Changes In Land Ownership Research Articles

Agricultural intensification, ownership, and landscape change in the Mackenzie Basin

This article investigates the role of shifting land ownership in landscape change in New Zealand’s Mackenzie Basin. It was hypothesised that ownership patterns influence landscape transformation; and changes in ownership lead to landscape changes. Satellite imagery was used to trace recent landscape changes quantifying a change from brown extensive pastoralism to green irrigated pasture. It was concluded that the change in land ownership following land reform allowed for about half of this agricultural intensification since 2003. Aggregating intensification on new freehold land with that on current pastoral lease changes the story; Crown decisions about disposition or intensification of Crown land account for two-thirds of intensification since 2003. Hence, if current trends in the Mackenzie are to change, the Crown must examine its decision patterns. Change in some form seems likely. The results presented speak to who has the power to make change. The choice and the power reside somewhere in the space between the Commissioner of Crown Lands and the Minister of Land Information.

Land grabbing within a protected area: The experience of local communities with conservation and forestry activities in Los Esteros del Iberá, Argentina

Protected areas are increasingly being created, managed and owned by private actors, resulting in land grabs that are often at the expense of local control, livelihoods and biodiversity. Changes in land ownership and land use lead to new governance arrangements, which are full of paradoxes, alter ownership responsibilities, and create clashes of perspectives over how nature should be valued and utilised. Conversely, the presence of new actors potentially also brings about socio-environmental awareness and can open-up arenas for dialogue and multi-level collaboration. Using qualitative research methods, we considered two case studies in the protected area, Los Esteros del Iberá, in the north-east of Argentina: the Harvard Management Company’s investments in industrial tree plantations; and the conservation project of Douglas Tompkins (i.e. the Conservation Land Trust). Their activities have increased the complexity of socio-political dynamics in the region, leading to contradictions and conflicts, as well as to a strengthened commitment to manage the Iberá region better. Nevertheless, local communities perceived little difference between green grabbing and land grabbing, with all land transfers increasing inequality.

Late Holocene landscape instability in the Breckland (England) drift sands

This research investigates the landscape instability associated with the drift sands, which are widespread across north-western Europe. It focuses on Breckland, UK using new sites along with existing geomorphic, archaeological and historical data. This shows landscape instability of drift sands occurred at 5240 ± 1040 years BCE, 600 ± 100, 1150 ± 50, 1600 and ~1790 CE. Comparison of these phases to climate records show no clear patterns with drifting occurring during dry/wet as well as cold/warm periods. Additionally, similar climatic shifts lead to diverging reactions of landscapes in different regions throughout Europe. At the regional scale, land usage and population pressures also may not be the direct cause of sand drifting, suggesting that complex responses or different triggers at different times were responsible. Within this, society's unawareness of the inherent landscape instability and the threat posed by the sand hazard may have been important as it affected whether mitigation measures were or could be implemented. In Breckland, initial instability may have been due to the establishment of the open field system on virgin soil. Later changes in land ownership and associated power within the society, led to an inability of communities to implement mitigation measures and large land owners abstaining from tackling the sand hazard. Whilst the widespread coversands and climatic extremes provide the underlying susceptibility to sand drifting, it would appear that drift sands of the last 2000 years may provide less of a sedimentary archive of Late Holocene climatic changes and more a record of land management changes.

Land ownership and 20th century changes to forest structure in California

Forests in California have changed dramatically during the 20th century. Shifts in forest structure including densification, declines in large trees and tree basal area have altered the function, productivity, and resilience of modern day forests. Attributing these changes to specific drivers is increasingly important for effective management of healthy and productive forests. Previous studies focus on climatic (temperature, precipitation, climatic water deficit), disturbance (fire), geomorphological (topography, soil types), and anthropogenic (logging, fire suppression) drivers, but few studies evaluate large scale change in forest structure across land ownership type. In this paper, we investigate 20th century changes to forest structure across six land ownership classes in California. We compare historical and contemporary forest structural data and find that declines in large trees and increases in forest density are consistent across the state. This pattern is most pronounced on private timberlands, which experience up to 400% regional increases in small tree (<10.2 cm) density since 1930. All land ownership classes experience declines in large trees, while private timberlands, national parks and wilderness areas experience the most extreme change with an average loss of over 83% and 71% respectively. We conclude that understanding patterns of change across land ownership is essential for targeting federal, state, and locally specific policies that foster healthy and resilient forests for the future.

