Land tenure insecurity in post-certification Amhara,Ethiopia

It is generally believed that tenure security has improved due to the programme of land certification. In this paper I argue the opposite. Tenure security concerns three different rights: possession, renting and latent rights. Rights of possession are believed to have improved, but the evidence is weak and conflicting. Land rentals are expanding and farmers face high tenure insecurity. The main problem, though, is latent rights, with great insecurity and increased conflict levels. Despite rapid economic development there is considerable social malaise, an unfortunate agricultural structure, and considerable pressure for land redistribution due to unresolved land tenure issues. The paper is based on the certification literature and primary material from North Shäwa.     

Cropland expansion and grassland loss in the eastern Dakotas: New insights from a farm-level survey

The western Corn Belt region of the United States has become a hotspot for agricultural extensification and consequent land use and land cover changes. The goals of this research were to characterize geographic patterns of grassland loss resulting from cropland expansion in the eastern Dakotas, and to understand how these changes were associated with characteristics of individual farms and farm operators. We collected data on grassland conversion and other land use decisions through a mail survey of farm operators in North and South Dakota. Overall, 40% of respondents converted at least some grassland to cropland between 2004 and 2014, and the total acreage of converted grassland was equivalent to 5.1% of the surveyed farm acreage. Although most converted grassland acres (3.2% of farm acreage) were from land enrolled in the conservation reserve program (CRP), there were also substantial amounts of native grassland conversion (1.0%) and tame grassland conversion (0.9%). The total acreage of grassland conversion was more than four times larger than the acreage enrolled in CRP and other conservation programs. Different types of grassland conversion (e.g., native grassland versus CRP) were concentrated in different parts of the study region, and were spatially disjunct from the areas of highest conservation program enrollment. Larger farms were more likely than smaller farms to expand their cropland acreage and accounted for a disproportionate share of grassland conversion. Younger farm operators, higher levels of farm income, higher proportions of rented croplands, and marginal yields were also associated with cropland expansion and grassland conversion. Although CRP and other land retirement programs will remain important policy mechanisms for conservation in this region, they are not sufficient to maintain current levels of grassland cover and do not provide protection for native grasslands. Alternative conservation strategies and new agricultural policies are thus critically needed to maintain the ecosystem services provided by grasslands.     

Land system change in Italy from 1884 to 2007: Analysing the North–South divergence on the basis of an integrated indicator framework

Over the past centuries, land systems in Italy experienced fundamental shifts, owing to the availability of new energy forms, population surges, and technological progress. The 20th century was characterized by massive productivity increases, accompanied by gradual land abandonment and the return of forest land. We here analyze 120 years of land system change in Italy, applying the human appropriation of net primary production (HANPP) framework, a metric for socio-economic pressures on terrestrial ecosystems. HANPP allows integrating ecological with societal perspectives, by systematically quantifying (a) biomass harvest and (b) the difference between potential productivity of ecosystems and current productivity induced by land use processes, such as land conversion, or land degradation. Besides assessing national trends we calculated HANPP separately for the Italian North and South between 1934 and 2007, in order to scrutinize if high regional discrepancies in terms of natural and socio-economic preconditions translate into diverging land system trajectories. Our results show that national HANPP has been declining from 78% of natural productivity before WWII to 56% in 2007, indicating a declining land -use induced pressure on biomass flows over time. Simultaneously, biomass harvest increased by around 26% due to agricultural intensification, despite shrinking croplands. Although we found a significant difference between the Northern and Southern region in the absolute levels of several land use indicators related to biomass appropriation, the overarching trends of land system change were remarkably similar in both regions. This suggests that underlying drivers of land system change, such as policies aimed at land-use intensification and structural change were equally dominating land system trajectories in the North and South of Italy, not withstanding their socio-ecological divergences.     

Socio-economic and biophysical determinants of land degradation in Vietnam: An integrated causal analysis at the national level

Recognizing the socio-economic and biophysical causes of land degradation at the national level is important for cause-targeted strategies when designing policies for combating land degradation. This study aims to identify the biophysical and socio-economic factors that significantly affect land degradation across Vietnam and to interpret the causalities underlying the effects. The dependent variables considered in the study are spatial, the extent and intensity of degradation in three land-use zones (agriculture, forest and severely degraded abandonment). The hypothesized explanatory variables are common economic and demographic drivers and bio-physical factors such as soil, terrain constraints, and neighborhood land-use structures that are often neglected in many large-scale land degradation assessments. Instead of using a single inferential statistic technique, we used multi-linear regression and binary logistic regression in a complementary manner to increase the detectability and credibility of the degradation cause analyses. The results showed agricultural production growth had strong and consistent effects on land degradation extent and intensity. Population growth, especially in rural areas, had a strong effect on the extent of overall land degradation. The importance of a neighboring forest was revealed for its ability to reduce land degradation intensity in abandoned, unproductive lands. The concrete faceting of the causal analysis for each land-use zone as social–ecological stratum allowed us to combine the defined social–ecological contexts, contemporary theories, and hypotheses in the field to clarify the causal factors of a complex phenomenon like land degradation. The study demonstrates these contemporary inferential statistics can be complementarily used to sufficiently detect and understand land degradation causes at the national level. The results suggest implications for national land management policy: internalizing land degradation costs in the farming system evaluation for payment for ecosystem services policy, restricting forest conversion, and improving extension services and education in agrarian communities.     

