The Latin American and Caribbean Urban CSO Cluster, part of the Global Land Tools Network (GTLN), together with Habitat for Humanity’s Solid Ground Campaign and the Land Portal Foundation, launched an online debate on Urban Land Conflicts in Latin America and the Caribbean in January 2017. Responding to the common interest to make information easy to access and flow to boost collaboration among stakeholders as a critical basis to improve land governance.

Landesa (strengthening land rights for the world’s poorest people) and Land Portal co‑facilitated the online dialogue on “Responsible investments in land: perspective from Tanzania and globally” from June 5 -16, 2017.

For details on the dialogue follow this link.

Em 2013, o Centro Terra Viva (CTV) iniciou a monitoria dos processos e procedimentos seguidos pelas instituições do Estado para o licenciamento ambiental e de uso da terra de empreendimentos económicos que recaem sobre as áreas ocupadas pelas comunidades locais. O projecto da fábrica de liquefacção do gás natural, a ser implantado pela Anadarko no distrito de Palma, em Cabo Delgado, marcou o arranque desta actividade. A partir de 2015, a instituição pretende estender este tipo de acções a outros pontos do país.

Through collecting data on large-scale land transactions, the Land Matrix increases transparency to foster accountability of investors and other parties involved in large-scale land transactions. The Land Matrix aims to contribute in an innovative and relevant way to the growing movement towards open development - allowing for greater public involvement in critical decisions that affect the lives of land-users around the world.

The LM Africa Focal Point developed a detailed profile of large-scale land acquisitions in Tanzania.

Chiefly an agricultural society, India has a strong linkage between land and social status of an individual. Nearly 70 % of its population dependent on land, either as farmers or farm laborers and it is imperative to address the issues of land ensuring livelihood, dignity and food security to millions of Indians. Land reform was a major policy initiative in the country in 1950s and early 1960s.

Media reports over the years have increasingly used the term “land grabbing:”

- Post Newspaper, 29th August 2000 - MMD cadres grabbing land in Kabangwe and Chazanga area of Chieftainess Mungule.
-Post Newspaper, April 15, 2010 - MMD cadres led by the Lusaka Provincial Chairman grabbing land from Ngombe resident

-Times of Zambia, 29th November 2002 - investors in tobacco farming grabbing land from poor villagers in Chipata, Kasenengwa and Chipangali constituencies in Eastern Province.

Land is an important source of identity and a precious asset with significant emotional connection in India. It is also the main source of rural and feudal power structure for most of India’s history. Land is a symbol of social status, cultural identity and an expression of political power. The value of land is deeply ingrained in the consciousness and well-being of the poor farmers and indigenous communities who make up a substantial portion of India’s total population.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: In recent years, various actors, from big foreign and domestic corporate business and finance to governments, have initiated a large-scale worldwide enclosure of agricultural lands, mostly in the Global South but also elsewhere. This is done for large-scale industrial and industrial agriculture ventures and often packaged as large-scale investment for rural development.

The objective of this background paper is to provide a succinct description of the land tenure situation in Cambodia and, on that basis, discuss the needs smallholder farmers have for land, projected up to the year 2030.

The Lao Land and Forest Allocation Policy (LFAP) was intended to provide clearer property rights for swidden farmers living in mountainous areas. These lands are legally defined as “State” forests but are under various forms of customary tenure. The policy involves demarcating village territorial boundaries, ecological zoning of lands within village territories, and finally allocating a limited number of individual land parcels to specific households for farming.

Over the past decade, Laos has experienced a land rush by foreign investors seeking to gain large tracts of land for hydropower, mining, and plantation projects. The rapid pace of the phenomenon has prompted signif icant concern by international observers, Lao civil society, and certain sections of the government, regarding the impacts upon farmers that are dispossessed of their land and communal resources. However, both investors and peasant communities alike have differing experiences with the investment process.

Thirty years after Cambodia’s ‘democratization’ by the United Nations Transitional Authority (UNTAC), the transition to a market-based economy is raging at full steam. Democracy remains elusive, but policy interventions from Cambodia’s “development partners” color the political, social, and environmental landscapes. This paper attends to the land grabs characteristic of market transitions and to the climate change mitigation strategies currently enhancing conflicts over land and resources in contemporary Cambodia.