News on Land

Peace-building nongovernment organization (NGO) International Alert Philippines (IAP) has expressed alarm over what it described as “raging conflicts” over land and natural resources in the Bangsamoro amid the Covid-19 pandemic in the last two months.

The group has been monitoring events in conflict areas, particularly Mindanao, through its critical events monitoring system (CEMS) bulletin.

WASHINGTON, June 26, 2020 – Around 750,000 people are expected to gain improved land tenure security and stable property rights through a new project that will facilitate land titles for over 1.3 million hectares of land that was granted as part of the Philippines’ Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

A giant Vietnamese agribusiness company is destroying indigenous land in Cambodia’s Ratanakkiri province, said a joint press release from Equitable Cambodia and Inclusive Development International that was published on Monday.

The human rights groups wrote that many indigenous people in Cambodia’s Ratanakkiri province have been waiting for years for the Vietnamese rubber company, Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL), to finally return their sacred land, as had been promised by a 2015 mediation agreement.

…says women most affected over non-inclusiveness

Environmental Right Action/ Friends of the Earth, ERA/FoEN have asserted that the incident of land grabbing and deforestation was becoming increasingly alarming in various Cross River communities.

Some 50 people representing more than 100 families locked in a land dispute in Kampong Thom province’s Kraya commune, in Santuk district, travelled to Phnom Penh to submit a petition at the National Assembly, the Prime Minister’s Cabinet and the Ministry of Interior on Monday and Tuesday.

The petitioners, who are also requesting intervention in the land dispute to acquire authorised land titles, accused provincial authorities of an attempt to jail them, but provincial governor Sok Lou denied this.

Barely a month after his appointment, Local Government and Chieftainship Minister Samuel Rapapa has dissolved the Land Administration Authority' board accusing it of failing to adhere to good corporate governance practices.

He did not say what corporate governance practices had been violated.

The Land Portal Foundation’s Sierra Leone Country Portfolio provides a comprehensive understanding of the gaps and pitfalls in the country’s land investments scheme. ​

Sierra Leone is the first of a series of countries to get a new portfolio on the Land Portal. This knowledge piece summarizes the history and development of the country’s land governance system and analyses key elements of this system, such as the land legislation, trends in land use and land acquisition, how women access land rights and more.

BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Chinese tech giant Tencent is creating a “smart city” that utilises technology to put people and the environment first, a model that could be applied to other urban developments after the coronavirus, the project’s architect said on Wednesday.

Net City will be a 2 million square metre (21.5 million square feet) neighbourhood in the southeastern city of Shenzhen, comprising Tencent offices and residences for its employees, as well as public amenities such as parks and a waterfront area.

• A court in Indonesia has sentenced two indigenous farmers to eight and 10 months in prison respectively for harvesting palm fruit from land whose ownership is contested by the community and a palm oil firm, PT Hamparan Masawit Bangun Persada.
• The ruling appeared to ignore evidence showing that the villagers are the rightful owners of the land; the defendants say they will appeal and also file a lawsuit against the company.

A MAJOR land dispute involving Rachel Marape, wife of Prime Minister James Marape, and a Motu Koitabu family may soon be the subject of a court debacle specically over the land title. Businesswoman Beatrice Geita took to social media last week “crucifying” Mrs Marape for allegedly obtaining a land title on top of their title for a small area behind the bike track, they built few houses and a liquor shop from their family portion of land outside of Port Moresby city in the Central province.

Resort operators in Wang Nam Khieo district in Nakhon Ratchasima province, a popular holiday spot where several resorts face charges of encroaching upon public forest land, have welcomed Deputy Agricultural Minister Thamanat Prompow's proposal to let them rent Sor Por Kor land plots.

The operators said the policy will create jobs for local people and help the tourism industry.

Like different land management systems across the world, land management systems varied in different territories.