The global cadastre

The article discusses whether a globally connected cadastre is possible. Most land transactions occur in domestic, national land markets. However, many parties are now looking beyond their borders. Indeed, international land trading is burgeoning: governments, businesses and citizens from various countries, whether rich or poor, are now actively engaged as buyers and sellers in global land deals. Basically, it is easier to transact in the global market than ever before: land is increasingly a global commodity. The world's interconnected financial markets support this growing level of international trade and investment but, as one saw with financial markets in 2008, the quality of these global systems should not be taken for granted. Such foreign investment in land is not new: international companies have been investing for some time in commercial development, housing and mineral exploration, and more recently agriculture too

Incorporating sustainable development objectives into land administration

Historically, land administration systems (LAS) were built to support land markets and land taxation systems. In developed countries, these systems constitute substantial infrastructure provided through government for the benefit of overall public administration, citizens and businesses. These systems are expensive to maintain and increasingly reliant on technology. The design of LAS will become even more complex as they are now being used to assist delivery of a broader range of public policy and economic goals, the most important of which is sustainable development. The national and historical methods used to incorporate sustainable development objectives into national LAS were examined in an Expert Group Meeting (EGM) in Melbourne in December, 2006 with leading stakeholders and land policy experts from Australia and Europe. Distinctions between approaches used in modern European democracies and in Australia were identified. The European approach showed more integration between the standard LAS activities and measures of sustainability. Australian policy was more fractured, partly due to federation and the constitutional distribution of powers. In contrast, Australian LAS pioneering lay in incorporating market based instruments (MBI) and complex commodities into LAS and revitalization of land information through inventive Web based initiatives. The EGM developed a vision outlined in this paper for future LAS sufficiently flexible to adapt to this changing world of new technology, novel market demands and sustainable development.8-13 Octobe