Is land reform compatible with wildlife management? Zimbabwe is seeking to combine the redistribution of large, 'under-utilised' landholdings to smallholders, with wildlife management, which needs extensive land holdings to be viable. Whilst one stresses direct redistribution, equity and land for crops, the other emphasises maximising foreign exchange earnings, encouraging public-private partnerships and relies on trickle down.

As decentralisation and tenure reform sweeps through the Sahel, doubts remain whether communities can look after commonly owned land. Is privatisation or state control the best means of preventing the degradation of resources? Can local communities forge institutional mechanisms to regulate competing claims on common resources?

Greater investment in agriculture is needed to reduce rural poverty and improve food security; but how investment is made, its context and conditions, is at least as important as how much is invested.

Assesses the process to establish a system of land registration and improve land tenure security, and its outcomes for poor and marginalised groups in Amhara, Ethiopia .The registration process is found to be generating conflict at the local level, due to illegal land grabbing, encroachments into common lands and land sales.

The violent struggle to control territory for economic, military and political reasons, coupled with high levels of rural poverty and the high concentration of land ownership among relatively few owners, has been one of the root causes of Colombia’s 50-year-old internal armed conflict. There has been an insatiable appetite amongst numerous actors in Colombia to gain and maintain control over land deemed critical to their varying interests.

Land tenure security is crucial for women's empowerment and a prerequisite for building secure and resilient communities. Tenure is affected by many and often contradictory sets of rules, laws, customs, traditions, and perceptions. For most rural women, land tenure is complicated, with access and ownership often layered with barriers present in their daily realities: discriminatory social dynamics and strata, unresponsive legal systems, lack of economic opportunities, and lack of voice in decision making.

This paper looks for the possible explanations for the land productivity differential between high caste and low caste farm households in Nepal. The paper indicates that caste position still plays a vital role in rural areas of Nepal.The paper finds that: land productivity is higher among low caste households. However, in case of owner-operated plots, the land productivity differential between low caste and high caste is found to be insignificant after controlling for land quality and household characteristics. This difference remains highly significant in case of rented in plots.

Over 2008 large-scale acquisitions of farmland in Africa, Latin America, Central Asia and Southeast Asia have increased. This report discusses key trends and drivers in land acquisitions, the contractual arrangements underpinning them and the way these are negotiated. It also analyses the early impacts on land access for rural people in recipient countries with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa.

This latest discussion document explores the plan by The Navigator Company to develop a new pulp mill in Mozambique. The Portuguese company, operating as Portucel Mozambique and with funding from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, is acquiring huge areas of land for establishing eucalyptus tree plantations to supply the mill.

Land tenure reform remains a key policy issue in Africa, given the large proportion of people relying on land and natural resources for their livelihoods. This paper addresses the exclusionary nature of many processes around land, which can lead to social divisions.

One of the effects of the food price crisis on the world food system is the increasing acquisition of farmland in developing countries by other countries seeking to ensure their food supplies.This brief analyses the pros and cons of land acquisitions in developing countries by capital rich economies. It argues that acquisitions have the potential to inject much needed investment into agriculture and rural areas in poor developing countries resulting into creation of farm and off-farm jobs and development of rural infrastructure.

This paper reviews recent policy and practice to secure access to land for poor people. Emphasis is on Africa, Latin America and Asia, while reference also is made to Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States.Despite the widely different observations from the various places, the paper identifies some general trends and challenges. These include: pressure on land is set to increase over future decades, given the impact of continued population growth, urbanisation, globalisation of markets, and climate change;