News on Land

New technologies used to map areas in developing nations for granting titles and aiding development could be misused to further marginalize vulnerable people, analysts and land experts warned on Friday.

From Kenya to the Philippines, authorities are using satellite imagery, drones, GPS navigation systems and artificial intelligence to map customary lands, fix boundaries, and modernize land records to verify ownership and issue titles.

Community rights activist Eakachai Itsaratha recalls his brush with death after being abducted in southern Thailand.

Bangkok, Thailand - As an outspoken community rights activist in a country with one of the worst records of enforced disappearances in the region, Eakachai Itsaratha long understood that one day he too would become a target.

Informal settlements are increasingly emerging in cities in developing countries across the world, including Africa.

Non-ownership of land impacts delivery of government services in Bihar

THE FIRST TIME Sadhu Manjhi was introduced to the idea of having a toilet of his own, he felt his head spin. “A landless man like me! Imagine that,” he told himself.

Sadhu lives in Bihar, where more than three in five rural households have no land as per the 2011 Socio Economic and Caste Census. He is a member of the Musahar caste—one of the state’s most socially and economically backward groups—listed under the larger category of Mahadalits. Sadhu was born partially blind.

The kids are not all right. For more than a year, young activists have been staging climate strikes around the globe. They are about to get much bigger. Sparked by 16-year-old Greta Thunberg in Sweden last year, the school walk-out movement has spread to what organizers hope will be millions of children and adults around the world protesting for action to end the climate crisis.

(MENAFN - The Conversation) I met Meritxell and Laia one bright sunny day in April, in thePallars Sobirà , a mountainous county in the Catalan Pyrenees. Both are women farmers and work in livestock management – Meritxell is a cattle rancher, while Laia herds goats and makes cheese.

Control over land management may be more important than mere legal entitlement when it comes to women’s land rights

Our latest WOLTS publication is a fascinating photo essay from one of our pilot research communities, Mundarara, in Tanzania. The piece by Jim Grabham, titled “Are rubies undermining Maasai culture”, shares insights gleaned from in-depth interviews with two participants in a one-year training programme on gender, land and mining that has been developed and carried out by the HakiMadini and Mokoro WOLTS project team in Tanzania.

What the US faces on its southern border is not a security problem, but a humanitarian crisis, and punishing attempts at deterrence cannot resolve it. Enabling people to stay where they are requires, first and foremost, strengthening their right to be there.

• Indonesian companies were given until March this year to disclose their “beneficial owners” under a 2018 presidential regulation, but less than 1 percent have complied.
• In the easternmost corner of the country, investors hidden by layers of corporate secrecy continue to bulldoze an intact rainforest and have nearly finished building a giant sawmill.

Papua New Guinea out of pocket $157m from failed attempt at mining material from deep-sea vents as opponents point to environmental risk

The “total failure” of PNG’s controversial deep sea mining project Solwara 1 has spurred calls for a Pacific-wide moratorium on seabed mining for a decade.

The company behind Solwara 1, Nautilus, has gone into administration, with major creditors seeking a restructure to recoup hundreds of millions sunk into the controversial project.