LAND-LEASING INTERMEDIARIES FOR CDR

Government can establish or commission an intermediary that brings privately held parcels into coordinated, long-term land-management arrangements for CDR. The intermediary secures voluntary leases or authority to arrange them, groups suitable parcels and contracts with farmers, cooperatives or restoration operators to undertake agreed activities. Owners retain their land while an operator gains sufficiently coherent access to implement and maintain a project. This can support agroforestry, soil-carbon management or ecosystem restoration where fragmented holdings make separate negotiations impractical. The lever organises access to private land. It does not determine eligibility to lease public land, create underlying carbon rights or assemble geological storage reservoirs. Existing agricultural land banks provide operational analogues; their adaptation specifically for CDR requires additional rules.

The first choice is whether the intermediary becomes the tenant and sublets land, or arranges contracts between owners and operators. Taking leases itself gives it more control but creates rent and vacancy obligations. Authorities should define suitable land, permitted practices, operator selection and how agricultural production and existing occupants are protected. Contracts must align access, management and monitoring periods with the chosen removal activity, allocate carbon benefits and reversal responsibilities, and explain what survives a sale or operator failure. A lease cannot override someone else's title, customary rights or statutory land-use restrictions. Where farmers continue production, agreements can reserve specific management permissions rather than transfer control over the entire holding.

A trusted intermediary can replace repeated bilateral negotiations with common terms and a coordinated timetable. Aggregating access can make machinery, field visits and landscape management more practical across small holdings. Owners who cannot actively manage their land can participate without selling it, while operators can obtain access without financing land purchases. A continuing intermediary can also replace a departing operator while maintaining the owners' agreements. For CDR, the opportunity is a viable area under consistent management and continuing access for monitoring.

Consolidation can favour large operators, weaken tenants' bargaining power or displace food production and customary uses. Owners may sign long commitments without understanding restrictions, uncertain carbon revenues or obligations after the initial project term. If the intermediary promises rent before securing a competent operator, public funds may support vacant or unsuitable land. Uniform contracts can overlook ecological differences and contested rights. A change in ownership or operator can interrupt monitoring unless continuity is enforceable. Paying institutions according to hectares processed can also reward moving existing leases through a new organisation without producing additional usable access.

Evaluation should distinguish land offered, leases concluded, land transferred to an operator and hectares actually managed under the agreed practices. The authority should examine time spent assembling a project, unallocated parcels, gross rent commitments, payment arrears and operator turnover. Owner and tenant participation should be assessed by holding size and tenure, alongside complaints, displacement and effects on food production. Monitoring should establish whether aggregation creates access that would otherwise have been unavailable. Persistent vacancy or repeated contract disputes should trigger revised eligibility and lease terms; verified net removals require a separate assessment of the resulting activities.

Landowners, existing tenants, customary users and Indigenous rights holders should determine what access can legitimately be offered and the conditions of participation. Land agencies and local authorities should clarify titles, permitted uses and the relationship with agricultural plans. Farmer organisations, cooperatives and prospective operators should test whether parcel combinations and contract durations are workable. Environmental specialists should identify unsuitable conversion and cumulative landscape effects. Legal advisers should resolve succession, compensation and default provisions, while independent representatives help smaller owners understand the agreement before signing. The intermediary should publish how it selects operators and manages conflicts of interest.

National governments can establish the mandate and contractual powers of a public land intermediary. Regional and state authorities can designate and oversee delivery where land administration is devolved. Japan's farmland banks operate at prefectural level, alongside municipal land-use planning. While municipal participation in planning does not by itself confer authority to operate the intermediary, local administration often holds discretion over land-use requirements and the legal mandate to establish special purpose vehicles to facilitate earmarked land-uses, for example to develop shared local renewable energy cooperatives. Private operators deliver the contracted land management; their participation does not make them the authority establishing this public intervention.