Deadline: 01/10/2017

“Protecting our land for a prosperous future”

The Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) Working Group on Land Rights Act (LRA) has called on the legislature not to tamper with some of its provisions, saying it would defeat not only the fundamental purpose of the land reform, but also undermine peace, reconciliation, and development in Liberia.

The group is a coalition of CSOs working on community land rights across Liberia that is currently engaging stakeholders and lawmakers on the passage of the Draft Land Rights Act.

Accra, Aug 2, GNA – A two-day workshop has ended in Accra with a call on Queen Mothers to serve as champions in women’s quest to access and control land in their communities.

The workshop, organised by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the National chapter of Transparency was to forge a partnership between civil society and Queen Mothers in promoting women land rights and seek to find solutions and promote gender equity, thus forging closer ties between the citizens and traditional authorities.

Land governance disputes dominate civil and criminal cases in India

The event, titled “Honduras: The Fight for Reparations,” is scheduled to last for 12 days.

A delegation of six Garifunas from Belize are scheduled to travel to the Honduran Caribbean coast on Sunday to learn about Garifuna struggles and victories for land repossession, reparations and other ancestral fights.

Malian men control access to land and decide which parts women are allowed to farm - that's a problem for women as erratic weather increases competition for land and harvests

BOGOSSONI, Mali, May 29 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Anthio Mounkoro has been farming land in Bogossoni for as long as she can remember – but none of it was ever hers.

"The land I've been cultivating my whole life is my father's," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation while meticulously watering a batch of shallots, careful not to waste one drop from the hose.

With detailed field studies from Kenya, Cameroon, Uganda and Namibia, a new report sheds light on the consequences of extractive industries on land rights and indigenous peoples in Africa. “Worrying that so little is done to protect the environment and the indigenous peoples,” says the report.

 

Environmental degradation, cultural ethnocide and gross human rights violations: For indigenous peoples these are some of the consequences of the current global race for natural resources and raw materials.

When bulldozers rolled into their forest at the start of last year, the Ekuri community in southeast Nigeria protested: "Indigenes say no!"

They didn't want a superhighway that would wipe their ancestral lands in the Cross River National Park off the map.

Under pressure, the earthmovers left to do their work elsewhere.

But community spokesman Martin Egot said: "They destroyed all the crops, the source of our wealth: cassava, cocoa, plantain... ."

Colombia’s Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca, ACIN, announced in a press release on Tuesday that recent police aggression involving a firearm resulted in one death and two injuries. 

ACIN claims three police trucks approached a “Liberation of Mother Earth” action in Corinto, dedicated to promoting environmentalism and Indigenous people’s rights to their ancestral lands, and opened fire. 

There are serious concerns that government reforms will further exacerbate land tenure and food insecurity for the majority of the population in Myanmar who rely on their farm fields and forests for their livelihoods.

By: Max Walden 

Date: 10th January 2017

Source: Asian Correspondent 

“THIS is only the beginning,” declared Indonesian President Joko Widodo at a special ceremony at the presidential palace, “[the land being handed back] is still so very small.”