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DocumentManual for local level assessment of land degradation and sustainable land management - Part 1. Planning and methodological approach, analysis and reporting 2011
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Book (stand-alone)Country Study on Status of Land Tenure, Planning and Management in Oriental Near East Countries
Case of Lebanon
2012Also available in:
No results found.The report deals with land tenure issues in Lebanon and analyzes major problems facing sustainable agriculture in view of natural setting, prevailing practices and existing legislation. Lebanon consists mainly of rugged mountainous regions with slopping and steep lands. The population of Lebanon in 2007 was 4 million with 407,362 residing in Beirut, the administrative capital of Lebanon. One of the main problems in land tenure and land management issues is the cadastre where a significant part o f Lebanon is still outside the cadastre (North Bekaa, East Mountains). Based on rainfall amount and land occupation, Lebanon was divided into five large regions and twelve agro climatic zones. Lebanese agriculture is divided into seven agro-climatic regions with 40 homogeneous agricultural areas (Lebanese Agricultural Atlas, MoA, 2005). The land use map of Lebanon published by CDR (SDATL, 2003) showed that the major agricultural areas are located in the Bekaa followed by the Akkar plain and Sout h Lebanon. Agricultural land use in Lebanon might be represented by three main cropping patterns, vegetables monoculture, wheat potato rotation and land under permanent crops - fruit trees or grape production. The total cultivated land area in Lebanon in 2007 was 277,000 ha (27 percent of the total land area), of which about 50 percent was irrigated. Irrigation water in the country is still primitively managed. According to national irrigation experts, the majority of watered lands in Lebanon (6 7%) are irrigated by gravity feed systems (furrows). The report reviews state policy in the management of soil and water resources, challenges, responses and assess the constraints and interventions for sustainable land management highlighting the best practices. Specifically, the report reviews works on how to promote water saving using drip irrigation, disseminate good practices like conservation agriculture, integrated pest management and organic farming. It presents the important role the gr een plan is playing to help farmers in land reformation, road building, land cleaning, water reservoirs construction, and discuss the promulgation of laws that protect agricultural land and encourage the construction on rocky terrains. The report analyzes the chemical, physical and biological land degradation including water pollution and water scarcity, soil erosion, soil salinity, soil sealing and rangeland deterioration. It also discusses the direct and indirect causes of land degradation inc luding the geomorphology of Lebanon, the mismanagement of fertilizer and water input in agriculture, current quarrying practices, deforestation, chaotic urban expansion on the account of productive soils, land use change, overgrazing. It also prospects the conservation practices and governmental control. -
Book (stand-alone)Country Study on Status of Land Tenure, Planning and Management in Oriental Near East Countries
Case of Egypt
2012Also available in:
No results found.The share of agriculture in the GDP declined from 16 percent in the 1990s to almost 14 percent in 2010. Meanwhile, those employed in agriculture as a percent of total labor force is declining since 1960 to 2006. Despite losing labor and share of the GDP, agriculture is, and will continue to be, among the major economic activities in Egypt, and a generator for economic growth. The balance between agriculture and other productive sectors of the economy require proper spatial and land use planning. Land tenure is central to this planning exercise. Land property right is the result of common factors, such as occupation and religion i.e. Islam, and agro-climatic conditions. Land property rights are multiple and complex. They are inherited from pre-Islamic rules (Orf), Islamic (Sharia) and colonial as well as post-colonial legislation. All these rules are co-existed. There are number of land status (regimes) such as private ownership (melk), collective land (waqf). Also there is a dichotomy (rural-urban).Land policy formulation and management in Egypt have been transforming in close association with institutional transformations. Since the Ottomans, to Mohamed Ali, to the Nasser‟s regime, and ending by the Mubarak administration, each period of time had its dogma and accordingly its land tenure systems. Today, Egypt has investment opportunities map till 2017 that defines land uses for the overall development. Today there are number of institutions responsible for planning the uses of this land and the mechanism to transfer the ownership of this land.The land question can be framed in the current status of dwarf and fragmented holdings. This is the result of complicated procedures to secure property right, inheritance, and increased prices and/or rents per unit of land used for agricultural or non-agricultural uses. Consequences include persisted rural poverty, violent disputes as a result of increased population densities and informality. The impacts are a multitude of ec onomic inefficiency and idle land markets.Laws and regulations that govern land markets come in ten sets of groups. Islamic, customary and civic laws co-exist next to each other. The institutional framework that governs land markets need serious transformations including, but not limited to, redefining the mission and mandate of public bodies responsible for land distribution and sectoral development, and adopting principles of good governance.For perfectly competitive land markets, there is a n eed for updated cadastral and registry of land by which each parcel of land has a national identification number. The registry has to include specification of each parcel, information concerning the owner(s), sub-divisions, etc. Aside of these corrective and preventive measures, there is a need for a wide range of supportive measures. Educating and enlightening the public with their rights and means to access land is essential for perfectly competitive markets. Applying taxes on wind-fall gains is another measure to control freezing savings and money in the form of land and vacant dwellings. Also levying an annual tax on unused land and closed dwellings is prone to divert money needed for investment away and curb the tendency to speculative practices. This recommendation is in line with Islamic Shariya where the owners of utilized assets, in the form of land, gold, real estate, etc. have to pay 2.5 percent of its assessed value in the form of zakat. This recommendation will free frozen assets, and will avail money for investment that can generate employment opportunities.
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