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Land Security and Mediation. An Illustration of Its Relevance in a French Overseas Department.On the French island La Réunion and in a French legal context, where emphasis lies more on ‘land regulation’ than on ‘land security’, an experiment combining research and development is undertaken, with the objective of coordinating political good-will and land control. This article deals with the pilot scheme of ‘citizen land mediation’, MEDIAC, which introduces the problems of ‘land security’ in conjunction with land regulation. In the commune of Cilaos, a tourist area where agriculture remains important for sustainable development, farmers are confronted with an unquestionable lack of land security. The latter is increased by phenomena such as speculation, erroneous character of the land registers, joint possession and a general attitude of mistrust towards the administration. The various institutions encounter many difficulties in implementing their tools for land regulation. Nevertheless confronted with the need to preserve agriculture those involved in land control support the idea of land mediation. Land mediation, with its social and territorial approach, which is necessary to mitigate land constraint, constitutes a step towards the creation or the renewal of bonds between the various actors, private and institutional. It authorizes the actors to engage in a common reflection on the management of ‘their’ space, as experienced on a daily basis. The term ‘citizen’, which characterizes ‘land mediation’, points to the need for a participative strategy associated with an evaluation of environmental or land problems in order to transpose the principles and criteria of viable and sustainable development into the project planning of development or space management by integrating social concerns. The mediation process makes it possible to bring together the multiple perceptions and objectives of the various actors. It highlights the links between individual interests and more collective dimensions. The introduction of land mediation in Ilet à Cordes requires the identification of a framework of intervention adapted and accepted by all the actors involved in the management of the land of the islet. This framework must allow for a balance between the legitimacy of the intervention, its financing, and the respect for the spirit of the mediation - a balance that is always fragile and never finally acquired. Little by little, the mediator seems to emerge as a reliable interlocutor, both for the inhabitants and for the institutions. The intervention of the mediator in cases of conflict requires that certain rules are followed by the parties. It also excludes any legal procedure. Mediation seeks solutions that are accepted by all. Legitimate engagements must be accompanied by legal methods such as those related to the clarification of the status of the grounds, the construction of a projet de société (vision of a shared future) or the consideration of individual interests and the role of institutions. Mediation can facilitate the exchanges aimed at clarifying the legal status of the grounds. It is the mediator's role to inform the population as to the legal provisions relating to the land transactions and to facilitate the meeting of the actors in view of a transfer of exploitation rights. A partnership with the SAFER thus seems to be relevant. The improvement of the land management system has to build on confidence in the future of agriculture and on the mobilization and the intervention of the farmers. Mediation must thus be involved in the construction of a common society project and in the development of collectives. Better social cohesion can anticipate recurring problems. An experiment is conducted in the use of computer-assisted role playing in water management. This should make a projection in the future possible through the interaction of the players and could contribute to the setting up of citizen control over water management and land use through greater responsibility and involvement of the inhabitants. Moreover, mediation could facilitate participation as recommended by the SUR law, which addresses the revision of local town planning. A greater effectiveness of institutional tools and methods of intervention will not be possible without taking into account the individual interests of the farmers. The mediator puts them in contact and, in particular, attempts to find a balance between the interests of each of them. This project of citizen land mediation is founded on a global paradigm that emphasizes the complexity of given situations. It is of great interest for the enrichment of the general theory of mediation. But it also aims at the promotion of sustainable development on a local as well as insular scale, and calls for a reconsideration of the means currently mobilized for the land question in a French Overseas Department. This project is extended to the regional scale of the Indian Ocean through the construction of a regional pole of competence in land security and regional planning. Abbreviations: AFA: Agricultural Land Association APR: Association for the Promotion of the Rural Milieu CIRAD: International Centre for Cooperation in Agronomic Research for Development CMD: Agreement of Temporary Transfer GFA: Agricultural Land Syndicate PLU: Local Town Planning SAFER: Company for Land Improvement and Rural Settlement

