Welcome to the land of wonder: the land Down Under! Australia is the world's oldest, and its only island continent. Home to one of the world's oldest civilizations, living beside the world's youngest; to the largest living formation, the Great Barrier Reef, and the most unique building, the Sydney Opera House.

The FIG Congress Sydney 2010, ‘Facing the Challenges - Building the Capacity', will be the highlight of the four-year term of office of the current FIG Council and Commissions. A full professional programme will encompass more than eighty technical and forty flash sessions and forums, keynote and special sessions. The technical programme will accommodate more than eight hundred presentations, a record.

The meeting will be held at the Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre in Darling Harbour, within close proximity to the Central Business District and local hotels.

FIG Commission 7 Annual Meeting

FIG Commission 7 Annual Meeting 2009 took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in advance of the Regional Conference in Hanoi, Vietnam from 12th to 16th October (see FIG page January 2010). More than forty delegates from 22 countries participated in the meeting at the excellent Concorde Hotel. Commission chair András Osskó and the chairs of Commission 7 working groups reported on commission activities. National delegates also reported back on new developments in land administration in 2008-2009.The one-day Open Symposium on ‘Progressing towards Ubiquitous Cadastre' attracted two hundred professionals from Malaysia and neighbouring countries alongside international delegates.

The one-day International Open Symposium was, as always, a key event. Many countries and jurisdictions already have in place
or are implementing e-Cadastre. Ensuring efficient and effective delivery of services and benefits requires progress to be continual and ubiquitous; ‘u-Cadastre' is the next horizon.
FIG president Stig Enemark in his keynote ‘Facing the Global Challenges - the Importance of Land Governance and the Significance of Cadastre' provided an overview of the land management paradigm and the importance of land governance in support of the global agenda. Emphasising the significant role of the cadastre in this regard, he said sustainable land administration systems provided clear identification of individual parcels and land rights attached to them. This ‘people-to-land' relationship information was crucial and played a key role in managing a wide range of societal activities, including adaptation to climate change and disaster-risk management.
A full-day technical tour of the Regional Cadastre Office in Malacca was combined with sightseeing.

The next Commission 7 Annual meeting will be held in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic, in September 2010. Proceedings of above reported meeting and open symposium are available on the FIG Commission website.