Remove former area of land (7)
I believe the answer is:
extract
'remove' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'former area of land' is the wordplay.
'former' becomes 'ex'.
'area of land' becomes 'tract' (I've seen this before**).
'ex'+'tract'='EXTRACT'
(Other definitions for extract that I've seen before include "Short sample" , "Draw out by force" , "Draw out - distillation" , "Lift from book" , "Pluck out" .)