News on Land

• Renewables account for more than 38 per cent of overall capacity as country tries to wean itself off coal

China’s renewable power capacity rose 12 per cent in 2018 compared to a year earlier, official data showed on Monday, with the country still rolling out new projects despite transmission capacity concerns and a growing subsidy payment backlog.

China has been aggressively promoting renewable power as part of an “energy revolution” aimed at easing its dependence on coal, a major source of pollution and climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

Historically, farmland could be used for solar or for farming - not both. But that could change

WASHINGTON, Jan 28 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Nathan L'Etoile and Caroline Taylor are both passionate about preserving farmland, but they differ over a question being posed across the United States: should farmers devote some, or even all, of their land to solar energy?

Clashes between unidentified armed groups forced 263 families to leave their homes.

Over 700 Indigenous and Afro-Colombians from eight communities have been displaced in Tumaco, Colombia, forced out of their homes by violent clashes between unidentified armed groups on Jan. 16.

Thousands of people were killed and tens of thousands uprooted from their homes in the war, which ended in 2009

BANGKOK, Jan 25 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - More than 100 Sri Lankan Tamil families demanding the return of their land nearly 10 years after the end of a civil war, plan to occupy their former homes on Saturday if the government does not hand over the properties as agreed.

The Juha Sipilä administration has withdrawn draft legislation from the Finnish Parliament that would strengthen Sámi rights.

The cabinet said on Thursday in a letter to the Parliament that it would withdraw a 2014 bill intended to ratify an international agreement on the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples.

As climate change is increasingly recognized as a “threat multiplier” by scientists, political representatives, and civil society across the world, the United Nations Security Council held an open debate on Friday to discuss its concrete impact on peace and security, and focus on tangible ways to diminish the effects of global warming.

Can you still remember the spirit of excitement and hope engulfing the global community at the end of 2015? Not only had it come together in Paris to adopt an agreement to limit global temperature rise to well below 2°C, it also adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a set of 17 comprehensive Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to achieve prosperity for people and planet by 2030.

Claim coastal lands are being monetised through tourism

Various fishermen’s organisations on Wednesday demanded a Fishers Rights Act to protect interests of the marine fishermen, the communities which are not into active fishing, the coastal communities who depend on it and the coastal poor.

Such an Act would safeguard their lands, livelihood rights and habitat, said Jesurethinam Christy, convenor, Coastal Action Network (CAN).

A total of 42 people - including government officials - have been accused of orchestrating a corrupt land reform project worth hundreds of millions of rand.

A damning report for the Special Investigative Unit (SIU) has uncovered a huge network of fraud relating to land reform projects in South Africa, casting a shadow over the future of the ANC’s land redistribution plans.

• A report released by Global Witness late last year alleges that Liberia’s forestry laws are being “hijacked” by logging companies.
• These logging companies can potentially put vast areas of Liberia’s remaining rainforests at risk of large-scale deforestation.
• There’s historical precedent for the concerns under the current law: in 2012, Liberia was rocked by a scandal over permits meant to enable private landowners to enter into logging agreements with outside parties.

When Liberia emerged from its civil war in 2003, one of the fi

The TZK'AT Network of Ancestral Healers of Community Feminism from Ixmulew in Guatemala was formed in October 2015 to defend Indigenous women's rights and the land.

Many of its members are healers, midwives, and herbalists.

More than 8,000 residents of Shimoni in Kwale County want 700 title deeds issued last year by the government revoked.

Speaking to the Nation in Shimoni on Wednesday, the locals from eight villages said the issuance process was flawed and a new one should be initiated.

They said a complete survey to nullify other two previous surveys done on their land must be carried.