Land ownership and the likelihood of land development at the urban fringe: The case of Shenzhen, China

Land development results from a combination of many natural and social drivers. In China, the system of dual land ownership, in which lands are owned either by the state or by a collective, is a unique factor that affects land development, especially during the urbanization process as collective-owned rural land at the urban fringe is rapidly developed for urban uses. This land development process often follows two tracks: 1) Through land expropriation, the government becomes the owner of the land and performs primary land development. 2) Villagers maintain their ownership of the land collectively and convert their undeveloped land into built-up land by themselves rather than having their land expropriated by the government. For collective-owned rural land, the change of land ownership could have important implications for its development process and outcomes. This paper explores the potential relationships between land ownership change and land development at the urban fringe in China. We construct a logistic regression model to determine whether or not land ownership change (i.e., collective-to-state ownership conversion) is correlated with land development. We focus on Shenzhen, China because it has experienced extremely rapid urbanization, and its dual land structure is very notable. We find that in Shenzhen, lands that retained collective ownership are more likely to be developed than those transferred to state ownership, and we offer possible explanations for this finding. Our research will help planners and practitioners better understand the causes, driving forces, and processes of land development in China and contribute to the broader discussion of sustainable urbanization.

Rural Seigneurs and the Counter Reformation: Parishes, Patrons, and Religious Reform in France, 1550–1700

This article examines the role of lay seigneurs in religious change in the French countryside in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, during the Catholic Reformation and a period of socioeconomic change in land ownership and exploitation. The focus here is on middling and lesser lords—the rough equivalent of the English gentry, who held land in a single province or evenpaysand had a frequent presence in their parishes—rather than the great nobles who operated at a national level. Brittany is used as a case study, for it was a province rich in rural lords and because relatively good source material survives. It is argued that seigneurs were important patrons of religious innovation in the countryside, particularly in the parish church. They were rarely innovators themselves, but they lent support and resources to the introduction and maintenance of new devotional practices. Lords worked closely with clergy, sharing their aspirations and ideas. Four areas were particularly prominent in eliciting their support: appointment of clergy, support of missionaries, new devotional practices, and funding of building projects and liturgies in parish churches. These combined family strategies of enhancing social status and individual means to salvation which were indivisible in the world of the lay rural nobility. It was from a traditional understanding of lordship that patronage of religious reform stemmed.

Reading past landscapes: combining modern and historical records, maps, pollen-based vegetation reconstructions, and the socioeconomic background

Anthropogenic and environmental changes are reshaping landscapes across the globe. In this context, understanding the patterns, drivers, and consequences of these changes is one of the central challenges of humankind. We aim to test the possibilities of combining modern multidisciplinary approaches to reconstruct the land-cover and linking the changes in land-cover to socioeconomic shifts in southern Estonia over the last 200 years. The historical records from five, and maps from six time periods and 79 pollen-based land-cover reconstructions from four lakes are used to determine the land-cover structure and composition and are thereafter combined with the literature based analyses of socioeconomic changes. All information sources recorded similar changes in the land-cover. The anthropogenic deforestation was comparable to today’s (approximately 50%) during the nineteenth century. Major political and socioeconomic changes led to the intensification of agriculture and maximal deforestation (60–85%) at the beginning of the twentieth century. The land nationalisation following the Soviet occupation led to the reforestation of the less productive agricultural lands. This trend continued until the implementation of European Union agrarian subsidies at the beginning of the twenty first century. Pollen-based reconstructions provide a trustworthy alternative to historical records and maps. Accounting for source specific biases is essential when dealing with any data source. The landscape’s response to socioeconomic changes was considerable in Estonia over the last 200 years. Changes in land ownership and the global agricultural market are major drivers in determining the strength and direction of the land-cover change.

Melville Family Properties as Revealed in Taxation and Assessment Records

Taxation and assessment records covering residences owned or rented by the Melville family have been cited very few times in publications to date. I reviewed these records for the Town (later the City) of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, for the period of 1850–1927, covering the years the "Arrowhead" farm was in family hands. Not only were all the descriptions and valuations of real and personal property recorded for the first time but analyses were conducted reflecting both changes in land ownership and use and also the family's fluctuating finances. I also examined similar records covering the "Gansevoort mansion" in Northumberland, Saratoga County, New York, from the 1860s through the 1880s as well as those covering the City of Albany in the 1830s and New York City (Manhattan) from 1847 through 1891.

