Tropical countries are now facing increasing global pressure to conserve tropical forests, while having to maintain cultivated lands (particularly shifting cultivation) for the subsistence of local people. To accomplish the effective conservation of tropical forests in harmony with subsistence shifting cultivation, we evaluated the influence of shifting cultivation on ecosystem services (i.e., biodiversity and carbon stock) at a landscape level based on three land-use scenarios.

The Deputy Minister of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR), addressed the Committee on the motivation for the amendments to the Extension of security of tenure (land) Amendment Bill, saying the fundamental resolve was to overcome decades of hardship in South Africa. Its redress was not about obsolete political stories, but about the creation of just opportunities.

The Committee was briefed by the Financial and Fiscal Commission (FFC) on the expenditure trends and performance of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) and its entities for 2014/15 and the first quarter of the 2015/16 financial year.

The preservation, development and sustainable use of agricultural land are of vital importance to ensure long-term food security. On a global level, food security is closely linked to Goal 1 of the Millennium Development Goals, namely to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by, amongst others, halving, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

The Department of Land Affairs introduced the Provision of Land and Assistance Amendment Bill and explained that this Bill was intended as an administrative piece of legislation to supplement the provisions of the principal Act. Currently, in terms of that Act, the Department was authorised to acquire land, but was not authorised to acquire the immovable property essential to the proper use of that land – such as irrigation schemes, plant and equipment, farming implements or livestock. Without having those powers, the Department could not fulfil its functions properly.

The extent of land dispossession of the indigenous population in South Africa, by Dutch and British settlers, was greater than any other country in Africa, and persisted for an exceptionally long time. European settlement began around the  Cape of Good Hope in the 1650s and progressed northwards and eastwards over a period of three hundred years.

At the end of Apartheid, approximately 82 million hectares of commercial farmland (86% of total agricultural land, or 68% of the total surface area) was in the hands of the white minority (10.9% of the population), and concentrated in the hands of approximately 60,000 owners (Levin and Weiner 1991: 92). Over thirteen million black people, the majority of them poverty-stricken, remained crowded into the former homelands, where rights to land were generally unclear or contested and the system of land administration was in disarray (Hendricks 1990; Cousins 1996; Lahiff 2000).

As Myanmar’s junta prepared to step down from government, the military set about seizing public assets and natural resources to ensure its economic control in a new era of democratic rule.

Guns, Cronies and Crops details the collusion at the heart of operations carried out by Myanmar’s armed forces in northeastern Shan State. Large swathes of land were taken from farming communities in the mid-2000s and handed to companies and political associates to develop rubber plantations.

...Beginning in December 2010, Burmese Navy Unit No. 43, under the
command of Ka Dike-based government navy regional command head
quarters, began to confiscate the rubber plantations and household plots of
villagers on Kywe Thone Nyi Ma Island, Yebyu Township, Tennaserim
Division. Since then, all land on which red signboards were placed by the
navy has been confiscated. This report documents the confiscation of over
1,000 acres of land on Kywe Thone Nyi Ma Island. However, HURFOM found

Introduction: "Rural
community
is
one
of
the
strengths
in
country
building.

In
a
nation-­‐state
administrative
policy

changes

are
followed
by
economic
policy
changes,
then
by
changes
in
livelihood
strategies.

To

Land grabs demonstrate disconnect between development discourse and practice:

...There are many good books and resources on sustainable agriculture and
we have learnt much from them. However refugees are constrained in their
agricultural practices due to limited access to land, water and other resources.
This Handbook attempts to present a summary of simple adaptations of ideas
found in other books, manuals and resources on sustainable agriculture.
This Handbook is not a textbook as such, but a compilation of different
subjects for people to pick and choose. We know that it is not complete and