Stimulating investment in pearl farming in ... - World Fish Center

usage. There is no restriction on who may be granted a fixed-term estate, andalmost all urban land and large tracts of rural land (eg for plantation forestry andagriculture) is held in this way, subject to rent and development conditions.c) a lease may be granted by owners of perpetual and fixed-term estate other than theCommissioner of Lands (who may grant periodic tenancies but not leases). Thenature of a registered lease and the conditions that may be attached are generallysimilar to leaseholds in European usage. A lease may be for any period up to thelife of the estate interest, but the written consent of the Commissioner is requiredfor a lease to a non-Solomon Islander.d) a charge in respect of a registered parcel of land corresponds to a mortgage inEuropean usage. Charges may be created and registered as encumbrances onestates, registered leases or other charges. Commercial lenders are accustomed tothe use of a registered charge as security for lending to owners of fixed-termestates and leases, particularly in urban areas, and the process is well established.3.2. Customary tenureNon-Solomon Islanders (as defined in the Land and Titles Act) cannot legally owninterests in customary land, so any proposed formal investment on customary land willinvolve its conversion to registered land. Problems of definition of customary land rightsand boundaries so as to facilitate development by traditional owners, and efforts toconvert customary rights to a form in which they can be registered and dealt in under theregistered title system, have been going on intermittently for more than forty years, and noproven system is yet in place.Customary use rights encompass all the uses of the land and its resources traditionallypractised by groups of horticultural island-dwellers fairly lightly scattered through SI. The‘bundle of use rights’ that best describes customary ownership is commonly claimed by akinship group (or tribe) of several hundred persons, tracing descent from a named ancestorten or more generations ago. Such claims may have been subject to dispute as to preciseboundaries by neighbouring descent groups, sometimes for long periods.Monetisation, education and the physical and financial impact of commercial logging ofthe natural forest have injected deeply disruptive forces into customary society.Traditional leadership in many areas has crumbled under these pressures leaving tribalgovernance in disarray. The traditional structures in Isabel and Shortlands appear to be inbetter shape than elsewhere, but everywhere caution, tact and patience is needed inapproaching the possible use of customary land for commercial investment.Machinery exists under the Land and Titles Act (Parts IV and V) for the conversion ofcustomary to registered ownership of land. Properly done, these involve painstakinginquiry into traditional use rights and the degree of understanding and readiness amongthose concerned to convert to the registered system. Part V provides for the Commissioneror a Provincial Assembly to acquire a registered perpetual estate in a parcel of customaryland (whereupon it ceases to be customary land) and then to transfer the perpetual estateto the original customary right-holders. They can then deal in it as registered land, forexample by subdividing it and granting leases to themselves or outside investors forresidential or other purposes.There has been a recent upsurge of activity under Part V in connection with governmentplans to establish large-scale enterprises in remote rural areas, but the sustainability of the10