Why and How to Cadastre the Coastline

The coastline is the hardest place in Haiti to establish who owns what, and the most valuable. This CIAT presentation makes the case for cadastring it specifically and sets out how. It opens from the same structural diagnosis that runs through the institution's land work: the predominance of small private property and minifundium, a state domain that is undefined and poorly located, and particular forms of undivided co-ownership. On the coast each of those bites harder than inland, because the state domain claim is strongest there, the pressure from tourism and urban expansion is greatest, and the parcels are smallest. Presented alongside the DGI's account of irregular beach leases and the Les Cayes waterfront paper, it forms part of a coherent argument made across one workshop: that coastal development cannot be planned until coastal tenure is recorded.