News on Land

September 1, 2020 (Ezega.com) -- At least 12 people were killed and 10 others wounded in ethnic-based clashes over forest ownership rights in Ale special district in South Nations Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia, an official has said.

• Greenpeace Southeast Asia has identified nearly 3,500 hectares (8,650 acres) of peatland clearing in pulpwood plantations in Sumatra supplying Asian Pulp & Paper.

August 31, 2020 (Ezega.com) -- The Addis Ababa City Administration has faced allegations that it permitted land grabbing and illegally transferred condominium houses in a politically motivated decision.

In a briefing on Monday, Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice (ECSJ) said thousands of square meters of land have been taken illegally over the past months.

The Quezon City government has bought a property in Barangay Bagong Silangan and Payatas  to house some 3,000 informal settlers. 

Mayor Joy Belmonte has signed the deeds of sale of 214,057 square meter property.

(Main photo: Lao agricultural expert Sombath Somphone, who went missing in December 2012, in 2005 file photo. Courtesy of Somphone family)

Kampong Speu provincial police and NGO ACNCIPO director Chea Hean stopped nearly 100 people from grabbing more than 200ha illegally in the Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary on Wednesday.

The incident occurred at the Trapaing Thmea village in Oral district.

(Main photo: a surveyor sits on a construction site in Ningbo, China, on April 26, 2020. Local governments have long offered firms connected to China’s political elite land sale discounts. Photo: Bloomberg)

• Gulzhan Musaeva, an independent financial analyst writes about CIMB’s sustainability commitments. CIMB is Malaysia’s second largest bank and a major leader to regional plantation companies.
• Musaeva argues that CIMB’s reluctance to address the issues associated with forest sector borrowers head-on casts doubt on its sustainability aspirations.

Prime Minister James Marape said in the last 40 years, the government revenue collection through cash payments has been riddled with corruption, nepotism, and mishandling of revenue and that will be changed. He said this when launching the GoLands and eLands online payment system for the Department of Lands in Port Moresby yesterday.