Land as an essential resource is becoming increasingly scarce due to population growth. In the case of the Kenyan coast, population pressure causes land cover changes in the Arabuko Sokoke Forest, which is an important habitat for endangered species. Forest and bushland have been changed to agricultural land in order to provide livelihood for the rural population who are highly dependent on small-scale farming. Unclear land rights and misbalanced access to land cause uncontrolled expansion and insecure livelihoods.

Since around 2011 pilot projects to innovate land tenure documentation are being implemented in various countries in the global south in order to address the shortcomings of formal land registration. A longer-term question, underlying the present study, is how these innovations relate in the longer run to existing institutional arrangements of land governance in the respective context of implementation. Guided by this more general question, we discuss in this paper first the characteristics for 6 of these approaches.

Based on government statistics and interviews with villagers across Malawi this article argues that customary matrilineal and patrilineal land tenure systems serve to weaken security of land tenure for some family members as well as obstructing the creation of gender-neutral inheritance of lands. Data from the National Census of Agriculture and Livestock 2007and the 2008 Population and Housing Census are used to characterize marriage systems and landholding patterns of local communities. Marriage systems correspond to customary land-tenure patterns of matrilineal or patrilineal cultures.

While strengthening women’s land rights is increasingly on national and international agendas, there is little consensus on how to understand women’s tenure security. Analyses of women’s land rights often use very different definitions of land rights, from formal ownership to women’s management of plots allocated to them by their husbands. This paper identifies aspects of women’s tenure that should be included in indicators. It then provides a conceptual framework to identify the various dimensions of women’s land tenure security and the myriad factors that may influence it.

Farmland ownership fragmentation is one of the important drivers of land-use changes. It is a process that in its extreme form can essentially limit land management sustainability. Based on a typology of land degradation and its causes, this process is here classified for the first time as an underlying cause which through tenure insecurity causes land degradation in five types (water erosion, wind erosion, soil compaction, reduction of organic matter, and nutrient depletion).

Pervasive food insecurity and poverty in much of the world drives vulnerable populations to harvest natural resources as a means of generating income and meeting other household needs. Wild edible plants (WEPs) are a particularly common and effective coping strategy used to increase socio-ecological resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa where agricultural systems are often sensitive to environmental perturbations and instability. WEPs are collected across the landscape, from agricultural areas to government-managed hilltops with varying degrees of success and legality.

Apesar do otimismo tanto do Governo como de alguns setores da sociedade brasileira ao afirmar que a reforma agrária através do mercado é uma opção viável e desejável para resolver o problema fundiário e a pobreza rural do país, o presente estudo mostra que persistem diversos problemas para o desenvolvimento do mercado de terras rurais brasileiras. A oferta restritiva, facilitada pela aquisição fraudulenta de terras públicas e pelo poder político que ainda permanece associado à propriedade fundiária, aparece como um dos principais obstáculos para a democratização do acesso à terra.

Analiza los origines historicos de la comunidad andina ecuatoriana; la organizacion interna de las comunidades y economias campesinas; la articulacion de estas con el mercado, el Estado y la estructura de clases; el movimiento campesino y la lucha por la tierra; y las alternativas en la produccion, la organizacion, la educacion y las practicas sanitarias.

Resumen El propósito de este documento es incentivar un debate sobre un tema poco discutido en la región. Actualmente, los responsables de la gerencia de los predios agrícolas (tanto los agricultores por cuenta propia como los agricultores comerciales) de la región son, en alta proporción, personas de tercera edad, lo que no parece ser propicio para un desarrollo dinámico, ni del sector silvoagropecuario, ni de las áreas rurales, menos ante las exigencias cada vez mayores de competitividad en un mundo de mercados libres y globalizados.

Proyecto Opciones de Políticas para el Fomento del Desarrollo de Mercados de Tierras Agrícolas, con el Fin de Facilitar la Transferencia de Tierras a Pequeños Agricultores

Resumen
El presente documento sobre la participación de los pequeños productores en el mercado de tierras rurales en El Salvador, se sustenta en el procesamiento de información secundaria, en entrevistas a informantes calificados y en una encuesta a productores agropecuarios que realizan sus actividades por cuenta propia. Se hace una revisión de los principales hitos en el proceso de transformación agraria en el país y de las instituciones vinculadas al mercado de tierras, como elementos importantes del entorno en que aquel funciona.