Submitted by laborate on Thu, 12/04/2012 - 10:42 GMT.
Richard Eberlin, Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations (FAO) responsible for land tenure and rural development issues for Europe and Central Asia,
gave a lecture - as part of USC's Master in Sustainable
Land Planning - about the recent evolution of land tenure
structures and related policies in transition countries
in East Europe. The high land fragmentation, depopulation
and land abandonment dynamics of broad areas that happened
after restitution and privatization processes during 90s
are quite similar to the Galician situation.
In order to cope with those issues, FAO is promoting an
integrated land management policy that includes the development
and implementation of land consolidation and land banking
strategies and activities. Richard Eberlin mentioned the
interesting example of the Land Bank of Galicia
(BanTeGal), applicable to scenarios characterized by intense
land fragmentation and reduced land mobility. In fact last
year experts experts from the Land Laboratory and the BanTeGal
helped to implement a pilot project in Albania
consisting in a simplified version of the SITEGAL, the Land
Bank of Galicia Information System.
The involvement of Richard Eberlin in the Master in Sustainable
Land Planning is part of the collaboration held by the Land
Laboratory and the FAO collaboration during last years,
which was initiated in 2007 and involves several activities.
Its responsible within USC is the Prof. Rafael Crecente
Maseda. The main purpose of this collaboration is improving
land management and rural development policies, strengthing
regional know-how, supporting inter-regional cooperation
on land management issues and writing technical reports,
guidelines, policy recommendations and practical handbooks
on land tenure and land management issues. Currently a new
volume of FAO Land Tenure Studies
dealing with land banks is being written.