Forest habitats in a mixed urban-agriculture mosaic landscape: patterns of mammal occupancy

Conservation planning for biodiversity within anthropogenic landscapes is crucial given the rate of habitat conversion and human population growth. Investigating anthropogenic impacts on the persistence of biodiversity is key to management decision-making. We investigated the influence of protected areas (PAs), agriculture and urbanisation on the occupancy of mammal communities in an anthropogenic matrix containing indigenous forest fragments of the Coastal Belt of southern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. We integrated camera-trap mammal data, land-use and human population density within occupancy models, and compared occupancy of individual species across the land-use mosaic. We modelled occupancy of seven mammal species with sufficient naive occupancy (> 0.20, range 0.25–0.87). The occupancy of Philantomba monticola was positively influenced by human population size and was higher within urban areas compared with PAs. Although human population size positively affected Hystrix africaeaustralis occupancy, it along with Atilax paludinosus had a lower occupancy within urban areas. Tragelaphus scriptus and Potamochoerus larvatus overall had higher and Sylvicapra grimmia had lower occupancies within PAs. Species were variable in their response to the anthropogenic changes in the landscape. For example, occupancy of P. monticola was low within PAs but high in areas where change in land ownership and loss of habitat are threats. For other species, it appeared that the density of infrastructure of the urban landscape, rather than human population density, affected them negatively. However, seasonal differences within different management regimes also provided context-specific influences on occupancy and detectability. We emphasize the importance of natural vegetation patches within anthropogenic landscapes for maintaining native fauna, whilst stressing the value of temporally replicated, multi-species, regional-scale studies when making conservation decisions.

Strength and weakness of existing traceability system of seafood production in Bangladesh

Gher farming with shrimp and prawn (seafood) is blooming in the south-west region of Bangladesh, impacting positively on household level nutritional security, employment generation and foreign currency earning. Such positive impacts increased the importance of seafood production and trade to the international market from Bangladesh. Out of several food safety requirement of international market, seafood traceability is a key issue for Bangladeshi producers. To develop a traceability system about 200,000 gher farmers were registered by DoF with the support of UNIDO project and a paper based traceability system was developed since 2009. This study was designed to understand existing traceability system, trend of gher ownership changes and its impact on the traceability in term of its strength and weakness. Three gher farming clusters in three upazilas of Bagerhat district were selected to carry out this study to assess the facts above using focus group discussion, key informant interview, questionnaire survey, physical observation, and literature review. The micro-level observation on the gher and its ownership changes were critically analyzed taking the Google Earth images from the farming cluster in the selected upazilas. The study revealed that gher farming has huge positive impacts on total farm productivity, income, and farmers’ well-being however, land ownership changes impacting negatively on existing traceability of farms. It was found that out of 167 ghers in three clusters, a massive change of gher ownership happened over the last 10 years. Under this situation existing traceability system cannot sustain for a long time. Therefore, land administration system should be brought under digital system and e-traceability needs to be implemented by the collaborative initiative of the Department of Fisheries and the Ministry of Land.Progressive Agriculture 28 (2): 156-166, 2017

Changes in grassland management and plant diversity in a marginal region of the Carpathian Mts. in 1999–2015

The political change from socialism to democracy in countries of Central and Eastern Europe at the end of the 20th century induced broad changes in agriculture mostly due to land ownership changes and strong reduction of subsidies to agriculture. This resulted in agricultural decline, including grassland abandonment, which influenced grassland biodiversity and conservation. Between 1999 and 2015 we studied the grasslands in the area depopulated in the early 1980's in the Poloniny National Park (NE Slovakia, Carpathian Mts.). The aim of the study was to examine influence of environmental factors and grassland management driven by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to plant community structure and taxonomical diversity. We identified altitude and soil properties as the main environmental factors: altitude determines climate gradient and probably also management intensity gradient and soil properties express soil fertility via A-horizon depth. We identified remarkable increase of proportion of managed grasslands from only 8% in 1999 to 40% in 2012–2015; other 7% of sampled grasslands were recently restored and prepared for future management. The average species richness in grasslands managed in 2012–2015 increased from 47.5 species per record in 1999 to 54.2 species in 2012–2015, the increase was found statistically significant. In 2012–2015, we observed statistically significant difference in the average species richness between managed (54.2) and abandoned grasslands (46.3). The agricultural subsidies of the CAP drive the grassland management in the study area. Therefore, we conclude that CAP enabled grassland biodiversity maintenance in significant part of the Poloniny National Park following start of its application in 2004 and above provided figures can be considered as indicators of the CAP effectiveness in our study area. However, the conservation of mountain meadows remains a challenge because of their poor accessibility.

