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The Land Portal Foundation Helping to Build AGROVOC Community of Experts for LandVoc Scheme with Online Course and One-Day Workshop in 2020

20 December 2019

The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations will work together with The Land Portal Foundation to create a community of experts for AGROVOC’s LandVoc scheme, enriching AGROVOC’s content, relevancy and use for the land and agricultural sector with an online course, along with a one-day workshop in May, 2020.


Land conference ends with call for actions to help root corruption out of sector

29 November 2019

The 2019 Conference on Land Policy in Africa ended in Abidjan Friday November 29th with academic institutions pledging to work with traditional leaders in coming up with solutions to land governance challenges on the continent in an effort to root corruption out of the land sector.

Stakeholders attending the five-day conference made various calls at the end of the meeting but perhaps the most profound one was by the continent’s traditional leaders who made a commitment to review cultural practices and beliefs that have long denied women access to land.

Smart solar pumps use big data to stop Africa being sucked dry

17 December 2019

The pumps' sensors record real-time data such as energy usage and pump speed in each location, which is then used to calculate groundwater extraction rates and levels


NAIROBI - High-tech solar pumps mapping underground freshwater reservoirs across Africa are collecting data that can help prevent them running dry, the project's developers said on Tuesday.


Time for more action on women land rights

16 December 2019

As the country marks 56 years of independence, there is little to celebrate on the steps taken by the government to protect women land rights.

Land access is still a privilege to most women in rural areas. The quest for gender equality on land access and ownership brought forth several reforms. 

The big win was the 2010 Constitution that was a game-changer on matters gender equality and non-discrimination on land rights.

Colla Indigenous leader criminalized for resisting Canadian mining projects in Chile

16 December 2019

Ercilia Araya is the President of  Pai-Ote, a Colla Indigenous community of 60 people in the Atacama Region of Northern Chile.  Since 2014, Ercilia has been criminalized and harassed for defending her community’s land rights against mining projects, and denouncing the pollution of sacred water sources in the Andes.

The ancestral territory of Pai-Ote is of great mineral wealth and includes the “Maricunga Strip”, one of the most important gold districts in the country. At least a dozen gold mining projects, most of them Canadian, are operating there.

Death threats for defending land and water from a coal mine: Force of Wayúu Women in Colombia

16 December 2019

Members of the organization Fuerza de Mujeres Wayúu (Force of Wayúu Women) have received death threats and been subject to defamation and stigmatization for opposing the harmful effects of a mining project in La Guajira, Colombia.

Force of Wayúu women is part of a group of four organizations that filed a nullity claim for the environmental license granted to the multinational company Carbones de El Cerrejón, which owns one of the largest open pit coal mining mines in the world. The presence of the mine in the region has had a devastating effect on the quality of li

Sign the petition: Call on President Duterte to release the ‘Compostela 5’ and protect land rights defenders and the environment in The Philippines

16 December 2019

Ranked as a country most vulnerable to the impact of climate change, The Philippines is also the most dangerous place in the world to defend land rights and the environment. President Duterte’s government has enabled seizures of Indigenous lands by an environmentally damaging gold and copper mining project. When communities stand up to defend their land, they face threats, intimidation, criminalisation and even murder.

Serving a seven year prison sentence for defending the Cahabón River

16 December 2019

Bernardo Caal is an indigenous Q’eqchi leader from Guatemala currently serving a seven year prison sentence. His crime? Defending the Cahabón River, one of the largest in the country, against two hydroelectric dams.  

The river is of plays a central role in the lives of 195 Q’eqchi communities in the municipality of Santa María de Cahabón, in the department of Alta Verapáz. Today it is under threat from seven hydroelectric projects that have already destroyed hectares of primary forests and hills that are sacred to the Q’eqchi.  

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