Roy L. Prosterman: Advocate for Land Rights
Roy L. Prosterman, a distinguished lawyer who transitioned from a prosperous corporate law career to advocate for land reform in developing nations, passed away on February 27 in Seattle at the age of 89.
Landesa, the Seattle-based land-rights institute he co-founded, announced his passing but did not disclose the cause.
Throughout nearly six decades, Mr. Prosterman collaborated with governments across approximately 60 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. He developed strategies to provide peasants with a form of land ownership. In certain cases, governments secured land by expropriating extensive tracts, offering compensation to the original owners. Alternatively, governments distributed land they already owned.
Recognizing land rights as pivotal for improving the lives of millions among the rural poor, he urged authoritarian regimes in nations like Vietnam and El Salvador, alongside nascent democracies such as India, to allocate farmland to impoverished farmers.
Mr. Prosterman, seen in the center of an undated photograph conducting interviews in China, was accompanied by Tim Hanstad, his long-term colleague and fellow Landesa co-founder.
Landesa, initially established as the Rural Development Institute at the University of Washington in 1981 before becoming independent in 1992, stated in an obituary that countless individuals have benefited from the initiatives Mr. Prosterman and his team developed.
The Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz highlighted Landesa’s role in his preface to “One Billion Rising: Law, Land and the Alleviation of Global Poverty” (2009), a book edited and partially authored by Mr. Prosterman, describing it as “an early, and often solitary, advocate for the importance of land access and security in enhancing the lives of the poor in agrarian societies.”
