Finding Hybrid Solutions to the Financial Management of Customary Land from a Pacific Perspective

Abstract

Within contemporary society, customary land is at the nexus of culture and commercialisation. Tasked with facilitating market-based returns on customary land whilst promoting equitable inter and intra-generational sharing of returns, this paper reports a solutions-based research project that investigated and tested a range of hybrid models in the Pacific context. The challenges are diverse, in many cases confronted by the Western approach, which identifies property and ownership as something to address in a businesslike way. Accepting the notion of ongoing Indigenous guardianship of land as sacrosanct and that de Soto's privatisation model is an unacceptable simplification, this paper offers innovative regional examples of customary land administration/management arrangements in encouraging equitable use of customary land by both members and non-members of land “owning” groups. Land is the foundation for the lives and cultures of Indigenous peoples the world over. Without access to and rights over their land and natural resources, Indigenous peoples' distinct cultures, and the possibility of determining their own development and future, become eroded (Jensen, 2004, p. 4).

The role of Vanua in climate-related voluntary immobility in Fiji

“…Given the value of land to Indigenous Fijians, the British colonists implemented a system of customary land tenure that aligned with traditional Indigenous Fijian values including the inalienability of land from Indigenous Fijians, the collective ownership of rights to land, the registration of individuals to the land of their forefathers and ownership cannot be transferred to non-Indigenous Fijians or nonmembers of the landowning unit (Mataqali) (Kamikamica, 1987;Boydell, 2008;Sakai, 2016). Land in Fiji is classified under three categories: Native (Customary) Land (83%), Freehold (8%), and Crown or State Land (9%); the majority of the land is native land or land that is communally owned by Indigenous Fijians (Lal et al, 2001;Rakai et al, 2013).…”