Analyzing the welfare‐improving potential of land in the former homelands of South Africa

This article contributes to the debate on the role of land in reducing poverty in rural South Africa. It uses the year of arrival in the former homelands as an instrument for land access and size. This identification strategy is based on the fact that African households were forcibly relocated to the homelands during the apartheid. Due to increasing population pressure, later arrivals were less likely to be assigned land. The results show that land has a large positive effect on household welfare. Because the homelands are relatively disadvantaged areas, these results provide a lower bound for the positive effects of land on household welfare.     

高职院校思政课教学有效性研究——教学情景设计研究

长期以来,高职院校思想政治理论课教学一直面临一种尴尬的境地:一方面,学生对课程本身存在偏见和抵触,另一方面,课堂以教师为主体,学生被动地听,这种教学忽视了学生的自主学习和探究,使学生缺少独立思考的时间和空间,因而教学效果差。而情景教学法能较好地激发学生学习兴趣、发挥其主体性,因此,情景教学法成为职教院校思想政治课教学方法改革的重要内容之一。本文结合教学实践,从教学内容,教学开展方式等方面阐述了情景教学法在高职思政课教学中的应用。     

“Money can’t buy me land”: Foreign land ownership regime and public opinion in a transition society

In recent years, as part of the broader policies of economic liberalization, the sale of agricultural land to foreign citizens has attracted considerable political, social and media attention in transition societies. The regime of land ownership in Georgia has evolved from the complete restriction of foreign acquisition in the beginning of the 1990s, to the unrestricted sale of land to foreign citizens from 2010 onwards. An analysis of newly-available data from International Social Survey Programme’s (ISSP) National Identity module suggests that respondents in Georgia, along with Russia, hold the most negative attitudes toward selling land to foreigners compared to other countries. I hypothesize that this is the result of a confluence of factors such as the communist legacy, historical memory, rural nationalism, agricultural underdevelopment and inequality. The quantitative part of this article tests socio-demographic, geographic, ideological, and identity-based explanations of within-country variation in attitudes toward the purchase of land by foreigners. The results suggest that socio-demographic and geographic variables such as respondents’ age and regional belonging explain some variance in the dependent variable, but that the major effects stem from individuals’ perceptions of economic protectionism, xenophobia, and ethnic national identity.     

Transdisciplinarity in land use science – A review of concepts,empirical findings and current practices

In the search for solutions to complex real-world problems, the benefits of transdisciplinary research (TDR) have been widely heralded. Land use science appears to be a designated field for TDR. However, to date, the additional expenses of TDR are accompanied by a so far not proved added value, and empirical findings are claimed to be scarce and dispersed over several disciplines and case studies.We reviewed 299 articles obtained from a structured literature search to (1) investigate the current differences between theory and practice, (2) identify empirical findings, and (3) ascertain the contributions of TDR to promoting sustainable land use management.Our results demonstrate that, in spite of an increasing conceptual consistency in the theoretical discussion of TDR, the implementation of TDR remains a substantial challenge, in part because of the gap between theory and practice. In addition, research on TDR is science and process centred. The benefits of TDR in addressing real-world problems within the field of land use remain unproven.     

Identifying and mapping the tourists⿿ perception of cultural ecosystem services: A case study from an Alpine region

Landscapes provide an array of services to society, from the provision of food and material, to the provision of cultural ecosystem services such as recreation, aesthetics or spirituality. Studies on cultural ecosystem services, however, remain rare and little is known about the spatial localisation of these services. In this study, we adopt and test a framework to identify and map the provision of cultural ecosystem services as perceived by tourists in an Alpine region, i.e. the region of South Tyrol in Italy. A photo-based questionnaire survey is combined with cartographical representations of landscape types to elicit hot and coldspot areas of cultural ecosystem service provision. We statistically test for influences of the land use type and the respondents' socio-demographic background on the tourists' perception of these services. The results show that different spatial patterns emerge for each of the investigated cultural ecosystem services depending on the distribution and extent of the landscape types to which they are related. In particular traditionally managed landscapes, small in extent and mainly scattered over large areas between 1000 and 2200 m a.s.l., are hotspot areas of aesthetic beauty, leisure activities and spirituality. In contrast, intensively managed landscapes, mainly located in the lowland plains of the study site, are considered to be more important for the provision of cultural heritage values. While the results suggest that land use type exerts the strongest influence upon tourists' perception, factors such as the respondents' perceived importance of the services, their gender, cultural background, environmental engagement and experience with the landscape play a significant but subordinate role. We conclude that the spatially explicit information about the provision of cultural ecosystem services can serve as a helpful basis for the design and further implementation of land use policies that acknowledge the high touristic value of traditionally used landscapes in mountain regions.     

Experimental evidence on the resilience of a cap & trade system for land consumption in Germany

The German government has committed to substantially limiting future land consumption. Among the most prominently discussed policy instruments is the implementation of a cap & trade system for land consumption, in which a limited amount of certificates is allocated to and traded by municipalities. Since these certificates would be a prerequisite for conducting building projects, this system is expected to reduce urban sprawl and foster the efficient allocation of land consumption projects. While previous empirical studies have supported these projections, the potential fragility of a cap & trade system in the case of macroeconomic shocks has not been considered. In three laboratory experiments, we simulate the impact of economic and budgetary crises within a cap & trade scheme for land consumption. We find that a market-based system succeeds in compensating macroeconomic disturbances with only minor welfare losses. Certificate prices in auctions and trading are somewhat more volatile before shocks, yet normalize afterwards. Trading volumes and the specifics of project realizations remain largely unaffected. Unrelated to the macroeconomic shocks, auction and market prices persistently diverge, leading to income redistributions to the state. Overall, our evidence supports the introduction of a market-based certificate scheme to reduce land consumption in Germany due to its resilience against potential shocks.