News on Land
Get the latest news on land and property rights, brought to you by trusted sources from across the globe.
China land: Losing the plot
Date: 7 July 2016
Source: Today
Fraught land policy based on collective ownership puts rural life at a crossroads
BEIJING — Among communist China’s holy pilgrimage sites, Xiaogang Village stands out. The tiny place is a living shrine to villagers who defied the party to dismantle disastrous communal farms that left more than 30 million dead from hunger during Mao Zedong’s reign.
Water pans offer lifeline to female farmers in Kenya
To mark world water day, we look at how simple technology to harvest water in semi-arid areas has transformed prospects for Kenyan women
It’s mid-morning and the sun is blazing. It is so hot that germinating seeds struggle to grow.
In Moi Ndabi, about 44km (27 miles) south of Kenya’s Lake Naivasha in Nakuru County, the vegetation dotted sparingly across the village has turned yellow.
Land Rights Now Initiative Supports Civil Society Opposition to Afforestation Bill in India
Source: Land Rights Now Campaign
As India’s upper house is currently debating a controversial afforestation bill, civil society groups across the country are expressing concerns that the bill would do more harm than good.
Extent of Farmland Grabbing in the EU
This study looks at the rise of large-scale land deals, ‘land grabbing’, in the EU. It finds significant evidence that farmland grabbing is underway in the EU today. It discusses a number of the drivers of farmland grabbing in the EU and examines the impacts of farmland grabbing for European food security and food sovereignty, rural employment and vitality, and environmental sustainability. It argues that farmland grabbing, especially when connected to other burning European land issues, calls for a reform of European land governance.
Sierra Leone: Non-state actors demand shorter land leases for multinational investments
via Awoko
Sierra Leone News: NSAs demand 25 years land lease to Multinational Investments
As way to control land use and land lease to multinational foreign companies and ensuring women’s rights to own land, a group of Non-State Actors (NSAs) led by Action Aid have called on government to limit all land leases with multinational investments to 25 years instead of the current 50 years.
Australia: Thousands commemorate Wave Hill walk-off, birth of Indigenous land rights battle
By: Helen Davidson
Date: August 19th 2016
Source: The Guardian
Freedom Day festival celebrates August 1966 strike that kicked off a tradition of Indigenous Australian protest – one that continues at the festival itself
Thousands flocked to the remote Aboriginal community of Kalkarindji on Friday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Wave Hill walk-off.