Series of country papers on HIV/AIDS and land in Lesotho, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, with concluding paper on methodological and conceptual issues. The key questions addressed include: The impact on and changes in land tenure systems (including patterns of ownership, access, and rights) as a consequence of HIV/AIDS with a focus on vulnerable groups. The ways that HIV/AIDS affected households are coping in terms of land use, management and access, e.g. abandoning land due to fear of losing land, renting out due to inability to utilise land, distress sale of land, etc.

The damage caused by illegal activities and corrupt practices in the world’s forests is a problem of enormous proportions. In many parts of the world, forest exploitation is dominated by rampant illegal harvesting, large-scale violation of trade regulations both domestically and internationally, fraudulent practices abetted or condoned by government officials and other destructive activities in violation of applicable laws. This paper is concerned with one facet of this complex problem–how important is legislation in the fight against destructive and corrupt forestry practices?

This paper discusses the development of a new Land Law in Mozambique 1 , under the leadership of the Technical Secretariat (TS) of the Inter-ministerial Commission for the Revision of Land Legislation (popularly known as ‘the Land Commission’). The TS began work on the new law in August 1995 after first formulating a new National Land Policy. The National Assembly approved the law two years later. Regulations and other instruments needed to implement it were completed in December 1999.