National Land Agency BPN - Republic of Indonesia (1995):
International Workshop on the Implementation of Rural Land Consolidation

2.2 Factors Setting The Parameters For Land Policy

I have no doubt in my mind that there is a great need in every country for a national land policy focusing on the long term development objectives, on a multiple land tenure system and the response capacity to tackle evident land conflicts.

It is important that we make explicit the factors that we believe should set the parameters for a national land policy.

A national land policy should be a framework of guidance for a nation over a long period of time. Therefore a national land policy should be based on long-term factors which determine the future paths of development rather than on conjuncture political or international influences.

No policy, much less a national land policy, can act as a guide if it is too far ahead or divorced from the existing systems, perceptions, practices and visions of the people it is meant to guide. Policy, almost by definition, is a prescription for an evolutionary change rather than a manifesto for a revolutionary upheaval.

A national land policy should be an end result for an intense dialogue with and among, the people themselves rather than a scheme conceived outside them and delivered to them in the form of a finished product.

Underlying a national land policy and the land tenure structure derived from it is a conception of a desirable, and hopefully a feasible, path of development While it is true, that the land policy itself grows no rice, build no houses, create no goods, it is also true that land policy rules may encourage and facilitate certain paths of development as opposed to others or may sustain social forces while stifling others. To that extent, a land policy is not and cannot be a neutral tool. I believe it is better that a land policy is recognised as such and its social and economic purpose made explicit.

• Some significant basic principles of a national land policy are:
• land policy should assist in the planning and implementation of spatial development;
• land tenure systems should facilitate the generation and investment of capital;
• land is for use and not simply a commodity;
• openness and transparency shall govern procedures of administering and delivering land;
• all land matters are public including transactions;
• land owners and land users shall actively participate in the processes connected with land matters particularly in land consolidation, land use planning, land registration, land tax, adjudication and allocation;
• land tenure systems should facilitate efficient and productive use of land as well as its equitable distribution. Unproductive accumulation of land for speculative purposes should be prohibited;
• there is a need to settle and resolve land disputes finally and expeditiously;
• no land should be allocated without first ensuring that there is no existing interest on the land (formal and informal);
• investments can be promoted and secured on innovable property through mortgages;
• privat ownership is secured by the constitution. Expropriation is therefore permissible only for the benefit of the general public.

The following figure is showing the landpolicy orientation like building a palace with long term stability and certainly based on: