1st Edition

Comparative Perspectives on Communal Lands and Individual Ownership Sustainable Futures

Edited By Lee Godden, Maureen Tehan Copyright 2010
    416 Pages
    by Routledge-Cavendish

    416 Pages
    by Routledge-Cavendish

    Comparative Perspectives on Communal Lands and Individual Ownership: Sustainable Futures addresses property and land title as central mechanisms governing access to communally-held land and resources. The collection assesses the effectiveness of property law and tenure models developed around concepts of individual ownership, for achieving long-term environmental and economic sustainability for indigenous peoples and local communities. It explores the momentum for change in the international realm, and then develops a comparative focus across Australia, North America, Africa, Peru, New Zealand and the Pacific region, examining the historical and current impacts of individuation of title on the customary law and practice of indigenous peoples and local communities. Themes of property, privatisation and sustainable communities are developed in theoretical analyses and case studies from these jurisdictions. The case studies throw into sharp relief how questions of land law and resources management should not be separated from wider issues about the long-term viability of communities. Comparative analysis allows consideration of how western models of land tenure and land title might better accommodate the exercise of traditional practices of indigenous peoples and local communities, while still promoting autonomy, choice and economic development. This volume will be of interest to scholars and professionals working in the fields of property law, land reform, policy and planning, indigenous law and customary law, environmental sustainability, development and resource management.

    Introduction: A Sustainable Future for Communal Lands, Resources and Communities, Lee Godden and Maureen Tehan  Section 1: Situating Sustainable Futures – Challenges for Communal Land and Resources  1. Managing Social Tenures, Jude Wallace  2. Social Justice, Communal Lands and Sustainable Communities, Tom Calma  3. The Estate as Duration: "Being in Place" and Aboriginal Property Relations in Areas of Cape York Peninsula in North Australia, Marcia Langton  Section 2: Trends towards Individual Title – History and Context  4. You Can’t Always Get what you Want: Economic Development on Indigenous Individual and Collective Titles in North America: What Land Tenure Models are Relevant to Australia? Margaret Stephenson  5. Individualisation – An idea whose Time Came, and Went: The New Zealand Experience, Richard Boast  6. One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Peru’s Approach to Indigenous Land and Resources and the Law, Lila Barrera-Hernández  7. Lessons from the Cape: Beyond South Africa’s Transformation Act, Juanita M. Pienaar  Section 3: Recognition of Communal Lands – Processes and Pressures  8. Beyond ‘Richtersveld’: The Judicial Take on Restitution of Communal Land Rights in South Africa, Hanri Mostert  9. Land, Environmental Management, and the New Governance in Burkina Faso, Simon Batterbury  10. Management of Customary Land as a Form of Communal Property in Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji, Joseph Foukona  11. The Act that almost was: The Fijian Qoliqoli Bill 2006, Shaunnagh Dorsett  Section 4: Issues for Communal Lands and Resources in Australia  12. Spatial Technologies, Mapping and the Native Title Process, Peter Bowen  13. Discrimination as a cause of Poverty in Aboriginal Communities: Measuring Implementation of the Right to Non-Discriminatory and Equitable access to Health Care Services of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, Clancy Kelly  14. Customary Land Tenure, Communal Titles and Sustainability: The Allure of Individual Title and Property Rights in Australia, Maureen Tehan  Section 5: Conclusion: Communal Governance of Land and Resources as a Sustainable Institution Lee Godden

    Biography

    Professor Lee Godden and Associate Professor Maureen Tehan are academic staff in the Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne.