Ulai Baya represented Customary Land Solutions at the African, Caribbean, Pacific (ACP) Secretariat Validation Meeting on Private Sector Support in Brussels, Belgium, on Monday 11th November. The ACP Business Climate Programme Management Unit, BizClim, fully sponsored Ulai’s participation at this key international event.
![(Left to right) Professor Thomas Hartmann, Utrecht University; Dr. Ed Dammers, Senior Researcher, Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving (PBL -Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency); and John Sheehan (CLS) at the PBL offices in The Hague [October 2013]](https://customarylandsolutions.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/john-utrecht-2-october-2013.jpg)
John Sheehan, is currently a Visiting Professor at the Universiteit Utrecht Urban and Regional Research Centre. Whilst there, John is speaking on Transferable Development Rights to Accommodate Sea Level Rise, and has also been invited to meet with the Dutch Governments Sea Level Rise Agency in the Hague to discuss his current research on TDRs.
Imagine, if you will, what might change in terms of our identity as citizens if Australia were to become a Republic – something that many see as inevitable, albeit a situation which is yet to become a reality. I’m not talking here about the tokenism of a new flag or a contemporary national anthem, or even in the transfer of proxy leadership from a Governor General as representative of the English Crown to a President as representative of the Federation of States and Territories. Rather, my interest lies in what happens to the superior interest in land and the associated subsidiary property rights when (rather than if) Australia becomes a Republic, and what the ramifications are for notions of identity… if we replace the Crown and the Crown’s superior interest in the land with something, and if that something is an acknowledgement of the guardianship of the land through Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander stewardship, would this, could this, or should this affect the underlying way that we as 21st century citizens relate to real property.
In his recently published chapter – A 21st Century Citizen in a brave new Republic – Spike Boydell explores how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander native title could be prioritised over freehold land if, or when, Australia becomes a Republic.
The Customary Land Solutions website achieved over 1,000 hits in its first month of operation. Thanks for all the positive feedback.
Most hits (490) came from Fiji, followed by Australia. After the home page, the most accessed pages so far are Land Resource Compensation, Research and the Valuation of Customary Land.
Dr Hartmut Holzknecht has joined the Customary Land Solutions team. Hartmut is a social anthropologist specialising in natural resource tenure systems and property relations. A citizen of Papua New Guinea, his particular expertise is in customary land in Melanesia. His recent work has been in climate change and its implications for customary resource owners (in particular in Melanesia). He is a very experienced fieldworker and often involved as a facilitator in various contexts, a supervisor for project/program development and implementation and as a mentor for local communities, trainees and younger professionals.
Hartmut has previously worked with Spike and John as a facilitator at the USP/RICS/UN FAO South Pacific Land Tenure Conflict Symposium, as well as collaborating with them on the ‘Review of Customary Property Rights and Formal and Informal Institutions for Economic Development and Conflict Minimisation’ project for the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. His depth of expertise on customary land in PNG, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, is a welcome addition to the transdisciplinary CLS team.
Customary Land Solutions is a specialist transdisciplinary consultancy with the vision of equity for customary landowners. Our mission is to provide advocacy, advisory and capacity building solutions to customary and indigenous landowning groups and trusts on land management, leasehold, valuation and resource compensation issues.
Customary Land Solutions 