Abstract

Left to market forces, Peri-urban areas are documented to serve as hosts to slum settlements, are prone to land grabbing activities, illegal industrial and domestic waste disposal, loss of agricultural land and so on. Peri-urban areas have therefore become catchments for huge negative externalities from the adjourning urban area. These negative externalities can be stemmed by adopting sustainable land management practices. A sustainable land management approach achieves integration between liberalized land markets and land use control mechanisms to ensure efficiency and equity in both inter- and intra- generational access to land holdings for the purpose of development. The paper has examined tenure security and land transactions in Peri-urban areas of SW Nigeria; and has attempted to develop a sustainable land management framework that is based on the way people define land resources in the area. This is to ensure that the right balance between government and private sector partnership is found so that peri-urban development is carried out in a sustainable fashion that allows integration with adjourning rural and urban areas while safeguarding inter-generational need for land resources.