Establishment of Formal Title in Developing Nations

So far in this course, what has jumped out at me most were the concepts raised by de Soto [1993] in his article The missing ingredient (see assigned readings). He argues that the presence or absence of formalized property rights is the fundamental deciding factor in the ability of a country to move toward becoming a more developed nation from being considered an under-developed or developing state.

It is an interesting shift from the more traditional approach developed nations take towards attempting to spur economic growth in under-developed nations. They typical approach is to spend billions of dollars to jump start the market economy of a country. de Soto [1993] argues that since "property rights for land represent a large portion of peoples wealth" and in most areas of underdeveloped countries these property rights are not protected by formalized titles, that the majority of "assets of most people in these countries remain outside the market economy."

While I do agree in many respects with this conclusion, I do have reservations about his desire to formalize property rights everywhere, and moreover the desire for a modern market economy more generally. 

What can and does happen during the formalization process of land rights is an inequitable division of land. Inequality  in the system, whether an unintended side effect of corrupt individuals or as a product of the design of the system itself leads to certain individuals or organizations benefiting at the expense of the people whom the land formalization is supposed to help. This can be avoided with a more conscientious managing body, but in many regions of the world where land formalization is going on at a wide scale, the system is open to these sorts of inequalities. 

Additionally, the move to a more formal modern market economy does not necessarily bring benefits to the people it is being imposed upon. Such societies have inequality built into the very fabric of the economic structure, and the people for whom this new economic regime is being implemented are rarely the benefactors of the system. 

I found a great paper that goes into this idea in a fair bit of depth by examining Cambodia and its land administration history. It is worth at least skimming over it as the country has had and still has a very complex progression of land title systems, and faces the consequences of that history. 

Fragmentation of land tenure systems in Cambodia

It is an extremely complex situation and I am not going to try and regurgitate the 36 page paper, but I will give one small description of the situation as it stands in the lowland regions of the country. In essence, the transition to formally titled land in the Cambodian lowlands has not increased security of that title due to the structure of the informal traditional land tenure system. What it has done is exacerbate the process of private land enclosure and the removal of that land from the community system. The new land tenure reform brought to the lowlands has not been able to integrate that community structure and as result the order is breaking down. In addition, the new system has been exploited by corrupt individuals demanding extra payment during the process, and by organizations seeking to benefit themselves exclusively.

So while I do see formalization of land tenure rights as an important part of a developing nations future, one must be very careful with the application of that formalization process. It is not necessarily a good thing for everyone, or even for a majority unless done carefully.

Logic and Falacies

All assignments in GGE 2501 are assigned a marking weight.

This is an assignment in GGE 2501.

Therefore I will have a mark assigned in GGE 2501 for this assignment.

The above is an example of deductive logic using modus ponens. The first statement is conditional. "If this is an assignment in GGE 2501, it will receive a marking weight." The second statement affirms that  the conditions of the first statement are indeed satisfied. The conclusion follows. It would however be false to state that everything assigned a marking weight is an assignment in GGE 2501 as that is not supported by any of the statements in the argument. Evidence is that I also have other things assigned marking weights in other classes such as GGE 3051 and ECON 1073.



Wow, now that is a slippery slope. In fact a slippery slope is the type of fallacy presented in that image. What this means is that consequences are extrapolated wildly. In this case it is quite obvious that it is a wild extrapolation that is meant to be joke, however in other cases especially those about which one does not know a lot, they can be quite convincing. In this case, textbooks are indeed made from paper, paper is indeed made from trees, and we do need trees for oxygen. The fallacy arises because the number of trees cut for textbooks is a minute and immaterial number compared to both the total number of trees cut, and the total number of trees on the planet. There is no way to get to the final statement that school is killing us because of trees being cut depriving us of oxygen in a logically sound manner, hence the fallacy.

Geomatics is the best discipline on earth. Geomatics is the study of where things are and how that relates to other things. My brain likes to know where I am and how I relate to other things. I am always somewhere. I study geomatics. I am on earth. Therefore geomatics is the best discipline on earth.

Welcome Aboard

Hello all! This is a blog created to reflect on and respond to topics raised in Land Administration One. There will be a reflective post every two weeks and responsive posts sporadically as well. These are just my thoughts about the subjects raised and I would love to hear what you think about them also.

Today I am going to give a little bit of background about myself and where I am coming from to form my world view. My hometown is Courtenay, about half way up the east coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Most of my life in Canada I have lived on the west coast. During my childhood, my family and I did a lot of road trips and camping around BC and Alberta, and once took the train all the way across the country to Toronto, driving back west over the course of several months. Before moving here last August, that trip when I was eight years old was the furthest east in Canada I had been.

As a family we also traveled extensively in Mexico during my high school years, avoiding anything one would normally call a tourist destination. These trips, along with a solo trip late in high school  were my first real view into a vastly different living and social situation than what I had thus far seen. They helped prepare me for just how different the world can be.

My first degree is a BSc in Geography from the University of Victoria. UVic has a very large geography program which encompasses many disciplines and puts them all under one roof. From GIS to sociology to conservation and economics, all can be found under the geography banner. It also allows considerable exploration of other departments which I used to its limits, studying astronomy, history, languages, and even photography. During that degree I went on an international exchange to James Cook University in Cairns, Queensland, Australia. If anyone reading this can work an exchange into your program, I highly recommend it. It may increase the program length, but the experience is well worth it in my experience.

My tour truck heading up into Bunuba
country from Yawuru country passing
through Nyul Nyul territory and the Country 
Downs cattle station

After graduation I did not have any particular drive to find employment in the geography field, so I ended up moving to Australia again for several years on a work visa. The primary work I found let me get quite involved in land administration questions even if I did not recognize them as such at the time. I worked as a tour guide for extended off-road camping tours through the Kimberley region of far north Western Australia.

The tours I guided routinely passed through aboriginal communities and lands, cattle stations, national parks, natural gas exploration areas, mining regions and small areas of freehold land. In many cases all of these land use areas overlapped, often with several categories at once. It is a very complex situation and far from a satisfactory resolution. It was very interesting and eye opening to become involved in these communities and lands in different ways myself, and see change slowly happening.

For many years I have known that land surveying is where I would like to end up. Last spring I finally was in a position to work in the field with a surveyor for several months, and found it just as fascinating as I had hoped, leading me to thoughts of studying formally. Eight months later and here I am.

I write this just to give a bit of a look into who I am and where I am coming from with what I say in the future on this blog. Cheers, and have a great day!