Mainland Southeast Asia (MSA) has seen sweeping upland land use changes in the past decades, with transition from primarily subsistence shifting cultivation to annual commodity cropping. This transition holds implications for local upland communities and ecosystems. Due to its particular political regime, Myanmar is at the tail of this development.

The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of national Food Security (VGGt) represent a new international legal instrument, which was adopted unanimously in 2012 by the United nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS). the Guidelines are a soft law instrument that does not create new, legally binding obligations for states or responsibilities for private actors, but that applies existing governance standards, particularly for human rights, to the management of land.

This is the first issue of the Journal of Law and Rural Development, published by IFAD. IFAD’s mandate to address rural poverty and promote rural development is unique among international organizations. For many years IFAD limited its activities to financing projects and programmes implemented by its Member States, but over the last decade it has begun to transform itself into a knowledge centre and a key participant in the international policy dialogue around rural development issues. The launch of this journal is another step forward in this transformation.

The Annual Country Reviews reflect upon current land issues in the Mekong Region, and has been produced for researchers, practitioners and policy advocates operating in the field. Specialists have been selected from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam to briefly answer the following two questions:

1. What are the most pressing issues involving land governance in your country?

2. What are the most important issues for the researcher on land?

In the light of the global discussion on

reducing public and private expenditure on

cadastral processes and services, this

article reviews the transaction costs of

land registration, based on data gathered in

Namibia. The data show a large

differentiation in the types of costs

incurred in the process, as well as various

levels of cost recovery. In addition, the

degree to which delays in the operational

registration processes influence the total

cost to land developers and landowners is

reviewed.

The project took place in Katima Mulilo and Rundu during 2007-11. The project consisted of 66 township extensions, and resulted in 18,500 plots developed in a period of 5 years. The project was funded by LUX Development, the cooperation agency from Luxemburg, which poured significant funds to make the project possible. One of the innovation aspects was to do the topographic and cadastral mapping in parallel with the layout and design. This was done by teams consisting of a town planner, a surveyor , and community facilitators selected by the inhabitants of the settlement in question.

How does one build up an analysis? And how does one create the link between the individual partial-analyses

in a problem-oriented project work? These are the two main issues that this booklet gives an overview of.

This document is a presentation of a way in which an analysis, a sub-project and a project can be structured.

This document provides the focus for an integrated approach to research in the land, livelihoods and housing sectors in Namibia. Its thematic approach seeks to facilitate multi-disciplinary research projects that will reflect the wide range of skills existing in the School of Natural Resources and Spatial Sciences (SNRSS) at the Polytechnic of Namibia (PoN). It is unique in that it has all land related disciplines in one School and is therefore well placed to become a leading research centre.

Theory and seaborne measurements are presented for the near infrared (NIR: 700–900 nm) water-leaving reflectance in turbid waters. According to theory, the shape of the NIR spectrum is determined largely by pure water absorption and is thus almost invariant. A ‘‘similarity’’ NIR reflectance spectrum is defined by normalization at 780 nm. This spectrum is calculated from seaborne reflectance measurements and is compared with that derived from laboratory water absorption measurements. Factors influencing the shape of the similarity spectrum are analyzed

In dit rapport is de methodiek van de Community of Practice (CoP) beschreven. Dit is geïllustreerd aan de hand van een praktijkvoorbeeld in het reconstructiegebied Beerze Reusel. Een CoP is onder andere geschikt om complexe problemen aan te pakken waar meerdere partijen bij betrokken zijn en waarbij niemand tot een geschikte oplossing kan komen. Daarnaast zijn praktische handvatten vermeld voor organisaties die in de toekomst met een CoP aan de slag willen. In this report the method Community of Practice (CoP) is described.

Deze quickscan geeft een overzicht van kennisontwikkeling over adaptatie aan klimaatverandering binnen de (BSIK)-programma’s en gerelateerd onderzoek die lopen bij kennisinstellingen. Dit wordt gedaan ten behoeve van het Adaptatieprogramma Ruimte en Klimaat (ARK).

Voor een duurzame landbouw is maatwerk nodig op bedrijfsniveau. Het rapport “Biodiversiteit en bodembeheer in de landbouw” maakt op dit niveau zichtbaar hoe een duurzaam bodembeheer, inclusief de optimalisering van het mineralenmanagement, hand in hand kan gaan met het benutten van bodembiodiversiteit. De onderbouwing van dit perspectief is mogelijk gemaakt door metingen aan bodembiodiversiteit in 2004-2006 binnen het project Bodem, Bedrijf en Biodiversiteit (BBB) aangevuld met literatuurstudie.