United Nations-FIG Bathurst Declaration on Land Administrationfor Sustainable Development: Development and Impact

The joint United Nations-FIG Bathurst Declaration on Land Administration for Sustainable Development was prepared at an International Workshop on Cadastral Infrastructures for Sustainable Development organized jointly by the FIG and the United Nations in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, on 18-22 October 1999. The Declaration was presented formally together with position papers prepared as background for the Workshop at an International Conference in Melbourne, Australia, on 25-27 October 1999. The Workshop and Conference, together with the resulting Declaration, were part of the Work Plan of Commission 7 (Cadastre and Land Management) and were three years in the planning. The paper will review the activities leading up to the Workshop, Conference and development of the Declaration, and will discuss the impact of the Declaration. Following on from the Workshop and Conference, presentations were made at various United Nations conferences as well as the FIG General Assembly. In addition there have been numerous workshops and conference spawned by the Declaration. The paper will also look to the future to consider how the Bathurst Declaration can be built upon to the benefit of all countries as well as professional surveyors. Importantly the paper will discuss the impact of the overriding outcome from this initiative in that it has stated a clear relationship between land administration and sustainable development. CONTACT: