TRADITIONAL LAND TENURE ISSUES FOR LIS IN FIJI

Abstract

AbstractWith the help of the New Zealand Government, a national Land Information System (LIS) is currently being implemented in Fiji, under the auspices of the Department of Lands. Like many other Pacific Island countries, Fiji has a complex land tenure system. This is the first of two papers that aims at examining the implications of LIS for traditional land tenures. Since LIS is a product of the industrialised world, attributes of the conventional ‘western’ land tenures can be incorporated without too much difficulty into an LIS. However, attributes of traditional land tenures are yet to be identified and incorporated into an LIS. Unless traditional land tenure issues are considered and taken into account when implementing an LIS, the LIS will not be fully accepted and utilised by the traditional peoples, and will therefore not be truly successful. The emphasis in these papers therefore will be on the features of traditional land tenures. This paper reviews Fiji's dual land tenure systems, with particul...