This week DAB Honorary Associate and member of the UTS:APCCRPR Ulai Baya is presenting collaborative research undertaken with Professor Spike Boydell at the Mama Graon – Vanuatu Land Program - Workshop on Customary Land in Port Vila, Vanuatu, 4-8 September. The invited paper on "Using Trust Structures to Manage Customary Land: An Analysis of the i Taukei Land Trust Board in Fiji" is part of the research continuum on leaseholds, lease management and trust structures being undertaken as part of UTS: APCCRPR research themes 4, 5 & 6. The paper is being presented to the Malvatumauri National Council of Chiefs, in the Chiefs Nakamal.

The following week two more UTS: APCCRPR papers are being presented:

Professor Spike Boydell is delivering another Boydell & Baya paper in Manchester, UK at the RICS COBRA 2011 Legal Research Symposium at the University of Salford, 11-13 September. This paper "Formulating an Equitable Pro-Development Compensation Model - Lessons from the Pacific" is an output of the recent Land Resource Symposium held at UTS, and is particularly timely given the proposed changes to ownership of mineral resources in Papua New Guinea (vesting them in the customary landowners rather than the state). The paper was developed as a result of fieldwork completed in Melanesia during Spike's recent sabbatical and is part of the research continuum on compensation related to customary land as part of UTS: APCCRPR research themes 3 & 6.

Professor John Sheehan, Deputy Director of the UTS: APCCRPR is in Bulgaria to present his research "Crossing the Rubicon: The Challenge of Deep Property" at The International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC) European Meeting at Agricultural University Plovdiv, 14-17 September. This is an output of the research continuum on property theory related to the politics and economy of emerging property rights as part of UTS: APCCRPR research theme 2.