Land governance is such a broad topic that the question, “What data is important to land and resource rights?” will garner different answers depending on who you ask. Environmental NGOs may think natural resource concessions while agricultural ministries may think subsidies to local farmers and real estate agents might think property values. Given the wide reach of the topic, the most fundamental challenge to tackle before defining open property rights data is to determine precisely what we mean exactly by land and resource rights information.
So, how did we determine what can be characterized as ‘land rights data’?
First, we identified our objectives for opening up data in land information. Our primary aim is to understand how open data that can enhance tenure security and advocate for opening datasets that will bring transparency in land transactions through insuring sellers possess a recognized right, and making the details of those rights readily available – including any potential overlapping use rights. This primary focus on tenure security has narrowed our focus to land rights data– that is data related to the rules and processes of land tenure.
We recognize that land investments and natural resource use rights, such as concessions are closely tied to property rights. There are countless documented cases that demonstrate the harm that can be inflicted on communities and their lands as a result of a lack of transparency and accountability in land transactions and the negotiation of natural resource use. To name an example, the village of Lidong in Malaysia experienced a major drop in fish stocks, and loss of access to forest resources and cropland as a result of the expansion of palm oil farming. The argument for more transparency around agricultural lands and concession contracts, as well as the potential impact that the interoperability between this data and land registry data (assuming it exists) could have on community stability are clear. However, we are primarily focused on the influence that property and resource rights documentation have in this case. In fact, the findings of the CIFOR study in Malaysia indicated that 77% of respondents from the village were not notified of the palm oil expansion in part because their tenure wasn’t formally recognized by the state registry.
Once we figured out our objectives for the study, we determined what data is important to stakeholders working toward this goal. We spoke to:
These interviews, and our own research objectives informed the development of a range of open data use-cases (which we will detail in the coming months), as well as the identification of several major categories of property rights data. Based on our research, we have identified three core land information aspects- cadastral data, registry data, and land use type, each defined in greater detail below.