Land Tenure Center Newsletter
Number 78, Fall 1999, p. 12-15
The Land Tenure Center faculty continue to engage in educational outreach both nationally and worldwide. The following reports give some indication of the breadth of recent activities.
In September, Peter Bloch, Associate Scientist, Land Tenure Center, and Professor, Forest Ecology and Management, attended an end-of-project conference in Labe, Guinea. At the conference, "Réconciliation des actions locales avec la législation nationale," Bloch addressed the background, aims, achievements, and recommendations of the LTC follow-up project, Management of Natural Resources in Guinea, funded by USAID and Winrock International.
In January/February and in April, Bloch traveled to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Bloch is coordinator of "Land and Agrarian Reform in the Kyrgyz Republic," an LTC project to aid the Kyrgyz Center for Land and Agrarian Reform, Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources, and the national land registration agency (GosRegister) in improving their coordination and effectiveness for land legislation, public information, land markets, and monitoring of farm performance.
In June and August, Bloch traveled to Morocco, Mali, Zimbabwe, and Chad.
In August/September, in Madison, Bloch served as program coordinator for the USDA Cochran Fellowship/USAID BASIS training program, "Agricultural Reform in Central Asia."
Michael Carter, Professor of Agricultural and Applied Economics, participated in seminars and conferences held throughout the world. He attended: UN World Institute for Development Economic Research (WIDER), Conference on "Rising Income Inequality and Poverty Reduction," in Helsinki, July 1999; Universidad Central de Venezuela and National Agrarian Institute, in Maracay and Caracas, June 1999; Wageningen Agricultural University, Department of Agricultural Economics, in the Netherlands, May 1999; Université Notre Dame de la Paix, Department of Economics, in Namur, Belgium, May 1999; Royal Tropical Institute, Conference on "Land in Latin America: New Context, New Claims, New Concepts," in Amsterdam, May 1999; and Cornell University, Departments of Economics and Agricultural Economics, in Ithaca, N.Y., March 1999.
Lin Compton, Chair of Development Studies, traveled to Southeast Asia to engage in discussions with government authorities in Laos on that country’s proposed Land Titling Project (LTP), including the submission of an LTC proposal to perform both the socioeconomic and environmental impact and the land tenure and forestlands studies that are basic to the project. "Laos is attempting to move into a land-use certification program with loan support (US$23 million) from the World Bank," Compton said.
Compton consulted with Kasetsart University, Department of Cooperatives, faculty and representatives of the Mekong Environmental Research Institute (MERI), in Thailand, regarding their collaboration in the LTP studies. While in Bangkok, Compton presented a paper, "Social Forestry: Defining the Field," at the Asian Regional Community Forestry Training Center (RECOFTC).
Peter Dorner, Dean Emeritus, International Studies and Programs, and Professor Emeritus, Agricultural and Applied Economics, presented "Food, Population, Energy and the Environment in the Global Economy of the Twenty-first Century" to the Kenosha Lions Club, Kenosha, Wisconsin, May 1999.
Raymond Guries, Professor of Forest Ecology and Management, was the recipient of the Carl Alwin Schenk Award, which recognizes excellence in forestry education, at the Society of American Foresters’ 1999 National Convention, held in Portland, Oregon. Several former UW–Madison forestry students initiated the effort to promote Guries for an award that highlights his creative teaching style.
Harvey M. Jacobs, Director, Land Tenure Center, and Professor, Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Institute for Environmental Studies, participated in and presented papers at two conferences: "Leopold’s Legacy," at a national conference on "The Challenge to Leopold’s Legacy: The Rise and Impact of the Anti-Environmental Movement," organized by Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, in Madison, October 1999; and "The International Dimension of Farmland Protection: Lessons For Developing Countries from Developed Countries," at the annual meeting of Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning, in Chicago, October 1999.
Jacobs presented "Out of Sight, But Not Out of Mind: Issues that Frame the U.S. Discourse on Law and Land Tenure," for the LTC Seminar Series, Fall 1999; and "The Private Property Rights (Anti-Environmental) Movement in America, and Its Impact on City Planning," for a seminar at the University of Florence, Italy, April 1999. He designed, coordinated, and led/instructed a training course for US-EPA, Region 1, on "Land Use in America: Policy and Politics in the 21st Century," at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Cambridge, Mass., September 1999; and taught a short course, "Protecting Agricultural Land at the City’s Edge: Lessons from Western Europe, North America and Japan," to the International Center for Land Policy Studies and Training (Taiwan), 78th Regular Session on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development, March 1999.
Jacobs introduced the Amish in Wisconsin to several forums: rebroadcast of "The Amish in Wisconsin," University on the Air presentation for Wisconsin Public Radio, June 1999; "Our Neighbors in Black: Understanding and Living with the Dynamic Amish Community," for the Lake Tomahawk (WI) Historical Society, September 1999, and for the UW–Parkside Friends of the Library Center, October 1999, both under the public speakers service of the Wisconsin Humanities Council; and a follow-up on the Amish, to St. Mary’s Adult Day Health Center, Madison, October 1999. Jacobs served as a resource/interviewee for a story about "Amish in Wisconsin," by Wisconsin AP wire service, September 1999; and served as an interviewee for a story on the Amish, growth, and land use change in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, by the Dallas Morning News, August 1999.
Gene Summers, Director of the North American Program, Land Tenure Center, and Emeritus Professor of Rural Sociology, presented a paper, "The Role of National Parks in Rural Development," at the 1999 International Symposium on Society and Resource Management, held in Brisbane, Australia, July 1999. While in Australia, Summers presented workshops on rural development for three communities, which are rural locales in the Australian "outback."
In the United States, Summers organized and chaired a session, "Impacts of Welfare Reform on Rural Poverty," for the annual meeting of the Rural Sociological Society, held in Chicago, August 1999. He received the Distinguished Rural Sociologist Award at this meeting (see accompanying article, p. 11).
For the past six months, Joseph R. Thome, Professor Emeritus of Law, University of Wisconsin–Madison, was a visiting professor at the William Boyd Law School at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada. "This is a new law school and the first law school in Las Vegas," said Thome.
Thome also presented a paper, "Rule of Law Reform in Latin America: Issues and Problems," at the Research Workshop, "Rising Violence and the Criminal Justice Response in Latin America: Towards an Agenda for Collaborative Research in the 21st Century," held at the University of Texas at Austin, May 1999.
Copyright © 1999 by Land Tenure Center and Board of Regents, University of Wisconsin. All rights reserved.
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