Grounds for self-government? Changes in land ownership and democratic participation in Chinese communities

Do variations in land ownership affect people’s democratic participation? Quantitative, cross-country research on this topic suffers from the non-comparability of regulatory systems and cultures, and the use of crude indicators to identify participation. This study attempts to overcome these methodological problems, by employing indicators of procedural and substantive participation in a structured, diachronic comparison of qualitative data from five sites in China – an authoritarian state, which, however, requires residents of urban communities and villages to participate in ‘self-government’. It examines whether and why changing land from collective ownership to state ownership, and residents’ compensated acquisition of cash and secure, fungible assets, strengthens or weakens participation in self-government. In the research sites, collective land ownership is found to stimulate participation in self-government. Transformation of the land to state ownership and people’s acquisition of private property weakens participation. The robust results of the study support the direction of a causal argument that collective land ownership is conducive to democratic participation. These findings imply that scholars and policymakers should consider the potentially adverse political consequences of changing land ownership. A further implication is that, absent substantial political reform, an urbanized China might be less rather than more democratic at the community level.

The Impact of Historical and Current Loss on Chronic Illness: Perceptions of Crow (Apsáalooke) People.

The purpose of this research was to gain a better understanding of perceptions about the impact of historical and current loss on Apsáalooke (Crow) people acquiring and coping with chronic illness. This study took a qualitative phenomenological approach by interviewing community members with chronic illness in order to gain insight into their perceptions and experiences. Participants emphasized 10 areas of impact of historical and current loss: the link between mental health and physical health/health behaviors; resiliency and strengths; connection and isolation; importance of language and language loss; changes in cultural knowledge and practices; diet; grieving; racism and discrimination; changes in land use and ownership; and boarding schools. The findings from this research are being used to develop a chronic illness self-care management program for Crow people.

Trends in the development of Estonian coastal land cover and landscapes caused by natural changes and human impact

The structure of coastal land cover in Estonia is intricate and exhibits considerable differences from site to site. The diverse geomorphology of the seashores is one of the key factors affecting the speed and magnitude of land cover changes. Likewise, the history of human inhabitance on the coast has also shaped the character of land cover. The Estonian coastal zone has experienced abrupt and radical changes in land ownership and its related land use during the last century. The main objectives of this paper are: 1) to give an overview of land use and the trends of development of land cover pattern along different parts of the Estonian coast; and 2) to analyze the relationships of natural and human processes and their cumulative impact on the evolution of coastal land cover pattern in Estonia. This study is based on results obtained during fieldwork in the study areas and on the analysis of large-scale (1:10,000) historical maps. In agriculturally dominant coastal areas, the traditional open landscape of fields and grassland at the beginning of the 20th century had been replaced by woodland and grasslands with shrubs by the start of the 21st century. Expansion of reed beds in areas of former seashore grasslands is another striking phenomenon. The structure of land cover on forested coasts has been fairly stable during the last 100 years. Areas of urban sprawl are characterised by dramatic changes in land cover structure. Rapidly increasing population and expanding settlements imposes on the ecological balance of the fragile dune forests in the coastal zone.

Why Ireland Starved and the Big Issues in Pre-Famine Irish Economic History

This reflection on Joel Mokyr's Why Ireland Starved discusses the way in which Mokyr addressed three big issues in pre-famine Irish economic history: Why population grew so rapidly, why the Irish were so dependent on the potato and what role British control played in Irish economic development. It suggests that differences among Irish counties were small relative to the differences between Ireland and elsewhere in Europe, hence cross-section analysis within Ireland, Mokyr's preferred method, may not be able to capture the causes of rapid population growth and potato dependence. As for the influence of British control, the way in which seventeenth-century changes in landownership shaped subsequent economic development is neither fully elaborated nor tested empirically.

