The Can Gio Mangrove Biosphere Reserve, located in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City, is one of the world’s largest areas of reforested mangroves.

BY MICHAEL TATARSKI ON 21 APRIL 2020

Mongabay Series: Global Forests

As indigenous groups lock down in villages, trespassers are taking advantage of their absence to steal their land

By Richard Pearshouse, Amnesty International’s head of crisis and the environment, and Jurema Werneck, executive director of Amnesty International Brazil

Land Equity International seeks an experienced and motivated Team Leader to join the Mekong Region Land Governance project team.

Project Background

JAKARTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Indonesia has cut back its planned transfer of state forests to local communities this year by half - an area twice the size of Los Angeles - because of the coronavirus outbreak, according to the Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

Bambang Supriyanto, the ministry’s director general of social forestry and environmental partnership, said social distancing measures from March to June had halted the technical work needed on the ground to certify the handover of land.

• Gulzhan Musaeva, an independent financial analyst writes about CIMB’s sustainability commitments. CIMB is Malaysia’s second largest bank and a major leader to regional plantation companies.
• Musaeva argues that CIMB’s reluctance to address the issues associated with forest sector borrowers head-on casts doubt on its sustainability aspirations.
• “This means that, despite massive exposure to forest-risk sectors,” writes Musaeva, “CIMB, among other Malaysian banks, willfully overlooks its impact on SDG 15 ‘Life on Land’ through financing activities.

Kampong Thom provincial governor Sok Lou said he would investigate a land conflict in Boueng Leav commune, Santuk district, where villagers have accused an agriculture official of destroying their cashew farms. The official claims it was the villagers who illegally occupied the land.

The governor said on Tuesday he could not yet judge which side is right or wrong.

“I will go down to see the place, but I just want to say for now that the location was a protected area and no villagers lived there before.

The (online) course runs between 15 Feb and 05 March 2021 in close collaboration with Freiburg Academy of Continuing Education (FRAUW), UNIQUE Forestry and Land Use & other renowned forest carbon experts (Solidaridad etc.).

IMPORTANT TO KNOW: The course will be held online this year (due to the pandemic restrictions) and there will be reduced fee opportunities for participants without institutional support or with low income.

• Experts have warned that a controversial deregulation act will serve as a springboard for greater corruption in Indonesia’s forestry sector.
• They say a pervasive lack of transparency will allow companies such as plantation operators to whitewash their illegal occupation of forests or take control of larger swaths of land than permitted, among other risks.
• The experts have called for greater transparency, especially on the beneficial ownership of companies, and more detailed guidelines on how to implement the deregulation law.

JA

This month, public sector, private sector and civil society organization partners jointly launched the Accessible Soils And Sustainable Environments (ASASE) project in Ghana. Over the coming four years, this groundbreaking initiative will be working towards an environmentally sustainable future for the cocoa sector, tackling deforestation and working to rehabilitate ageing cocoa farms and restore natural forests.

KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 29): The Energy and Natural Resources Ministry (KeTSA) has achieved a new milestone in forestry management with the adoption of the Malaysian Forestry Policy 2020 which involved consultations among the three regions in the country, namely the Peninsula, Sabah and Sarawak.

Its Minister Datuk Dr Shamsul Anuar Nasarah, in a statement today, said the policy outlined a clear objective for the forestry sector to face new challenges at the domestic and international levels.

Forestry crimes including logging, poaching and encroachment on state forest land for private ownership increased considerably last year despite stricter law enforcement, according to an annual report by the Ministry of Environment.

Ministry spokesman Neth Pheaktra said forest rangers cracked down on 8,917 cases in 2020 compared to just 5,745 the previous year – an increase of 3,442 cases or nearly 40 per cent.

MRLG is hiring a Communications and Event Management for Specialist for the Mekong Region Land Forum 2021.