Land shortage increases while half of Tonga's arable land lies abandoned [1]
Tuesday, September 25, 2001 - 10:00. Updated on Thursday, February 18, 2016 - 18:49.
From Matangi Tonga Magazine, Vol. 16, no. 2, September 2001.
Twenty-five years ago it was estimated that 6,000 males over the age of 16 years had no land. Today, the number of landless Tongans has swelled to over 10,000. The number will continue to increase, as it is no longer possible for estate owners and government to give land to every 16-year-old Tongan, as required by the Land Act of 1903.
But thanks to the introduction of modern education and a money economy this century, alternatives to making a living other than subsistence farming have been provided for the landless, and today more people are earning their living by engaging in commercial activities. Subsistence farming as a Tongan way of life is slowly becoming a thing of the past.
It has been said that the land problem in Tonga is not a problem of people not having access to land, but more a problem of people not being able to cultivate their land. Statistics show that only half of Tonga’s arable land is under cultivation. Out of 49,720 acres only 25,565 acres is being farmed, largely because when people move away from subsistence farming they leave their tax allotments uncultivated.
Farm lands
It is illegal to buy and sell land in Tonga, but with so much land unused it is relatively easy to acquire land for commercial farming under a leasing system.
According to officers with the Ministry of Lands, there are a lot of tax allotments left uncultivated by people who have emigrated overseas, and it is now possible for an enterprising commercial farmer to lease more than one tax allotment. A lease arrangement can be made either informally between the land owner and the lessor, or formally through the Ministry of Lands and later to be endorsed by Cabinet.
Under a formal leasing arrangement, when the lease expires the land will be returned to the estate owner. This same arrangement also applies to town allotments.
All land in Tonga is in somebody’s estate — either Government estates or estates belonging to Tonga’s 30 or so noble titles. Individual titles are held within the estates by males over the age of 16 who have been successful in registering a town allotment and/or a bush allotment with the estate owner. In other words, the estate owner gives the land over to the individual, and it becomes family land and eldest son may then inherit the land when the individual dies.
Land may also be leased from an estate owner for a certain number of years, and sometimes leases can be turned into individual titles by following a procedure set out by the Ministry of Lands.
Only Tongan males born in Tonga can actually own and register a piece of land. Once registered it becomes his property for ever, so long as he remembers to pay the 10 seniti per acre annual lease to the estate owner.
Leases
Leases within Noble estates are often difficult because the estate owner may not want to renew a leae at the end of the term, and if you want to apply to register the land in your own name, you have to be prepared to bargain with the estate owner. On the other hand with land leased in government estates it is a matter of following the procedure for turning the lease into a registered piece of land.
There is also leasing of land under the informal Tongan way, which is the most popular way among Tongan land owners, whereby a certain amount of money or a gift is given to the land owner then the lessor has an understanding that he may use the land over a set period of time.
Gifts or bribes?
This entrenched practice is criticised by Professor Ron Crocombe in his new book The South Pacific, a definitive study of the region, published by the University of the South Pacific in August this year, and he points out it has in the past affected the highest level of transactions.
“The signature of Tonga’s Minister of Lands, a senior hereditary noble, is required on all land transactions. It has often been withheld until large amounts of money, goods or services are paid. Is this a criminal bribe or a “gift” to a chief? It is clearly