La délégation des droits fonciers aux organisations communautaires et l'utilisation durable des ressources naturelles: le programme national CBNRM en Namibie. Après plus de 100 ans de colonisation et d'oppression, la Namibie connaît toujours les stigmates du système d'apartheid. Les profondes inégalités foncières donnent lieu à des disparités colossales de revenus en défaveur des populations rurales. Dans ce contexte, le gouvernement vise à promouvoir le développement rural et la préservation des ressources vitales depuis l'indépendance en 1990. Ce texte analyse les changements institutionnels en Namibie concernant la gestion et l'utilisation des ressources naturelles en zones communales. Dans ces dernières, il est impossible d'approprier individuellement les ressources qui sont caractérisées comme des biens communs (CPR). L'impossibilité d'exclusion et la rivalité entre acteurs fait craindre la surexploitation et la tragédie des communs. Le problème posé est donc celui de la mise en place d'une gouvernance efficace des ressources naturelles dans ces zones. Des institutions doivent émerger pour réguler les usages, permettre une action collective et réduire les conflits. Nous inspirant du modèle institutionnaliste de Oliver E. Williamson, notre argumentation se déploie en deux temps. Dans un premier temps, nous montrons que la nouvelle régulation délègue aux communautés rurales, regroupées en entités juridiques, conservancy, des nouveaux droits de propriété sur les ressources communes (programme CBNRM). Cet élément est primordial puisqu'il permet aux populations dépendantes de bénéficier de l'utilisation des actifs naturels de leurs territoires et ainsi de les inciter, dans leur propre intérêt, à les conserver. Ces nouveaux droits fonciers sécurisent la situation sociale et économique des communautés désavantagées. Cependant, ce changement foncier n'est que trop partiel. La décentralisation est incomplète et l'État souhaite garder un grand nombre de ses prérogatives passées. Les communautés ne peuvent pas totalement faire respecter et appliquer les plans d'aménagement et de gestion qu'elles mettent en œuvre. Apparaissent dès lors de nouveaux conflits pour l'appropriation de la rente et des revenus de l'utilisation des ressources naturelles. Dans un deuxième temps, nous analysons les différents arrangements locaux institutionnels, contractuels, qui régulent la conservation et l'utilisation des ressources naturelles en zones communales. Nous montrons ainsi que le programme CBNRM est une structure de co-management où État et communautés se partagent responsabilités et prérogatives pour mieux gérer les actifs. Face aux limites des structures communautaires, un nouveau paradigme et une nouvelle forme institutionnelle émergent : les contrats de joint-ventures. Cette structure hybride lie les communautés locales au secteur privé pour la mise en valeur, par la construction de lodges, des actifs naturels des territoires. Un accord commercial est signé où les communautés transfèrent leur droit d'usage d'un site et de ses ressources vers un opérateur privé qui en échange reverse une part de ses revenus à la conservancy. Ces contrats locaux, basés sur une sécurisation des droits fonciers des communautés, permettent une redistribution de la rente touristique vers les populations rurales. La situation reste néanmoins instable puisque cette structure institutionnelle donne lieu à des conflits et marginalise encore trop les conservancy. Une plus grande implication des communautés ainsi qu'une réforme foncière plus profonde sont donc impératives si l'État namibien souhaite promouvoir efficacement le développement rural durable.

The Legal Regime of ‘Land Ownership' (propriété foncière) in Cameroon. The French and British legal systems inherited by Cameroon from the colonial period have greatly influenced its land law. This legal pluralism places Cameroon's land property law between traditional and modern law. In fact, there are two conceptions of land property in the contemporary context. The pre-colonial concept, based on customs and traditions, is drawn from the African conception, which is particularly based on the relationship between human beings and the soil and which invests collectivities with land ownership. Then, the post-colonial conception gives land rights to individuals. Cameroon's legal rights are therefore torn between these two conceptions that hardly co-exist and that are impossible to apply, in spite of all the legal reforms that have been made since 1960. There are two mains causes: the incoherence of the actual normative dispositions and the inability of the authorities to elaborate consensual land policies. The objective of this paper is to analyse the government's land property policy, its seizure of land ownership. It is also an attempt to present some of the causes and to propose an alternative to the state's land property vision. It is concerned with the problematic and basic question: How to give an account of the question of access to land and secure land property in Cameroon? With this in mind, this dialectic study then covers three main aspects: - the uncertainty of rules granting the right to acquire land, and the determination to dispose of the traditional manner of land acquisition. - the contestation of all legal categories of land property - the difficulty for women to have access to land. The opposition between customary law and the written law in Cameroon is clearly illustrated in the various conceptions of land ownership, as well as in the authorities’ concept of land distribution and in the modalities thereof. Land property legislation in Cameroon, while investing individuals with land ownership, also communities with the possibility to own land. The concept of national estate, which has replaced the former notions of ‘vacant land with no owner’ or the ‘national collective estate’, has only one objective: to give the control over the land in Cameroon to the state. This notion concretizes the objective of economic and social development adopted by the great reform in 1974. The national estate is then the government’s legal instrument for intervention in land property. However, the government and the local communities have not been able to agree and the conflict is heading towards an impasse. This is characterised by the situation of many women, mostly in the rural sector, who find themselves deprived of their legal right to acquire land, despite the constitutional and legislative regulations giving equal rights to both sexes.

Qu’est-ce que le foncier ? Les questions foncières et environnementales nous plongent au cœur de la vie de l’Homme. Elles nous invitent à réfléchir sur les manières dont celui-ci construit ses rapports avec son environnement, comment il s’adapte à ses contraintes, comment il le modèle. Mais cette interaction n’est pas uniquement celle d’un sujet, l’Homme, et d’un objet, la Nature, voire l’action du premier sur le second... comme pourrait le suggérer une lecture en termes cartésiens où l’Homme...

Non-Wood Forest Products and Forest Management in Kerala: Rights of Use and Rights of Control. The mountains of the Western Ghats of Kerala (South India) are renowned for their rich biodiversity. Kerala is the birthplace of the traditional system of medicine Ayurveda, which is based on medicinal plants. The Ayurvedic industry has been booming since 1980, with an increasing demand on national and international levels. Cultivation of medicinal plants is still very low and 93% of the raw materials used in Ayurvedic drugs come from the natural environment, mostly from forest areas. The question of the supply capacity of the forest ecosystem is crucial in a context in which economic interests and biodiversity conservation are confronted. This opposition also exists between the policies for the protection of forest resources and the realities of its use. The challenge of balancing the economic interests, environmental concerns and social welfare of local forest-dependent populations is at the basis of thinking about sustainable development for forest areas. From national institutions to local populations, different actors are involved on the local level in the collection and marketing of non-wood forest products, including medicinal plants. They are developing management strategies that are described in this paper as logics of space, use and power. An analysis of the legal documents related to forest management shows an evolution from a view focusing on the productivity of forest resources to a conservationist perspective. The place of the local populations in these policies has been ambiguous. Only the National Forest Policy, 1988, finally recognised their user rights to the forest and advised the development of ‘participatory management’. The state system of marketing of forest products created in Kerala in 1978 is based on cooperative societies, the members of which are exclusively adivasi (‘tribal’). The federation of these societies has the monopoly on the supply and marketing of forest products. While the collection activity relies on a network of cooperatives, the final marketing of forest products is therefore centralised. The system is based on collaboration between state institutions, from the fixing of the prices to the transport of the products. However, the cooperative system is in competition with a strong private sector, which is the real power in the market. In order to reduce the gap between the cooperative system and local realities, some societies unofficially take products from non-adivasi collectors. The collectors themselves also collaborate to have all of them included in the system, despite their status. The private sector attracts both allowed and non-allowed collectors. The control of the activity is creating competition between state institutions (VSS v. Society) and within the same state institution (among societies for the forest ranges). The collectors adapt themselves to changing structures, as far as they have an outlet for their products, but the VSS (Vana Samrakshana Samithi - Committee for Forest Conservation), a creation of Joint Forest Management policy, is seldom seen as a way of participating in the decision-making process. Participatory management, linked to the idea of ‘good governance’, also modifies the sharing of responsibilities for forest protection as well as degradation. Currently, the transfer of power between authorities and local populations deals more with the idea of ‘responsibility for misconduct’ than of ‘responsibility for a project’, which alone could lead to real empowerment. Finally, the collectors are in the centre of a rivalry game between state institutions and between the federation and the private sector. Despite the idea of participative management, the forest continues to be controlled by outsiders. Adivasi collectors enjoy a right of use of resources, but not a right of control over their activity. The effort of collection compared to the price obtained on the market makes this activity one of the least remunerated. This, added to competition by other collectors who are not recognised by the authorities, makes the long-term management of forest resources a difficult challenge.

