LAND AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OUR LAND OUR LIFE

1
LAND AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLESOUR LAND OUR LIFE

• Definition Indigenous PeoplesSovereignty and
  Key Role of Beliefs
• All of these Elements UNENCLOSED

Beliefs/Education
Languages
Land
Cultures
Work/Food
Communities
2
LAND AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLESOUR LAND OUR LIFE
Land is Life

• Land is life for a people who are dependent on
  subsistence agriculture for their livelihoods and
  whose identity, kinship structure, language,
  ancestral beings and spiritual self is to a large
  degree founded on land.
• As the first Minister for Lands in Vanuatu, Sethy
  Regenvanu, stated famously
• Land to ni-Vanuatu is what a mother is to a baby.
  It is with land that he defines his identity and
  it is with land that he maintains his spiritual
  strength.
• Land under the traditional tenure provides more
  than what a mother gives us in life.

3
LAND AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLESOUR LAND, OUR LIFE

• Land is spiritual
• Cement and create relationships
• Binds families, clans and tribes together
• Get everything that the need in life
• It is the peoples whole being
• Land is inclusive, it is our land vs my land
• Land is the biggest employer in Melanesia and
  provide security from hunger and homelessness.
• Land our only safety net

4
De-customization And monetization of Land in
Vanuatu and Melanesia

• Land in Vanuatu and Melanesia initially had
  started to have momentary value added when
• Traders came to set up
• plantations
• Missionaries, churches
• Education
• Modern development
• Financial institutions and
• companies

5
De-customization And monetization of Land in
Vanuatu and Melanesia

• Customary land tenure in Vanuatu and Melanesia is
  a obstacle to Development (land registration is
  the way forward)
• Ausaid and NZaid have agreed to to provide
  assistance to the countrys land sector to free
  up land under the customary land tenure for
  development purposes
• Assist to establish a land registry and
  information' it is taking away the land from the
  customary tenure
• enclosed it and place its records in the
• office
• Assist the government to establish and
• effective lease system and development
• planning
• Provide foreign advisors and
• consultants to draw up the countrys
• land road map.

6
De-customization And monetization of Land in
Vanuatu and Melanesia

• Trade Liberalization provide an
• open door to development and
• investors
• Promote the neo-liberal economy
• fantasy
• Corrupt land dealings by
• individuals and investors
• Weak land monitoring system
• enhances the corrupt dealings to
• continue unabated.
• Land in Vanuatu and Melanesia is gradually
  individualized.
• Under the adopted laws the land is ENCLOSED and
  parceled for individuals

7
De-customization And monetization of Land in
Vanuatu and Melanesia

• Free- up land for development
• Land registration for development
• and security
• Land to be under the power of the
• state and the companies
• Promote developments that disturbs
• traditional economies

8
LAND AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES GRAON HEMI LAEF
BLONG YUMI OUR LAND OUR LIFE
Recognition of the important relationships that
ni-Vanuatu landowners have to their land must
somehow be reconciled with the extensive land
sales that are occurring across coastal estates
on many of the islands of Vanuatu. (refer to map-
1996) In 2008 it was estimated that approximately
50 per cent of coastal Efate was under lease
(Fingelton, Naupa and Ballard 2008). I imagine
this is now an underestimate of current leasing
on Efate. The majority of these leases are held
by foreigners and when leases over land are
created ni-Vanuatu often illegally lose access to
gardens, and coastal estates where leases are
located (Farran 2010 398). Land is, of course,
an economic resource and a site of political
power. Selling land is often the only way that
landowners can generate the often substantial
cash funds needed to pay for schooling, bride
prices and other customary obligations, upgrade
housing and infrastructure and access other
material goods. Without alternative livelihood or
development opportunities that offer similar
cash payments to landowners it is difficult to
maintain the ideological argument that land
should not be sold. However, it must also be
understood that selling land is possibly the
single most culturally transformative act that
landowners can undertake. When land is sold to
outsiders, things will change. This then is a
foundational tension in Vanuatu. The importance
of place to identity versus the commodified value
of land. It is this tension, in all its
complexity, that is the subject of this brief
paper today.
9
Traditional Economy and Customary land tenure

• Strengthen relationship between families clans
  and tribes
• Land dispute resolutions that ensures that
  everyone has a place to live (win/win)
• More than 80 of Vanuatu(2007 Agriculture
  census) and 63.9 of population of the Pacific
  (World Bank 2009) survive on traditional economy
  (subsistence economy)
• Traditional land is the basis for the resilience
  to the global economy
• The people have the power and control over their
• own lives
• everything that is taken from the land is free
  and
• the customary tenure is flexible
• Independence and freedom from the monetary
• system

10
Who has the answers? The consultants or the people

• Will the Pacific Islanders and their indigenous
  peoples become the nest helpless victims of
  corporate victims of globalization?
• OR
• Will we use our customary power to help bring
  true spirituality, true civilization and true
  Development to the world that has sovereign
  power
• There are thousands of answers that each
  indigenous people can give us right across the
  pacific.

11
Vanuatus or our Alternative

• Customary land tenure and the traditional economy
  are our
• only way forward in Melanesia in particular
  Vanuatu.(only
• resource is land)
• Allow for Melanesians to fully participate in and
  drive the process and control the outcomes
• Land is the biggest employer in Melanesia and
  provide security from hunger and homelessness.
• With the fragile island states environment land
  reforms
• imposed on us will have adverse consequences.
• Tankyu tumas long harim blong yu.