Officials at the Land Management Ministry declined to accept a petition from nearly 1,000 protesters who had gathered outside the building on September 21 to demand a resolution to their long-running land disputes in several provinces. 

The villagers from Koh Kong, Tbong Khmum and Svay Rieng provinces were demonstrating to mark the United Nations’ International Day of Peace, representing more than 7,000 families embroiled in conflicts over a total of more than 12,000 hectares of land.

Sustainable peace is not divorced from justice, which involves the elimination of unacceptable political, economic and cultural forms of discrimination. It behoves on the Federal Government, the National Assembly, Benue State Government and the House of Assembly in the State, traditional and religious, as well as civil society organisations (CSOs) to create peace-building structures which would proactively respond to early-warning signs of conflict. 

• Conflict over how best to protect the biodiversity of Myanmar’s Tanintharyi region may be contributing to the rapid loss of its forest cover.
• Habitats of globally threatened species, including the critically endangered Gurney’s pitta and recently discovered geckos, face destruction due to logging, agriculture and other human pressures.
• Researchers fear that entire species may be driven to extinction without ever being documented if habitats aren’t protected fast.

Preah Vihear Provincial Court prosecutor Phy Sithorng issued a summons for four forest activists to appear in court on September 14 over charges of incitement to commit a felony after PNT Co Ltd filed a complaint against them concerning a 2015 land dispute.

The summons ordered Khem Sokhy, 36; So Thal, 45; Vong Sok Khengly, 46; and San Reth, 62, to appear in court. All of the suspects are men and residents of Ruosroan commune’s Russey village in Rovieng district.

September 1, 2020 (Ezega.com) -- At least 12 people were killed and 10 others wounded in ethnic-based clashes over forest ownership rights in Ale special district in South Nations Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia, an official has said.

“Gunmen killed 12 persons and wounded several others in pre-arranged attacks in Gerama and Guroze localities in Ale district,” Government Communication Affairs Head of the district Sawra Gebeyehu told local media.

In the six months since the coronavirus began its global spread, more than 15 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and more than 600,000 have perished. Governments around the world have instituted lockdowns and shut down businesses. Entire industries have been devastated, notably travel, hospitality, and entertainment in the formal sector, and day labor and street and market vendors in the informal sector. Overall, hundreds of millions of people worldwide have lost their livelihoods.

(Main photo: Lao agricultural expert Sombath Somphone, who went missing in December 2012, in 2005 file photo. Courtesy of Somphone family)

The 10^th annual International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearance Sunday offers a fresh reminder that Laos has done little or nothing to investigate citizens, including a highly respected development expert, who have vanished in the communist Southeast Asian nation, human rights groups said.

In this land news update from South Africa we focus on:

• Our changing Covid 19 context
• The unresolved problem of farm worker evictions
• Budget cuts and food insecurity
• Contestation over land administration in communal areas in KwaZulu-Natal province
• The need for a digital deeds registry platform
• Unresolved land restitution disputes
• The  complex backstory behind mounting land occupations in Cape Town
• A selection of land related news from Southern Central and Eastern Africa 

Main photo: new high-rise apartments are under construction in villages around Heze, in eastern China's Shandong province. Rural residents say these complexes are too expensive, too far away from their fields and ill-suited for farmers (Amy Cheng/NPR)

A farmer from Shandong province along China's east coast, Liu recalls how during Chinese Lunar New Year in January, he went out for a walk and came home to discover local officials preparing to demolish his home.

Tbong Khmum provincial police plan to release 20 of 21 protestors on Wednesday, after they were detained for occupying land owned by a Chinese company in Dambe district’s Trapaing Pring commune.

The release comes after two days of questioning.

One man will continue to be detained and sent to court based on a complaint by the company, Harmony Win Investment Co Ltd.

More than 100 policemen surrounded the disputed land on Monday, removing sheds and tents and evicting those living there.

Main photo: People protest in front of the Dambe district hall in Tbong Khmum province on October 18, 2019. (Supplied)

Twenty villagers engaged in a dispute with a rubber plantation over more than 400 hectares of land in Tbong Khmum province were released from custody on Tuesday after they were arrested the day before for allegedly damaging the company’s land-clearing machinery, an official said.