This issue brief first examines the causes of land-related conflict, then examines how the issues and opportunities change through the conflict cycle: before, during and after violent conflict. This approach gives less attention to staples of the post-conflict land literature such as restitution and dispute management, but provides a more robust understanding of the longer-term challenges that are typically addressed by development rather than relief agencies.
Release Date: Wednesday, March 27, 2013File:  Land Disputes and Land Conflict

USAID's property rights project in Timor Leste plays a key role in helping settle land disputes on the small island in Southeast Asia. A recent article written by IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, describes the history of conflict surrounding land by highlighting one woman's story and outlining current progress to establishing land rights.
To read the full article, click here.

In the Mekong region, conflicts between local communities and large scale land concessions are widespread. They are often difficult to solve. In Cambodia, an innovative approach to conflict resolution was tested in a case involving a private company, Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL), and several indigenous communities who lost some of their customary lands and forests when the company obtained a concession to grow rubber in the Province of Ratanakiri. The approach was developed by CSOs Equitable Cambodia (EC) and Inclusive Development International (IDI) with the support of QDF funding from MRLG.

Bot talks about how land conflicts has decreased in their village.

 

Amlee talks about their peaceful neighbors.

In Rwanda, two factors make land a highly important and contested issue. First,
Rwanda has the highest person-to-land ratio in Africa. This creates tremendous
pressure on land in a country where most of the population lives in rural areas, and
where agriculture remains the central economic activity. Second, Rwanda is recovering
from massive population shifts caused by decades of ethnic strife and the 1994 civil war
and genocide, which resulted in displaced populations and overlapping land claims.

This report presents the findings of the Yanacocha Independent Fact Finding Mission (the “Mission”), conducted between August 2015 and March 2016. The Mission was tasked with examining a conflict between a multinational gold mining company and a local campesino family, in the high Andes of northern Peru. At the root of the conflict is a dispute over a parcel of land called “Tragadero Grande”. Located within the Campesino Community of Sorochuco, Tragadero Grande falls within the footprint of a planned multi-billion dollar mining project called “Conga”.

During revolution and national unification, Vietnamese government nationalized agricultural and forest land throughout the country. While agricultural land was de-collectivized in the Doi moi reforms since mid-1980s, the majority of forest and forest land has continued to be managed by state enterprises. For members of Vietnam’s 53 recognized ethnic minority groups, the formation of state-owned forest enterprises (SFEs) has meant the end of customary tenure arrangements, leading to exclusion from traditional lands used for agriculture, hunting, and collection of non-timber forest products.

Rift Valley Institute PSRP Briefing Paper 14

Disputes over land are a prominent feature of many situations of protracted violent conflict in Burundi, Uganda and South Sudan. Research conducted as part of the programme ‘Grounding Land Governance’ underscores that war reshuffles access and ownership, but also critically changes the ways in which land is governed. Land issues often come to resonate with other conflicts in society, thereby affecting overall stability. This makes interventions in land governance politically sensitive.

India’s ambitious development agenda involves facilitating investment for economic growth, infrastructure development, and social progress. Yet, thousands of investment projects have been stalled to date, raising red flags for the health of the country’s financial regulatory systems, public sector banks, and investment community. While official reasons given for stalled projects remain opaque, deep contestation leading to conflict on public (and private) lands must be better understood as a substantive risk to investments.

Una presentación y descripción de los objetivos, actividades y primeros resultados del Movimiento Regional por la Tierra y Territorio. La meta de reunir mil casos de acceso a la tierra se describe con los procedimientos metodológicos para relatar cada situación.