Samoa: Overview
Land holding in Samoa can be classified into three categories; customary, freehold, and public. About 81 percent of Samoa?s land is owned by indigenous people in accordance with traditional customs of land tenure. In Samoa, the leaders of the kinship group called the matai are considered as the owners or administrators of the land. The matai holds the land on behalf of all the members of his group. Ownership is settled by a mix of titles and ancestral transfers. Customary land can be leased to foreigners but cannot be bought nor sold except to government for public purposes.