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Latin American countries sign legally binding pact to protect land defenders
New treaty compels states to investigate and punish killings and attacks on people defending their land or environment
Officials from 24 Latin American and Caribbean states have signed a legally binding environmental rights pact containing measures to protect land defenders, almost two years to the day since environmental leader Berta Cáceres was killed in her home in Honduras.
Their forefathers were enslaved. Now, 400 years later, their children will be landowners
Rare victory for Brazilian poor, as record Amazon land tract is handed over to descendants of escaped enslaved people
It was a modest ceremony for such a significant victory: it is not every day that the descendants of enslaved people are given the title to their land. But there was no doubt of its importance at a time when the protection of Brazil’s traditional rural communities is threatened by a conservative government in league with powerful agribusiness interests.
Vote in South Africa's parliament moves land reform closer
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - South Africa took a step on Tuesday to hasten the transfer of land from white to black owners when parliament backed a motion seeking to change the constitution to allow land expropriation without compensation.
The ruling African National Congress has long promised reforms to redress racial disparities in land ownership and the subject remains highly emotive more than two decades after the end of apartheid. Whites still own most of South Africa’s land following centuries of brutal colonial dispossession.
Land Rights FM: Community Radio Helps Rural Women Claim What’s Theirs
Kenya’s 2010 constitution guaranteed women extensive land and property rights. But the message wasn’t getting out to the remote communities of the north until a community radio station stepped in.
GARISSA, KENYA – As sun sets on Sankuri village, a group of women take advantage of the dropping temperatures to convene their weekly business meeting.
Govt wants more representation for minority groups
If minority groups have representatives, it helps them to table issues affecting their communities, make decisions in budgeting and distribution of resources.
KAMPALA - Indigenous Peoples (IPs) commonly known as ‘minority tribes’ in Uganda, remain marginalised despite of the various government policies to transform people’s livelihood.
The commissioner culture and family affairs at the gender ministry, Juliana Akonyo Naumo, said many of the IPs remain less educated and are poor compared to other people.
Integrating forests with agriculture crucial to sustainable development
On an alarming note, forest degradation continues even though the global rate of deforestation have halved over the last two decades—from a net annual forest area loss of 7.3 million hectares in 2000 to 3.3 million hectares in 2015.
Welthungerhilfe, Partners Launch Multi-Actor Partnerships on Land
Monrovia – The race for land ownership is one of big issues in Liberia that has been engulfed with multiplicity of problems ranging from insecure land tenure forms and rights; lack of land use database for state, private, and customary lands; weak land administration and management; inadequate concession practices and protective mechanisms to prevent “land-grabbing” amongst others.
These issues are causing serious problems for communities’ dwellers to get land for making their farms particularly in rural areas.
Madhu death: A deeply marginalised section forced to pay terrible price
PALAKKAD: The alienation of land and the government machinery’s failure to provide alternate land to the adivasis of Attappadi even under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) has only led to further marginalisation of these sections. The ghastly incident in which Madhu was fatally assaulted by a group of persons goes to show how vulnerable the 33,000-odd Adivasis of 192 ‘oorus’(tribal hamlet) of Attappadi are in the hands of the mainstream population.
Despite New Laws, Women in Kenya Still Fight For Land Rights
MAGDALENA AKINYI* HAD a feeling something was amiss when, in 2012, total strangers started coming over to survey her land in Kakamega. The 46-year-old mother of four eventually found out that her husband, who was working in Nairobi, had married a second wife and sold the 4 hectares of land that he and Akinyi had purchased together during their 12 years of marriage.
“I confirmed he had sold the land, and I decided to sue them both – my husband and the buyer – for violation of the law, as my husband had not consulted me before selling the land,” Akinyi says.
Land rights essential for peace in Colombia
Colombia - Recognition of collective land tenure rights in Colombia is among the strongest in Latin America: there has been constitutional backing since 1991, and more than 30 million hectares of forests have already been designated as indigenous land. However, this legal protection often falls short of securing rights on the ground.