Expert Group Meeting on Incorporating Sustainable Development Objectives into Ict Enabled Land Administration Systems

The existing management of property restrictions and responsibilities poses a major barrier to achieving sustainable land management. Administrative responses have concentrated on organising information rather than achieving the original policy objectives of good land management. Disparate management of individual restrictions has made it extremely difficult to develop and evaluate the effects of land policy. The management of land and natural resources must be far more collective. The complex set of private and public interests that apply to land must be consolidated, simplified and made easily accessible to all. Restrictions on land need special treatment and must be understood in the context of a thorough analysis of existing regulatory regimes and management systems. Key characteristics of each restriction must be assessed, including spatial extent, impact on tenure and reason for creation. These characteristics enable us to determine the importance of a restriction and develop an appropriate administration tool that enables achievement of sustainability. INTRODUCTION The number of restrictions and responsibilities that control land use and development has rapidly increased over the last fifty years. Unlike the management of ownership, the administration of these new interests is ah-hoc and lacks integration. The new Land Management Paradigm (Enemark et al, 2004) demands that land and resources be managed holistically: a new model for the management of property rights, restrictions and responsibilities is required. This paper describes the preliminary findings of ongoing research into the problematic management of property restrictions and responsibilities. The aim is to refocus the issue as one of land management, rather than one of information organisation. A preliminary framework for categorizing the different types of restrictions and responsibilities is provided: such a framework can guide future administrative responses. Also discussed are a number of institutional, regulatory and policy issues that relate to restrictions and responsibilities. To date, these issues have received minimal attention: achieving sustainable land management will require that these issues be addressed.