BONN, Germany (Landscape News) — The devolution of land tenure rights to forest-dwelling communities over the past quarter century has led to the development of entrepreneurial initiatives with substantial positive socio-economic outcomes for livelihoods, according to a leading scientist.
NAIROBI - Chiefs across Liberia are petitioning lawmakers while activists prepare for a sit-in protest in the nation's capital as they push to secure ancestral land rights, regarded as key to averting renewed bloodshed in the resource-rich country.
About 100 women marched on the presidential palace last week to kick off a campaign to amend the Land Rights Act (LRA), a watered-down version of which was passed by the House of Representatives in August, after years of delay, activists said.
Hundreds of people gathered on Samoa's biggest island on Saturday to protest the abuse of customary land rights.
A spokesperson for the Samoa Solidarity International Group said 700 people came from across Savai'i to push for a repeal of the Lands and Titles Registration Act 2008.
According to Unasa Iuni Sapolu, the act allows communally held customary lands to be leased to third parties without the consent of all landowners.
She said this alienated some of the owners from their land and the opportunities it offered.
BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The brutal rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in India, that has triggered massive protests, highlights nomadic tribes’ vulnerability and lack of land rights, activists said.
According to the police, the girl was kidnapped, gang raped and killed in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir as part of a plot by Hindu residents to evict her nomadic Bakkarwal community from a village where they had temporarily settled.
Mekong Region Land Governance launches an updated guidebook for documenting customary tenure in Myanmar on 9 March in Yangon.
This second edition of “Documenting Customary in Myanmar: A Guidebook” includes:
On February 14th we will examine the most effective strategies to combat women’s diminishing land rights within communities.
Individual titling is the most commonly accepted strategy for protecting women’s land rights, but it it is not without its problems. It can lead to increased domestic violence or result in women being run off their land. The webinar's guest presenters -- Rachael Knight of Namati and Judy Adoko of Land and Equity Movement of Uganda (LEMU) -- suggest a more effective strategy.
Families forced to relocate due to the construction of the Lower Sesan II Dam are asking Stung Treng provincial authorities to register their new village as indigenous collective lands.
The 67 families from Sre Ko commune received authorisation to set up the new village on their community forest and ancestral lands after their old homes were flooded in October when a gate to the controversial hydropower dam was closed.
They are now seeking indigenous collective land status to protect themselves from being displaced by future development.
Samoans around the world are to petition the government to uphold the protection of customary land rights.
The Samoa Observer reported members of the Samoan Solidarity International Group will present the petition when parliament opens on the 23rd of this month.
Group member Unasa Iuni Sapolu says they want the 2008 Lands and Titles Act to be repealed.
With a population of 163 million people and an area of only 147,570 square kilometers, Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Land scarcity, insecure tenure, and other factors have contributed to a high volume of land conflicts. Such problems are compounded by Bangladesh’s weak land governance systems, extensive informal settlements in urban areas and widespread landlessness in rural areas.
SARAWAK'S last nomadic tribe, the Penan, have again pressed the state government to recognise their customary rights to land and a forest sanctuary they want called Baram Heritage Forest, by presenting to the government a “detailed community map” 15 years in the making.
A group of nine Penan chiefs, led by Ajeng Kiew, a penghulu of Baram Sungai Patah, flew from the remotest parts of Baram to present the set of 23 maps to Deputy Chief Minister Douglas Uggah Embas last Friday at the state legislative assembly building.
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