In post-colonial Côte d'Ivoire, many development projects have been set up as part of land use planning, including the Authority for the Development of the Bandama Valley (AVB). It has contributed to the increase in national energy production and to the development of fishing. But this large-scale project has forced the neighboring villages to forced displacement. The populations received in return the construction of modern housing and plots of land negotiated with host villages. Today, more than fifty years later, land pressure has become strong on the host lands while vast portions have been spared from the extension of the river. We then witness a gradual return of displaced persons to these former sites of their ancestors. In the department of Béoumi, the return of those from Niambrun, Assakra and Yobouêzoué is made difficult by the presence of an urban elite, who occupy an area of more than 2,500 ha. This occupation, considered by the populations as a grabbing, nevertheless dates from the 1980s and whose land registration is hampered by state prohibitions and the opposition of the populations. What does the government say about these supposedly vacant lands considered as spaces not conducive to human settlement at the time of displacement?