Rules, Strategies and Contracts in the Field of Land Law: A Reflexion on Theory and Practices through Field Works in Maghreb, Black Africa and Madagascar. The aim of this paper, written by an economist, is to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on selected land tenure issues in the African continent. During the 1980s, land tenure issues were considered as one of the main stumbling blocks for the promotion of rural development, and have thus become a matter of new interest for rural economists, especially for ‘new institutional economists', who emphasize the role of institutions in minimising transaction costs. The cases presented in this text show that, although such a conceptual framework provides a useful key for analysis, the researcher is still confronted with the risk of ‘over-interpreting’ the social practices so that they correspond with the theory used as the interpretative framework. Such an intellectual bias was already observed and conceptualised by Bourdieu in the 1970s, but it is still recurrent in social science fieldwork. The first case study deals with ‘collective lands’ in north-west Morocco. The absence of individual land ownership was seen as a key feature of so-called ‘local communities', which were supposed to be ruled by a collective land tenure system. The periodic (generally on an annual basis) re-allocation of fields among shareholders seemed to be, for many social scientists, one of the main characteristics of such lands. It was explained as a means to avoid the risk of overly pronounced social differences within the local group. This point has also sometimes been highlighted to ‘explain’ African behaviour concerning low investment and accumulation (in-)ability. Fieldwork coupled with historical inquiries has shown that egalitarian and recurrent land redistribution had been instituted by administrators during the French Protectorate. This redistribution was based on biased and selective observations made by colonial jurists in the early twentieth century, and was perpetuated for political objectives until after independence. Such ‘invention of tradition’ illustrates the risk of confusion between the intellectual pattern, developed to give an understanding of the practices, and the practices themselves, which follow their own specific dynamics. It also underscores the fact that what is presented to the external observer as ‘rules’ is subject to many exceptions that sometimes reveal more about the social dynamics of the local society than about the ‘traditional rule’ considered as immoveable. A well-known conceptual framework derived from the public choice theory distinguishes between private, public, ‘club/toll’ and ‘common’ goods, and suggests that the intrinsic characteristic of the goods should be the basis for designing its property and management regime. Such a framework is not fully suitable for analysing land tenure in Africa, since the land is often characterised by several layers of tenure, the features of which can vary with time and according to the identity of the holder. The role of collective representations is critical here in order to assess what is acceptable or not, beyond the hypothesis of the ‘intrinsic nature’ of the land, and also to evaluate the choices made by societies regarding what should be private and what should be common or public. In addition, the nature of the tenure itself cannot be assessed without a comprehensive view of what is at stake among actors in the field and vis-à-vis the government. The ‘Rural Land Tenure Plan’, supported by foreign donors and tentatively implemented in certain West African countries, was designed to ‘record the local rights’ as they were declared by stakeholders. But the process failed to capture the real nature of the land rights because the technicians in charge of the operation were unable to elaborate tenure categories that would have been able to reflect the diversity of the local situations. Thus, the operation, far from providing a neutral picture of the land tenure situations, produced a new layer of interpretation of the local realities which, in its turn, will be appropriated and used in the individual strategies of local actors. One of the shortcomings of the new institutional economics is its tendency to see the evolution of institutions through the exclusive prism of the minimisation of the transaction costs to achieve economic efficiency. Boserup’s theory linking agricultural intensification, enclosure and demographic growth can be read as a verification of such a narrative of ‘the emergence of institutions according to historical necessity'. Studies carried out in northern Burkina Faso, where demographic growth has been accompanied by ‘extensification’ and by natural resource degradation, suggest a less straightforward picture. Socio-economic evolution has led to individualism, and the will to avoid social conflicts within the different parts of the population motivated the upholding of land access rules and the blocking of possibilities of intensification. A comparable analysis can be made regarding agrarian contracts in Madagascar. According to the literature influenced by new institutional economics, the choice of a given type of contract (land lease, sharecropping, etc.) was directly determined by market failures and risk aversion, and the persistence of sharecropping in many developing countries was typical of hazardous contexts, with priority given to economic security over efficiency. Madagascar, an island frequently crossed by hurricanes, would have been typical of such a situation. However, a field study showed how peasants managed to remove the risk entailed in annual payment associated with land lease thanks to their social capital and the common acquaintance between landlords and tenants. Here, too, economics is embedded in social relations and practices. Thus, the theory seems to be more effective in categorizing and explaining the rationale behind the choice of contract a posteriori, than in predicting the contract pattern one will find in the field.

Governance and Participation in the Mangement of Forest Ressources in Cameroon and Its Unforeseen Impacts on Land Use Practices.The protection of forests is not a new preoccupation in African countries. There already existed a homogeneous forest legislation for the African countries under French domination since 1935. However, attention was given to the regulation of the utilitarian aspects of forest management without taking into account the stakes of a sustainable management of the environment. The exploitation of wood and the control of extraction quotas were the main concerns, but not the environment. After having attained independence and having become sovereign states, the former colonies opted for the continuation of the colonial legislation. As the states grew more mature, their legislation began to show a clear trend towards more ecological concerns. But the weakness of the regulatory frame could not cope with the rapid increase of resource extraction and other human activities such as agriculture and hunting, which led to an accelerated decline in forests. Until the Rio Conference in 1992, the model of management remained heavily influenced by that of the forestry State (‘Etat forestier’): it was based on the State's monopoly to manage the resource, with all the prerogatives involving the distribution of exploitation rights and of tax collection that this entails. In this system, populations living in the zones where the resources are extracted did not benefit from the fruits of this very profitable forest exploitation. Besides being marginalized, they were also required to obtain special authorization from the administration in order to have a restricted access to the resource. Analysts agreed that such exclusion bears a risk for the concerned resource. As professor De la Mettrie noted in an analysis on forest and agronomy policies in 1990: “An estate that is appropriated by the State with no respect paid to procedures of customary allocation, with no real approval of the populations and with no benefit for them, becomes ecologically endangered.” What holds true for an estate (‘terrain’) is all the more true for the resource it sustains. This conviction was shared by the administration of Cameroon. In the introduction to Cameroon’s official document on forest policy of 1995, it is explicitly recognized that the populations who are excluded from the management and the sharing of the benefits that arise from the exploitation of the resources they have actively helped to preserve cease to feel concerned by the protection of these resources. The programme of political action is therefore oriented towards the following objective: “to perpetuate and develop the economic, ecological and social functions of forests in the frame of an integrated and participative management that ensures the conservation and the utilization of the resources and of the forest ecosystems in a sustainable way.” Through pressure exercised by NGOs and those providing funds, and with the help of international cooperation, governments implemented new regulations and modern tools of control and of management. Today, many programmes and projects funded by international cooperation require the increased participation of civil society. Thus, on the ground, the exploitation of the forests, which represents a significant budgetary reserve, was to be continued with the objective of seeking to establish an equilibrium between exploitation and regeneration, as well as the participation of the local populations in the benefits of growth. It was only in 1994 that Cameroon initiated an ambitious programme of reform of its forest policy and of the sustainable management of renewable forest resources. This reform has produced real tools promoting participative management: the promotion of social forestry through the creation of a new category of forests, viz. community forests, and of spaces, viz. community hunting spaces. These two new institutions are open to exploitation by the local populations for their own benefit with a less burdensome procedure. The sharing of certain forest tax revenues among the State, decentralized collectivities (communes) and the populations living in the areas where the activities of forest exploitation are carried out has been institutionalized. But these reforms do not bring the expected results, for endogenous as well as exogenous reasons. The present article presents the changes that can be observed in the management practices of farmland and natural resources (pratiques foncières). It suggests that these practices be considered as popular modes of political action. Populations seem to use the management of land and natural resources as a tool for passive resistance against a new order each time the latter fails to represent their interests in an adequate way. At the local level, the aim of this research is to assess the real impacts of forest and environmental policies on the farming communities. It looks at the social as well as at the environmental impact, approaching the management of land and natural resources as an implicit social fact through which it is possible to understand the games the actors play. The stake is to reconcile the conservation of vital spaces for biodiversity with the frequently conflicting and vital interests of the local communities in these spaces for their survival.

The 1998 law on customary land rights in the history of land policies in Côte d'Ivoire. A political economy of right transfers between ‘autochthons' and ‘strangers' in the Ivorian forest belt. To acknowledge customary land rights and to render them more secure are key issues of land policy in African countries. The recent (1998) land law in Côte d'Ivoire seems to be an apt response to these challenges, in a context of frequent and violent land conflicts between local and migrant cocoa farmers in the forest belt of the country. The settlement of these migrants took place under a patron-client type of relationship (called ‘tutorat’) between them and the customary ‘landowners’, who conceded land administration rights to numerous ‘strangers’ not originating from local communities - nationals as well as foreigners. These conflicts occurred well before the civil war, which broke out in 2002. They were particularly acute in the western part of the forest belt, where a huge pioneer front has expanded since the 1950s and 1960s. The main provisions of the recent law, not yet formally implemented, are as follows: Customary rights are considered as a valid basis for registration, where land rights have not yet been formalized. The law does not recognize land property for foreign settlers. Regarding Ivorian farmers, land rights that are in accordance with ‘tradition’ (by first occupation of the land) are privileged, in distinction to the rights of land administration that were previously transferred to strangers not originating from local communities. In practice, the land rights of an Ivorian settler (or his heirs) must be recognized by the native tuteur (or his heirs) who first transferred