Historical forest management in Romania is imposing strong legacies on contemporary forests and their management

Historical forest management can heavily affect contemporary forest management and conservation. Yet, relatively little is known about century-long changes in forests, and that limits the understanding of how past management and land tenure affect current forestry practice and ecosystem conservation. Our goal here was to examine the relationship between historical forest management (as depicted by historical forest cover, species composition, age structure and harvesting data) and contemporary forest patterns in Romania. Romania represents an ideal case-study to examine the effects of historical forest management, because it experienced multiple shifts in forest management regimes since the 1800s due to Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, Romanian, Soviet and later EU policy influences, and because it is both a conservation hotspot harboring some of the largest old-growth forest in Europe, and an important source of timber for international markets. We reviewed forestry literature and statistics since the 19th century to reconstruct a time-series of forest cover, composition, disturbance patterns, and ownership patterns and interpreted these data in light of institutional changes. We further assessed changes in forest cover, forest harvest, species composition and age structure between two points in time (1920s and 2010s) at the county level, using a combination of historical forest statistics, remote sensing data and modeled forest composition. We complemented our national data with three case studies for which we had stand-level historical and contemporary forest management data. We found that forest area increased in Romania since 1924 by 5% and that the annual rate of forest harvest between 2000 and 2013 was half of the annual rate between 1912 and 1922, which indicates high potential for forest biodiversity conservation. However, the composition, distribution, and age structure of contemporary forests is also substantially different from historical forests. We found an overall increase in coniferous species and several deciduous species (such as Tilia, Populus, Betula, Alnus sp.), a spatial homogenization of species composition, and more even-aged stands. We also observed a drop from 14% to 9% in the relative abundance of old forests (>100years). Spikes in forest harvest coincided with times of widespread forest privatization, and drastic institutional changes, such as agrarian reforms, or the onset and collapse of the Soviet Regime. Overall, our results suggest that effects of past management, land ownership and institutional changes can persist for centuries, and affect forest ecosystem composition, health and structure, and consequently ecosystem services and habitat availability. Our findings are scientifically important because they provide evidence for legacies of past management and for the effects of forest privatization on harvesting rates. Our findings are also relevant to forest management and conservation practice, because they highlight that environmentally sound management over long time periods is essential for sustainable forestry and old-growth forest protection in Europe and elsewhere.

Genfundne gravhøje i Nordjylland – Kartografiske studier

Genfundne gravhøje i Nordjylland – Kartografiske studier

Land Reform and Development of Agricultural Land Markets in Russia

Russia has experienced dramatic changes in land ownership and land tenure since the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991: agricultural land has been largely privatized, individual landowners now have legal rights to most agricultural land in the country, and previous prohibitions on buying and selling of land have been removed by recent laws. The necessary preconditions for the development of agricultural land markets have been met and we are beginning to witness transactions that involve individual landowners, and not only the state. However, further development of the embryonic land market is severely circumscribed by the inadequacy of the administrative and technical infrastructure. In this paper we discuss the dynamically evolving legal framework for land reform, consider the impacts of land reform on privatization and ownership structure of agricultural land, and analyze the development of land market transactions. The analysis is based on official statistical sources and the results of a questionnaire-based survey conducted by the authors in 2003 in three regions. The paper concludes with a review of the existing constraints on land transactions and some policy recommendations.

LGAR - Land grabs and agrarian reform

One of the key responses to the global food crisis that hit the headlines in 2008 was a significant change in land ownership in many countries as a result of large-scale land acquisitions carried out by governments, investors, and corporations. This global land grab, or what some refer to as agricultural investment, is leading to fundamental shifts in agricultural production, land use, and labour relations. Peasant and farm organizations, rural communities, and social movements in the global North and global South are actively resisting these forces, structures, and processes of further accumulation by dispossession.

Effective Weed Management, Collective Action, and Landownership Change in Western Montana

Rural landscapes are increasingly diverse and heterogeneous, involving a mix of small and large parcels, amenity and agricultural properties, and resident and absentee owners. Managing invasive plants in landscapes with changing ownership requires understanding the views and practices of different landowners. We surveyed landowners in two rural valleys with 26% absentee ownership and a large number of small parcels in Missoula County, Montana. Landowners indicated a high level of awareness and concern about weeds; more than 80% agreed that weeds are a problem in their valley. Seventy-eight percent of landowners managed weeds, but only 63% were effective at weed management. Absentee owners were far less likely to manage weeds on their properties and less likely to utilize herbicides, as compared with resident landowners. Landowners reported that seeds coming from adjacent properties were the most significant barrier to effective weed control. Many landowners manage weeds to be a good neighbor and believe that cooperation between neighbors is critical to weed management.