ABSTRACT
Land tenure has been studied in detail in the Pacific, matching its importance for island life and economies, and thus especially in rural areas (Crocombe 1987; Ward and Kingdon 1995; Larmour 1997). The particular impacts of land matters on urban development have received much less attention, yet in both Suva and Honiara land was one factor in the constitutional upheavals of 2000 (R.G. Ward 2000). In part this reflects the recency and limited extent of urbanisation in the region but is also due to the failure of governments to develop successful policies for managing urban land. Customary land holding is the most widespread form of tenure in Pacific island countries, with much smaller areas being held under individual freehold or government ownership. The importance of communal sharing in land as long established in Pacific tradition is usually given as a primary reason why policy changes to facilitate individual forms of tenure have proved so difficult for post-colonial governments. Ward and Kingdon (1995: 14) have suggested, however, drawing on an earlier discussion by Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983), that: ‘Invented traditions are common in the Pacific, and they have often been used as a key element in the establishment of government or other authority.’ Traditions may not always be very old with respect to land, where critical changes were brought about by colonial authority or, in the case of Tonga, by an indigenous government in 1875 (Ward and Kingdon 1995). In some cases, as in Fiji, colonial governments acted to protect indigenous tenure by legal codification. Each particular form of tenure, and varied interpretations of them, has posed problems for changes in land use and ownership, and especially for the conversion of rural land to urban uses.