the land rights to the stranger. Then, the holder of a ‘land certificate’ has to register it within three years in order to obtain a private property title; if necessary, by dividing the land of a joint family. From a lawyer's point of view, the recent law seems to be significantly innovative compared with previous legislation introduced since the colonial period, legislation that was based on a very centralized land title registration system. The aim of this paper is to suggest an alternative analysis in politico-economic terms of what is referred to as the innovative dimension of the recent law. This analysis is based on the idea that, historically speaking, the key issue in policies relating to customary land rights since the colonial period, including the recent law, has been not so much to make the customary rights more secure, but to enforce the power of the national elite over land transfers - in the customary sphere - between autochthons and migrants. This issue was particularly acute in the western part of the Ivorian forest belt, where forested land was abundant and where the main part of the country's cocoa has been produced since the 1970s (and Côte d'Ivoire is by far the world's largest producer of cocoa). In this paper, I describe the main historical periods from the colonial period onwards by drawing parallels between: -the legal production of the state regarding customary rights; -the political economy of the relationship between the state and the different components (autochthons or settlers) of the peasantry; -and the informal and political way in which the state and the national elite have shaped the customary institution of tutorat in order to control, politically and economically, the benefits of agricultural growth. The main conclusions are: 1.A historical perspective confirms that the control of the national elite over land transfers between autochthons and migrants was actually the key issue in policies relating to customary land rights since the colonial period. The recent law does not depart from this trend and goes so far as to explicitly introduce the distinction between ‘traditional’ holders (autochthons or those who came first) and ‘non-traditional’ holders (‘strangers’, settlers or those who came later, nationals as well as foreigners). 2.Historically, in the most common situation, a more favourable position was given to strangers. The two main reasons have always been that, among the different categories of peasants, (i) the migrants were credited with the major input for the rural development of the country and (ii), being directly dependant on the political elite for the protection of their land rights, they were politically submissive. Seen in this perspective, the recent law represents a departure from this trend. The reason is to be found mainly in the politicization of the land issue. The politics of land has been a recurrent issue in the Ivorian political arena since the colonial period. The failure of the patrimonial and clientelistic mode of governance in the management of the economic crisis, and the return of a large number of young men to their rural homeland to cope with the crisis (particularly in the western region) explain the dramatic break with the previous political compromise concerning the protection of the settlers’ land rights. 3.However, the 1998 law is not entirely innovative. Basically, it takes up again the provisions of the 1955 and 1956 colonial decrees, which were buried after independence. In that period, as in the present one, a more protective policy regarding the autochthons’ land rights was implemented in order to cope with acute land tensions between autochthons and rural migrants. Just as today, these land tensions were highly politicized in the national (then ‘native’) political arena. The dwindling colonial power was confronted by harsh opposition between, on one side, the planters’ trade union and political parties anchored in areas with high emigration and, on the other side, ethnic associations and political parties representing the main areas of migrant settlement (particularly the western part of the forest belt). In the same way, western groups that experienced a strong sense of land dispossession recently interpreted the 1998 law as revenge against both the strangers and the post-independence political elite who encouraged the colonization of ‘their’ forests. 4.Historical analysis makes it clear that legal provisions drawn up by the political elite in order to favour one part of the peasantry or the other, according to the period (the settlers or the autochthons in the colonization areas), had little effect. The ‘legal production’ of laws and decrees clearly expresses the preferences of the political elite. But this does not suffice to enforce them. A locally-centred, political and clientelistic action, and not a legal action, was decisive. In a permanent context of ‘decentralised despotism'(in Mahmoud Mamdani’s words), the legal-administrative action makes itself felt in the form of what Albert Ley, a French lawyer, called the ‘pratique administrative ‘coutumière” (customary administrative practice). It was less a matter of enforcing the law than of regulating by means of political pressure the local customary institutions and conventions relating to land - above all, the institution of ‘tutorat’ between those who came first and latecomers. At present, the political manipulation of the law by politicians and most civil servants repeats the ‘customary administrative practice’ process - this time, however, to serve the opposite political alternative. 5.Broadly speaking, making customary land rights more secure depends less on the technically legal aspect than on the political dimension inherent to public policy. As John Griffiths suggested, the social working of the law matters as much as the contents of the law. Therefore, one cannot interpret the 1998 law on the domain of customary land rights merely as an innovative attempt to secure ‘informal’ rights, for this is only in part true. The rebounds that occurred during the drawing up of the law clearly show that the provisions and rationale of the law reflect the main and antagonistic components of the political agrarian history of Côte d'Ivoire, particularly the state regulation of the customary social institution of ‘tutorat’. The issue at stake in the implementation of the law concerns not only the improvement of legal mechanisms to secure customary rights in general. The implementation of the law will open a Pandora's box of political regulations with which the political elite have imposed their rule regarding the balance of entitlements to land access between autochthons and strangers. This concerns the local anchorage of the state authority and legitimacy, no more and no less. The tragedy is that the current context of political competition is not suited for searching new and clear compromises on the political economy of agrarian change. 6.Finally, one is tempted to think that the more urgent question is: What to do with the 1998 law?

