Land Tenure Center Newsletter
Number 79, Spring 2000, p. 6-7
LTC Associates Nancy R. Forster (Institute for Environmental Studies) and John D. Strasma (Agricultural and Applied Economics) received Fulbright scholarships for the 1999–2000 academic year.
Forster has spent the academic year engaged in lecturing and research at the University of Guadalajara, Mexico. Strasma, who received the McCain/Fulbright Distinguished Faculty Chair in Property Systems at the Centre of Property Studies, University of New Brunswick, combines visits to the UW campus with working with Canadian faculty and graduate students both in Central America and at the World Bank in Washington.
LTC Director, Harvey M. Jacobs received Honorable Mention for the 1999 Best Article Award from the Journal of the American Planning Association for "Fighting Over Land: America’s Legacy...America’s Future?" (available as LTC Reprint 148).
In memory of Scott Kloeck-Jenson, LTC researcher and scholar dedicated to global peace and justice, the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Global Studies Program will award and administer a small number of Scott Kloeck-Jenson International Pre-Dissertation Travel grants to support summer travel for doctoral students hoping to explore potential field research sites outside the United States.
Senior experts from 25 countries, representing both public and private sectors, participated in the workshop, "Public Institutions/Private Sector Relationships in the Establishment of Land Registration Systems," held in Tirana, Albania, from 30 March to 1 April 2000.
The workshop was sponsored by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Working Party on Land Administration and was organized by the Project Management Unit of the Land Market Action Plan in Albania, with assistance from David Stanfield, Malcolm Childress, Mark Marquardt, and Kathrine Kelm of LTC’s Albania Program. The results and methods of the Land Market Action Plan—which LTC assisted the Albanian government in preparing and has helped implement since 1992—served as the featured case studies for the workshop.
Background research for the Albanian Land Market Action Plan has recently become available in Rural Property and Economy in Post-Communist Albania (New York: Berghahn Books, 2000), edited by Harold Lemel with contributions by LTC researchers. LTC contributors include Lemel, Peter C. Bloch, Rachel Wheeler, and Susana Lastarria-Cornhiel.
Eight externs will spend 10 weeks this summer with the legal staffs at organizations working on land tenure dispute cases. These organizations serve rural clients, especially low-income African American, Appalachian, Latino, and Native American communities where land loss is common.
Four students from UW-Madison, three from the University of Tennessee, and one from Stanford University will participate in the program. They are assigned to Farmers’ Legal Action Group (St. Paul, MN); Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and Mountain Association for Community Economic Development (Berea, KY); Land Loss Prevention Project (Durham, NC); Navajo Nation Department of Justice (AZ); Starr County Colonia Assistance Corporation (TX); and Texas Rural Legal Aid.
John Bruce, Susana Lastarria-Cornhiel, and Alberto Vargas prepared "Common Property in the Wake of Transition: A Land Tenure Center Kaleidoscope," a panel at the International Association for the Study of Common Property eighth biennial conference, held at Indiana University, Bloomington, 31 May to 4 June 2000. University of Wisconsin-Madison Law Professor and LTC Affiliate Thomas Mitchell led discussion.
The theme of the conference is "Constituting the Commons: Crafting Sustainable Commons in the New Millennium." Conference cosponsors are The Ford Foundation, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Indiana University.
The UW College of Agriculture and Life Sciences recognized Patty Grubb, LTC Program Assistant, for her outstanding service to the University. Dean Elton Aberle presented the award in a special ceremony held at the Center.
Pamela D. Moore, U.S. Program Director for Oxfam America, presented a University Lecture, “The Ties that Bind: Lessons in Development from the Deep South,” telling of lessons she had learned as a young professional seeking to facilitate positive change in the Lower Mississippi Delta region. One particular project was the focus of her presentation—a USDA Empowerment Zone effort, which entitled a six-county region to $40 million over 10 years.
LTC’s North American Program organized the event, cosponsored by a dozen University of Wisconsin departments and supported by the University Lectures Committee.
Susana Lastarria-Cornhiel spent a month as a visiting scholar at the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Land Tenure Service. She worked with the LTS and the Women in Development Technical Service on identifying strategies for improving women’s access to land and other natural resources. Her work focused on policy recommendations for developing and deepening market economies.
Robin M. Rajack, who is working as an analyst for the LTC’s Land Use Policy and Administration Project in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, received a Robert S. McNamara Fellowship.
As part of LTC’s project assisting the countries of the Sahel with the development of land tenure research capacity, the Center offered an April training program for academics from Chad. The program was an integral component in establishing a Chadian “land tenure observatory,” which will serve as a center of expertise on land issues for research and policy analysis and as a repository of previous studies and data that can assist government, researchers, and development projects.
University of Wisconsin trainers included: Peter Bloch (LTC and Forest Ecology and Management), James Delehanty (Associate Director of the African Studies Program), Jess Reed (Meat and Animal Science), Michael Roth (LTC and Agricultural and Applied Economics), Stephen Ventura (Director, Land Information and Computer Graphics Facility and Soil Science), Harvey Jacobs (LTC Director, Urban and Regional Planning, and Institute of Environmental Studies), Matthew Turner (Geography), and three Ph.D. students: Ahmadou Bamba Diop and Anne Kuriakose (both in Development Studies) and Yazon Gnoumou (Land Resources).
Attorney Andrew Corbett is presently a consultant to the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Rural Development in Namibia. During his one-month visit to LTC, he researched community-based natural resource management issues and presented some of his findings in a seminar at the Center.
Copyright © 2000 by Land Tenure Center and Board of Regents, University of Wisconsin. All rights reserved.
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