ABSTRACT

Conventional land administration attempts to formalize the interaction between people, the state, and the landscape (Farley et al. 2012; Gerlak 2014; Wannasai and Shrestha 2008). Land tenure formalization, also known as land tenure regularization (LTR), is the process that seeks to create state recognition of land rights, and subsequently land tenure security, in places where it previously did not exist (Williamson et al. 2010). LTR articulates the state-sanctioned bundle of rights, restrictions, and responsibilities that relates to the land (Durand-Lasserve and Selod 2009; Zevenbergen 2002). The desired outcome of LTR is that land users can more assuredly make decisions about land: the landscape can be reshaped by new land users and uses stemming from unambiguous land tenure security (Farley et al. 2012; Wannasai and Shrestha 2008).