods, whereas others—the household's dependency ratio, wealth, and covariate shocks—are significant in a few methods only. The explanatory power of the models is limited, indicating that other factors are likely to be of greater importance in determining risk preferences. The results can help target safety nets, encourage investments, and lead to the development of more applicable methods for assessing risk preferences of smallholders in developing countries.     

Efficiency,total factor productivity and returns to scale in a sustainable perspective: An analysis in the European Union at farm and regional level

For global sustainability it is imperative to find a balance across the three main components of sustainable development which are the economic, social and environmental aspects. However, it is not a simple task to make these contexts compatible, usually because of economic pressures which transform them into opposed objectives. This framework occurs across several dimensions within society and the economy, where the agricultural sector is not an exception. The objective of this study is to analyse the efficiency, total factor productivity and returns to scale in an economic, social and environmental perspective in farms of the European Union (EU) regions through Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approaches. The research concerning the returns to scale will be complemented by the Keynesian models. Data obtained from the European Union Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) was considered. The results show that in maintaining or improving the levels of production in farms, it is often possible to greatly reduce, in some cases, the consumption of fertilizers and crop protection products. On the other hand, from a social perspective, some European Union regions are more generous in the salaries paid to farming workers and absorb more labour, which in a European context of unemployment, may be an interesting way to realistically look at and be engaged in the agricultural planning in a sustainable way, founding a balanced trade-off among the economic, social and environmental dimensions.     

Industrial land use planning and the growth of knowledge industry: Location pattern of knowledge-intensive services and their determinants in the Seoul metropolitan area

As the industrial structure is reorganized from manufacturing to one that is knowledge-based, the knowledge-intensive service (KIS) industry has grown steadily. Since KIS industries make a significant contribution to regional competitiveness through innovative activities, it is important to examine what factors determine their location. Since KIS industries reportedly concentrate in and around large cities, wherein the land price is high and vacant land is scarce, land use planning is expected to play an important role in the location of KIS. Therefore, this study analyzes the location patterns of the KIS industry and the factors contributing to the industry’s growth in the Seoul metropolitan area, with a focus on land use planning. According to the result, KIS industries tend to locate in traditional KIS centers in downtown Seoul and new centers around Seoul. While the growth of KIS workers in the traditional KIS centers was stagnant, that in the new centers was much higher. Concerning the factors that affect the growth of KIS employment, the factors related to land use planning significantly influenced the growth of KIS activities. Among them, semi-industrial zone and housing site development areas were influential due to the exclusion of residential land use and land use regulation changes that allowed the development of the knowledge industry center. This shows that exclusionary land use control and flexible measures should be properly applied to accommodate new industrial demands and create space for urban employment.     

Assembling land for urban revitalization in the presence of linchpin parcels and information asymmetries: An experimental investigation

This study uses economic experiments to determine if information asymmetries are likely to frustrate government efforts to assemble land for urban revitalization when there is a linchpin parcel that must be acquired to move a development project forward. Results suggest holdout behavior is more pronounced when landowners know a linchpin parcel exists. Surprisingly, landowners who know they control such parcels are found to be more willing to sell than those who are uncertain about the strategic importance of their properties. These observations raise interesting questions about the nature of holdout problems and how they can potentially be overcome by approaching land assembly in a transparent manner.     

An analysis of green infrastructure in municipal policy: Divergent meaning and terminology in the Greater Toronto Area

The concept of green infrastructure has been rapidly adopted by several disciplines and is increasingly appearing in policy discussions. While the use of the term has recently expanded, there is no single definition of green infrastructure. To date most of the research examining green infrastructure in policy has occurred in Europe and the US, and to a lesser extent Asia, highlighting differences in the term’s meaning between these regions. Green infrastructure has also recently become part of policy discourse in Canada, but it is unclear how widespread its use is or how it is being defined in a Canadian policy context. This study examines inclusion of the term ‘green infrastructure’, and the broader ideas it represents, in municipal policy through a content analysis of 81 municipal plans from the 25 municipalities in the Greater Toronto Area (Ontario, Canada). Examined plans includes those addressing land use, urban forests, stormwater and other relevant sectors. We found that the term appears in 30 % of the examined municipal plans, with three distinct definitions used: living green infrastructure, non-living green infrastructure and ‘greening’ gray infrastructure. Closely related terms (e.g., low impact development) and incorporation of the concept of green infrastructure without using the specific term are more common than direct references to green infrastructure. The variety of terminology and definitions incorporated into the municipal plans raise questions about potential confusion around basic policy goals associated with green infrastructure.     

Determinants of cropland abandonment at the parcel,household and village levels in mountain areas of China: A multi-level analysis

Cropland abandonment accompanying economic development has been observed worldwide. China has experienced a large amount of land abandonment in recent years. However, the reasons for it are not entirely clear. Although abandonment decisions are made by individual households, the underlying conditions reflect processes operating at multiple levels. Therefore, we aimed to detect the influences on land abandonment at the parcel, household and village levels. We developed and employed a multi-level statistical model using farm household survey data and geographical maps of Wulong County. Our model revealed that of the variance in occurrence of land parcel abandonment, 7% and 13% can be explained at the household and village levels, respectively, while the remnant 80% can be explained at the land parcel features itself. We found that land abandonment is more prone to occur on parcels that are on steep slopes, have poor quality soil, or are remote from the laborers’ residences. Households with less agricultural labor per unit land area showed a high probability of land abandonment. We also found a nonlinear influence of labor age on land abandonment, with households comprising middle-aged laborers having a low land abandonment probability. Parcels in villages with high elevation, far from the county administrative center or with low prevalence of leased land are inclined to abandonment. We also found, surprisingly, that the household proportion of males among its agricultural laborers did not significantly influence the occurrence of land abandonment at the parcel level, probably due to the male agricultural laborers being overwhelmingly old (average age greater than 56 years). To alleviate land abandonment, we suggest improving land tenure and transfer security to ensure stable access to the land rental market, and also improving infrastructure in remote regions.