The Tunisian Land Regime. Its Origins and Its Evolution after Independence.France established its protectorate in Tunisia in 1881. The land law situation (situation immobilière) of this widely agricultural country seemed vital to the colonizer, as control (maîtrise) over the land lies at the heart of colonization. But the Tunisian land regime (régime fonder tunisien) appeared very confusing due to the complexity and diversity of tenures as well as to the absence of uniform land law legislation and the imprecision of land titles (titres immobiliers), which lacked adequate publicity. As ownership could not be established with certainty, which was adverse to colonization, it appeared paramount to rapidly reform the regime of land ownership. The authorities of the protectorate, whose first aim was to develop colonization, set up a land regime (régime fonder) based on easily usable ownership rights that were sufficiently secure to attract credit. The land reform introducing the registration of land (immatriculation des immeubles) was put into effect by the law of 01 July 1885. It introduced an original regime, which, from the technical point of view, was a compromise between the Australian system (Torrens Act introduced by Great Britain in its new colony in 1848), the German system and the French Civil Code. It was also comprised of borrowings from the Algerian law of the 26 July 1873 and from Belgian law (as far as ‘hypothèque’ is concerned). This new regime presents the following characteristics : it is based on ‘real publicity’ (‘publicité réelle’), the land (immeuble) and not the owner is named ; registration (immatriculation) is optional ; the registration is carried out by the Mixed Land Tribunal (Tribunal Mixte Immobilier), the decision of which fixes the starting point of ownership ; the updating of the title is in the hands of the parties who have an interest in registering subsequent changes (but the unregistered act remains valid among the parties) ; finally, once the registration (immatriculation) is pronounced, the land (immeuble) comes under the competence of French jurisdiction. This new land regime is very different from the metropolitan French one and it attempts to take into account various requirements. It is legitimate to work on this land legislation, now over a century old, because it has spread in space and time. It spread in space because the Tunisian land law of 1885 has served as a model for many territorial legislations passed under French influence. The prototype has circulated and has been modified over time by different legislators. These modifications have often corrected and improved the initial text. Despite its imperfections, the 1885 law survived political and economic changes during the twentieth century and was adopted by the legislation of independent Tunisia in 1956. The law indeed presents a flexible and adaptable frame. Thus, notwithstanding the interruptions that accompanied Tunisian independence in 1956, there are very clear lines of continuity with the legislation promulgated by independent Tunisia in the Code de droits réels of 1965. The latter includes most of the legislation of 1885, which was judged globally positive. The Code fancier (Land Law Code) has become an object of national pride for Tunisians as it has been exported to other countries. As far as the special jurisdiction that has been created to apply the new legislation is concerned, the Tribunal mixte immobilier continues to exist as the Tribunal immobilier since 1956, but it remains unique in its kind - the model has not been appropriated by other countries that have drawn inspiration from the Tunisian land law model. Some countries, like Morocco, have regretted this fact. Others, like Cameroon, still regret it today. The law of 1885 has survived for over a century with its qualities and its defects. It has allowed Tunisia to enter the modem era of codification and has prepared its entrance into the economy of the twentieth century. Over the last thirty years, and the trend continues today, a new element has appeared : Tunisia has turned towards tourism and has witnessed extensive urbanization. The stakes are now different : they consist in protecting agricultural land against the space-devouring cities, rather than expanding the surface of agricultural land.

