News in 2025
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Brazil is known for its warmth, creativity, and hospitality, and the first-ever FIG event in Brazil was no exception. At the FIG Joint Land Administration Conference 2025 in Florianópolis, there was live music between sessions, bright lights, colour, and a lot of energy. The joint event, held from 3–5 November 2025 at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, included:
FIG Commission 7 (Cadastre and Land Management) Annual Meeting,
FIG Commission 8 (Spatial Planning and Development) Annual Meeting,
UN Habitat Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM), and
13th International FIG Workshop on the Land Administration Domain Model & 3D Land Administration.
An impressive total of 265 delegates participated in this first event of its kind including 86 online delegates, representing 63 institutions from 21 countries. Most of the delegates had submitted full papers. With a full program running from 8:30am to 6:30pm each day, it was both lively and productive, culminating in the publication of a three-volume proceedings set totalling nearly 1,000 pages, all freely available online.
Innovative features included three-way language translation (Portuguese, Spanish, and English), which allowed delegates to interact seamlessly and in real time during sessions. The event was also streamed fully online with online participants able to pose questions and get involved. The event also introduced the ‘poster pit’ concept (ultra quick one-minute presentations to attract participants to the posters), enabling all papers to be presented in a single stream over the three days.
DuDuring three days of intense programming, the event brought together researchers, public managers, professionals from the productive sector, students and representatives from 21 countries, consolidating Brazil as a protagonist in global discussions on innovation and territorial governance.
Throughout the conference, the combination of scientific sessions, round tables, technical activities, networking moments, and the space dedicated to exhibitors demonstrated the power of integration between academia, government, and the private sector to build strategic and sustainable solutions. The hybrid model adopted expanded access to knowledge, allowing face-to-face and remote participants to share experiences and contribute to the international debate.
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Brazil’s surveying and land governance landscape is complex with divisions between federal and state responsibilities, rural and urban areas, and Indigenous people, public, and private tenures, as well as differing aims between taxation and registration systems. Yet, innovation is happening within government, the private sector, and through collaboration with academia. The shared language of UN-GGIM FELA, FFPLA, and LADM* frameworks resonated across the event, transcending linguistic and institutional boundaries and underscoring the importance of global frameworks in fostering dialogue and developing practical solutions.p>
The event concluded with a round table discussion addressing the question: “How do conceptual frameworks interact in favour of climate georesilience and sustainable development?”. The FIG community provided valuable input for the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30, Brazil) in the week after. Suggested land administration contributions included:
avoid further increase climate problems by giving the Indigenous people the rights to manage the forests,
use LADM part 5 with the climate change adaptation profile (against extreme heat, drought, rain, etc.) and LA-DRM (LADM extension for disaster risk management),
hahave checking mechanisms in place (from humans as sensors to satellite data with AI) and reporting via SDG land related indicators based on LADM.
The FIG Joint Land Administration Conference 2025 left a significant legacy of strengthened connections, new research paths, rapprochement between institutions, and the renewed commitment to advance in the construction of more integrated, modern, and inclusive cadastral systems. May the discussions, experiences and partnerships established here continue to drive the development of the sector and inspire future editions of the FIG and other collaborative initiatives. It was more than an event; it was a meeting of purposes, a celebration of knowledge and an important step towards a more efficient, transparent and common good-oriented territorial management.
The FIG conference in Brazil represented a milestone for the national and international community dedicated to land administration, land registry and geotechnologies.
Read the full report o on the FIG Joint Land Administration Conference
2025 in Brazil.
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*UN-GGIM FELA = United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management –
Framework for Effective Land Administrationr
FFPLA = Fit-For-Purpose Land Administration
LADM = Land Administration Domain Model
Rohan Bennett and Peter van Oosterom – FIG
Commission 7 / FIG Office
Published 3 December 2025
