Following the example of Tiffen et al. on Machakos, Kenya, new macro-based evidence was collected in Machakos, the neighbouring Kitui district and in Benin, Cameroon and the Philippines, to assess the factors à la Boserup, inducing transitions towards sustainable land management, such as terracing, stone bands etc. We find that relative scarcity of land can be seen to induce technical changes, in the sense of Hayami & Ruttan, that correspond to the new relative scarcity, making higher man-land ratios the optimal choice.

Rural Development - Common Property Resource Development Communities and Human Settlements - Urban Slums Upgrading Public Sector Management and Reform Urban Development - Urban Housing Public Sector Economics Public Sector Development Environment - Sustainable Land Management

This paper reports on a randomized field experiment that uses price incentives to address economic and gender inequality in land tenure formalization. During the 1990s and 2000s, nearly two dozen African countries proposed de jure land reforms extending access to formal, freehold land tenure to millions of poor households. Many of these reforms stalled. Titled land remains the de facto preserve of wealthy households and, within households, men.

The paper highlights that land degradation in India has been approaching a crisis level in spite of repeated emphasis on wasteland development and existence of apex level organisations for that purpose. One reason has been the policy emphasis on ownership and control rather than appropriate management of the land. It is set in the context of i) the 1988 Forest Policy, and ii) the recent amends to the Forest Conservation Act.

Issues swirling around land across Africa have never been so central to key social and political-economic dynamics as they are at the present time. The first part of the paper briefly reviews the construction of customary tenure and the historical phases of administrative interventions into land tenure, and considers their heritage in contemporary situations.

Urban Development - Urban Governance and Management Rural Development - Common Property Resource Development Communities and Human Settlements - Land Use and Policies Rural Development - Rural Land Policies for Poverty Reduction Public Sector Management and Reform Public Sector Development

Rural Development - Rural Land Policies for Poverty Reduction Gender - Gender and Law Communities and Human Settlements - Land Administration Communities and Human Settlements - Land Use and Policies Private Sector Development - Land and Real Estate Development Rural Development - Common Property Resource Development

Large-scale agricultural land acquisitions might entail substantial welfare implications for the affected rural population. Whether the impacts are indeed as devastating as the popular notion of land grabs would suggest depends on a number of factors, including the size of compensation payments, productivity spillovers on smallholders, employment opportunities for displaced farmers, and changes in food prices.

Suburban rural landscape multifunction has received increasing attention from scholars due to its high demand and impact on main urban areas. However, few studies have been focused on suburban rural landscape multifunction because of data constraints.

Vegetation natural heritage can be valued in itself, but also as a habitat for many wildlife species. This study presents a methodological essay concerning the evaluation of plant heritage, applied in Central Alentejo, in the south of Portugal. This evaluation was based on the following criteria: horizontal and vertical structure of vegetation, tree cover density, rare plant species richness, phytocenotic maturity, importance as ecological corridor, historical record, scientific and educational potential and recreational potential.

This paper focuses on the physical attributes of land that intrinsically limit land use and possibly affect land values. In particular, we investigate if the slope of a land does decrease its price and investigate the role of land slope in forming more reliable constant-quality land price indices and aggregate house price indices. We find that, while land slopes do decrease the land price per unit, they have a small effect on the quality-adjusted land price indices in selected neighborhoods in Auckland, New Zealand, where sloped terrain is common.