(pradd) – liberia - Land Tenure and Property Rights Portal

• Is it fair and reasonable that communal resources such as water and soil are contaminated anddegraded just because mining is the preferred land use?As GOL puts in place a mechanism for evaluating competing land use options, private interest must beweighed against public interest. This will prevent and resolve land access conflict as it will create clear andconsistent rules of resource allocation rights. As a rule, any holder of a mining or mineral right haspreferential access to land, which violates cultural, privacy, and equality rights of other citizens, to name but afew. As noted above, many of the same objective principles could be applied to determine whether and inwhich cases it is justified to condemn and expropriate property as “eminent domain.”The Development Facilitation Act of South Africa 18 is a good model to consider in this regard, as itestablishes objective and transparent processes that integrate and coordinate various development goals andprograms.If clear national priorities are applied to land use planning, tenure security will improve and ASDM will havemore certainty over their access rights to land.18The Development Facilitation Act 67 of 1995. South Africa.PRADD LIBERIA: A REVIEW OF THE LEGAL, REGULATORY AND POLICY FRAMEWORKGOVERNING ARTISANAL DIAMOND MINING IN LIBERIA 17