ABSTRACT
During the same period in which it was implementing Aboriginal land reform in Australia, the Australian Government – through its aid agency AusAID – was also actively engaged with customary land reform in the Pacific. In 2008, after several years of preparatory work, AusAID released a 500-page, two-volume report called Making Land Work as ‘as an information resource for countries undertaking land policy reform’.1 The report drew on the assistance of 80 experts in land reform and development.2 Key terminology – such as formal tenure, tenure security and customary land – is carefully defined.3 The distinction between tenure formality and tenure security is explicitly identified, as is the fact that ‘secure tenure can exist or cease to exist with respect to any landownership structure’.4 The report makes frequent reference to the fact that land reform is a ‘complex and sensitive issue’,5 and concludes that governments should ‘intervene only if it is necessary, ensure land policies reflect local needs and circumstances . . . actively involve stakeholders rather than only informing them . . . balance the interests of landowners and land users [and] provide safeguards for vulnerable groups’.6 It includes 16 case studies ‘of how other countries . . . have dealt with land administration and customary tenure issues while promoting economic and social development’.7 Somewhat ironically, one of those case studies is the ‘role of the Central Land Council in Aboriginal land dealings’, which it describes in positive terms.8
