Barbuda Land Acts

In 2016, the act was altered to increase the standard price of a major development required for a country-wide vote.

[1] Gaston Browne, the current prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, has expressed interest in transitioning to a privatized land system.

During the Codrington family's lease, cattle was bred and traded for use at sugar plantations in Antigua and other nearby Caribbean islands.

[8] The Codringtons attempted to transform Barbuda into a large-scale agricultural and plantation economy, but the island's dry weather patterns made this very difficult.

[14] Barbudan citizens continued to see the land as their own, even as the islands of Antigua and Barbuda integrated into one nation in 1981.

[14] But in that same year, an act was passed in Parliament that transferred any crown land, into the ownership of the Antiguan and Barbudan government.

[16] Declines in rainfall in the past 100 years also make it more difficult for livestock to travel freely and drink from outside water sources.

[17] In 2015, actor Robert De Niro and billionaire James Packer purchased a resort on the island.

[2] Trevor Walker, member of the council, believes that this is not a plan to empower citizens, but a way to take away land rights that are enshrined in the 2007 act.

[2] Browne has expressed the need to have citizens come back to an environmentally conscious island that is self-sustainable and open for tourists.

Browne has also indicated the possibility of having tourists come to the island to take advantage of lower health care costs once the hospital is rebuilt.