News on Land

Such has been their determination to reclaim their rights, particularly land rights, that even the government of Karnataka has acknowledged the force of these women

Her hair is white, her face wrinkled. But her spirits are high as she belies her age to play the drum hanging around her neck. As she twirls round and round, the beating of the drum becomes more frenzied. The message is loud and clear; playing the drum, once considered a symbol of their caste untouchability, is no longer a stigma.

WINDHOEK - There is a need to look at ways on creating avenues that would result in more women occupying roles in traditional authorities. This would address some of the social ills women in rural areas are experiencing because of laws that do not necessarily favour women. 

This is according to Wilhelmina Tameca Gaoses, the project manager for the One World, No hunger project at the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. 

KASSERINE/TUNISIA: Souad Gharsalli lives in a rented flat in the center of Kasserine, in western Tunisia, baking and selling artisanal bread to make money. But she should be growing olive trees for a living, she says.

Gharsalli, 47, grew up with three brothers and six sisters on her family’s 7 hectares (17 acres) of land in the region of Kasserine, on which they grew olive trees and grains.

When their father died in 1997, Gharsalli and her sisters inherited half as much land as their brothers, in accordance with Tunisian law.

If the main purpose of government is to provide for the common security of its citizens, surely ensuring the security of the food system must be among its paramount duties.

The United Nations identifies the food crisis as one of the primary and overarching challenges facing the international community today. It is inter-related in complex ways to the current global economic crisis and the longer-term environmental and climate crises that stand before us.

PENAMPANG: The country’s first indigenous Chief Justice Tan Sri Richard Malanjum may get a “tweak on the ear” when the United Nation Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples makes her official visit to Malaysia.

Senator Adrian Lasimbang said on Monday that Malanjum’s appointment to the top post of the judiciary has been one of the highest recognition to the vulnerable and minority indigenous communities in Malaysia.

He believes the Sabahan’s top judge’s appointment has also been one of the many positives under the new government of the country.

Monrovia – A three-day Experience and Lessons sharing workshop on a range of land tenure topics, including Land Administration Reforms, Customary Land Rights, Land Administration Systems, and Spatial Planning is being convened at a local hotel in Monrovia.

• A still controversial 2012 update to the Brazilian Forest Code that reduced the area required for legal reserves on rural private properties is endangering more than 15 million hectares (57,915 square miles) of Amazon forest, an area roughly the size of the U.S. state of Georgia, according to a recent study.

The claims are by tribal or pastoral communities seeking community rights over forest land they have inhabited for generations.

In El Estor, Guatemala, women lead fight for land rights despite added risk of sexual violence and stigma.

El Estor, Guatemala - Since her teen years, Maria Magdalena Cuc Choc, now 39, has defended the natural resources of El Estor, a predominantly Mayan Q'eqchi' community on the western edge of Lake Izabal. The calm, blue water surrounded by lush forest cover is home to hundreds of species of freshwater fish, lizards, crocodiles, manatees and more.

As the Samburu fight for control over natural resources, Samburu women are demanding to be heard

The Samburu, a pastoralist indigenous tribe from the vast semi-arid and arid rangelands of Northern Kenya, face many of the same challenges as other indigenous communities around the world. They have few opportunities to influence or manage activities that affect their environment, and insufficient information and understanding of their entitlements and rights when large development and infrastructure projects come to do business on their lands.

As data enthusiasts, we believe in the power that data holds and are strong proponents for democratizing information, making it easy to share and reuse. Despite this, data scientists and those working with data in general, often struggle to communicate how and why data are essential and potentially life changing.  The word data often conjures up notions of difficult to understand numbers or facts, information that is out of reach for the general population, meant for data scientists or those carrying out work that requires a certain level of expertise.

Under a land reformation act, millions of farmers across Myanmar could be forced from land they have tilled for generations. Many are unaware of the danger they face. Peter Yeung and Carlotta Dotto report from Yangon.

It took less than a day for Daw Oo Naing's entire banana plantation to be destroyed. A group of 21 men carrying long knives arrived quietly in the morning and made quick work of hacking down her 600 trees, which were still young with tender trunks.