The Mystery of Land Law. Sense and Nonsense of a Voluntaristic Policiy of Generalizing the Private Ownership for the Take Off of the ‘South' s'Economies. The generalisation of land ownership (propriété foncière) has been an ongoing debate in development policies for over a century. This debate does not concern property in general, but focuses on propriété privée (the French equivalent to private ownership) that, according to Article 544 of the French Civil Code, the Code Napoléon, is ‘the right to enjoy and to dispose of things in the most absolute manner, provided the laws and regulations in force are respected'. Its distinguishing feature is the discretionary character of land alienation, the fact of rendering “one's land” external (étranger) to oneself and to a group. And, because the pre-colonial and colonial histories of the societies of the ‘South’ differ widely, the consequences of this alienation have to be assessed case by case. This paper considers that land security is only incidentally linked to the detention of land titles and to the more or less absolute character of the conferred right. The real guarantee can only rest in the public authority that represents the general interest. If this authority is weak, absent, corruptible, hesitant or unduly dominated by the interests of a minority, no title can guarantee the security of transactions as long as a minimum consensus does not legitimate the exercise of the invoked rights. This consensus regarding the puissance publique (‘public power’), the State in its contemporary version, relies fundamentally on the manner according to which the diverse actors of the ‘land law game’ (jeu fonde) imagine this intervention and legitimate its implications. Indeed, there are societies with strong state traditions, and others that disregard it or do not spontaneously trust it. In the present case, we should remember that propriété privée is an invention of and for the market economy and that its generalization is thus linked to the existence of a generalized market. In the absence of a generalized market, propriété privée not only lacks efficacy but is even dangerous: a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Any policy of generalisation of propriété privée would be a nonsense in all societies where the market is not generalised and where there is thus an incomplete ‘marketisation’ (marchandisation imparfaite) of land. It should be noted that this reality must not be seen as a handicap. It can constitute support for a development model that would respect the new requirements of the world economy. In order to understand all the implications, this paper revisits classical political economy and the land law history of French and British societies confronted with the requirements of capitalism. This will permit us to identify the double relationship of ownership / propriété privée as law of the market and as land law (fonde), as markets of ownership rights (droits de propriété). Indeed, there is no market without ownership, and there is no ownership without a market. In situations where the market is not generalised, and cannot be generalised in the mid-term, and where land transactions, when authorised, do not rely on ownership rights (droit de propriété), the situation must be managed such as it presents itself, in a complex but nevertheless coherent way. We are facing the coexistence of diverse legal regimes that are necessary in order to secure the modes of living and the activities of the members of the concerned societies. This pluralism has implications that need to be addressed. In order to shed light on the mystery of land law, an approach is required that is different both in nature and scale from the mimetic policies of the generalisation of private ownership (propriété privée). If the solution stemming from the imagination of the reformer, when confronted with all other imaginations, cannot have the beauty of ‘pureness', such as proposed in Book 2 of the Civil Code of 1804 dealing with biens (goods), it must articulate and render operational legal mechanisms that concur with the stability of exchanges and with the pacification of society. It must be compatible with the demands of modernity, while inscribed in the continuity of endogenous representations of land law representations foncières endogènes). The concepts of patrimoine (common heritage) and patrimonial management (maîtrises patrimoniales) can constitute a conceptual framework for sustainable development approaches that could offer solutions addressing contemporary issues. Indeed, the contemporary issue does not consist in globalizing absolute and exclusive private ownership (propriété privée exclusive et absolue), but rather in mobilizing new forms of ‘patrimonial management’, the principles of which remain to be translated into day-to-day legal regulation.

Access to Land and to Natural Resources Management in Madagascar's Highlands. Customary Practices and the Logic of ‘Securization' of Rights. Land management in Madagascar is characterized by insecurity. This situation is due to a gap between official and customary law. Over the last decades, the lack of recognition of the informal practices of peasants and other traditional actors has exacerbated insecurity and has reduced the State to a mere producer of ever-increasing articles of laws, which are mostly not applied and which are ignored by rural populations. The latter thus turn to social mechanisms for land management, especially as concerns the recognition of rights to land and conflict regulation. In this context, we propose a sociological analysis of peasant land management in terms of intergenerational land transfer. This work is a result of research in the Programme 4D (Institut de recherche pour le développement) and is based on a qualitative survey with thirty heads of households (mostly men). The questions of the directive and semi-directive interviews concerned the modes of land transmission and of land management. We also tried to understand the social mechanisms for the securing of land tenure rights in the rural population. In the highlands of Madagascar, land exchanges through marketization are increasing rapidly. Our research on these practices reflects the socio-economic living situation of the rural community, which is characterized by extensive poverty. In the village under inquiry, the number of transactions registered with the village head rose from ten in 2001 to thirty-nine in 2005. It is interesting to understand the reasons for the increasing transactions in this area, especially in the local context of land scarcity. In order to promote a better distribution of farmlands among the rural households, one of the major issues of policies aiming at securing land rights would consist in facilitating a fluid exchange of land rights through marketization. Today, the need of the rural communities for a ‘securization’ of rights is urgent. Nevertheless, these rights gain reality only through local socio-institutional practices and not through the very unsatisfactory system of land registration at the state level. To address the current political will to institute an ambitious land reform in the country, attention must be drawn to these customary practices, which must be analyzed and taken into account in order to provide a basis for a sustainable policy of land management. After presenting the methodology of the research, the paper approaches the modes of land transmission before detailing the status and the role of the actors in customary land management. Finally, the practice of land marketization, in spite of the scarcity of arable land in a context of rapid population growth and of extensive poverty, is addressed. In conclusion, we show how all these practices are combined in an initiative to secure the rights to land on a local basis for lower costs.