This year, as the world celebrates World Earth Day on the 22nd April 2020, Fairtrade Africa is highlighting its stakeholder collaboration towards climate action.

The people of Ajaji community in Illah, Oshimili North Local Government Area of Delta State, are not happy with the state government. Right under their nose, the state government allegedly leased out a large chunk of their land to a private firm with interest in agriculture.

Trouble started several years ago when Delta was yet to be carved out of the defunct Mid-West  Region. At the time, there was a land dispute between three communities, including Ajaji in Illah, Ogbe-Onihe in Akwukwu-Igbo and Ugbolu.

For a commercial farm investor, who by profession is an agricultural economist, putting his money and energy into commercial farming demonstrates keen interest. Not only was he born into a family of farmers who have been involved in the development of commercial farms but he too has been involved in sectors that are more close to his passion and ambition.

CENTRAL Governor Robert Agarobe is advising villagers to use the state of emergency period to farm their land.
Agarobe called on villagers to concentrate on farming instead of travelling to town to buy sugar and rice which was also putting themselves at risk of being infected by the coronavirus.
He said eating fresh food from the garden was better than buying junk food from the shops.
“It could be a good way too for young people to learn their traditional way of living by making gardens, growing crops and storing them for later use,” he said.

New report alleges mine caused environmental devastation and ongoing health problems for communities

Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto is accused of being responsible for “multiple human rights violations” after its Panguna mine on the island of Bougainville left people with a dangerous legacy of poisoned water, polluted fields and a ruined river valley, according to a damning report from the Human Rights Law Centre.

Ethiopia's Mursi tribe says they were imprisoned and tortured to protect Chinese sugar plantations.

OMO VALLEY, Ethiopia — One night, in his village of 20 grass huts in Ethiopia’s Omo Valley, Golonkiwo had a nightmare. As a komoru, or mystic of the Mursi tribe, Golonkiwo’s duty is to receive and interpret dream prophecies. It is a vital role, passed down from father to son in one of the world’s oldest surviving cultures.

“In my dream, I saw the government soldiers coming for us,” Golonkiwo stated. “They killed a lot of people.”

It has been more than a decade since 64-year old Khorn Khorn lost three hectares of land to a close ally of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.

PHNOM PENH — 

It has been more than a decade since 64-year old Khorn Khorn lost three hectares of land to a close ally of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. The controversial senator Ly Yong Phat wanted the holding to expand a sugarcane plantation in Kampong Speu province.

A study by the Global Mechanism of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has examined how SDG target 15.3 on achieving a land degradation neutral world contributes to the strategic objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The study identifies several layers of convergence between the two Conventions.

• Indigenous communities and human rights NGOs contend that Pluspetrol violated a set of business standards issued by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
• The complaint, delivered March 11 in the Netherlands, says the company has avoided paying taxes and has failed to address damage to the environment in the Peruvian Amazon caused by its oil-drilling activities through 2015.

Residents of Rutile say they lack basic electricity and good roads. The absence of those amenities in Rutile have affected the lives of thousands of people and a host of small and medium enterprises.

Young people should focus on agriculture, said the Minister of Youth Affair (MOYA), Mohamed Orman Bangura. According to the International Labour Organization data in 2019, the estimated youth unemployment rate in Sierra Leone was at 84.9% and 85.9% in 2018. The Ministry of Youth and the World Food Program (WFP) recently signed an MOU to encourage youth a agriculture project. One of the opportunities the Minister highlighted was through agriculture the economy would stabilize in chiefdoms and districts. He also added agriculture will create jobs for the youth.

Marina, a 50-year-old farmer and human rights defender from Colombia’s mountainous Catatumbo region, has never known peace. Dotted with lime-green coca plantations, this fertile but remote area near the Venezuela border has suffered decades of conflict between the army, paramilitaries and multiple guerrilla groups, two of which killed Marina’s father and brother when she was a child.