Despite the economic and social costs of national and international efforts to restore millions of hectares of deforested and degraded landscapes, results have not met expectations due to land tenure conflicts, land-use transformation, and top-down decision-making policies. Privatization of land, expansion of cattle raising, plantations, and urbanization have created an increasingly competitive land market, dispossessing local communities and threatening forest conservation and regeneration.

Neoliberal urbanism land planning has led to the development of public–private coalitions associating common interest with lucrative private enterprise projects. In Castilla–La Mancha (Spain), this regional growth coalition was backed by a spatial planning instrument, known as Projects of Special Interest (PSI). The aim of this article is to analyse the PSI as a paradigmatic example, to study its key points and examine its current dimensions. This case study employs a review of the literature, desk research, content analysis, interviews and observation.

What potential will the fit-for-purpose land administration concept have of working in the Republic of South Africa? This question is asked against the existence of a high-quality cadastre covering most of the South African landmass. However, a large proportion of the people living in South Africa live outside of this secure land tenure system. Many citizens and immigrants reside on communal land, in informal settlements, in resettled communities, in off-register housing schemes, and as farm dwellers, labour tenants and other occupants of commercial farms.