As Unidades de Conservação cobrem 22% da Amazônia Legal e são uma estratégia eficaz para conservar animais, plantas e serviços ambientais, conter o desmatamento e manter o equilíbrio climático do Planeta. Contudo, as taxas de desmatamento em UCs vêm aumentando – em 2015 já superava a de 2012 em 79% –, assim como sua participação no desmatamento total da Amazônia, que passou de 6% em 2008 para 12% em 2015.

Global demand for timber, agricultural commodities, and extractives is a significant driver of deforestation worldwide. Transparent land-concessions data for these large-scale commercial activities are essential to understand drivers of forest loss, monitor environmental impacts of ongoing activities, and ensure efficient and sustainable allocation of land.

Land is one of the terrains of struggle for most rural women in Africa because of its importance in sustaining rural livelihoods, and social-cultural and geopolitical factors that hinder women from enjoying land rights. Even when there are progressive land laws, as it is for Tanzania, women have not really enjoyed their rights. However, this has not stopped women to keep fighting for their land rights.  They have sought their own approaches by leveraging opportunities within traditional, religious, and formal systems standing for their rights. 

Kenya’s Vision 2030 aims at transforming the country into a newly industrialized middle income country

and infrastructural development is high on the agenda to achieve this. Competing land uses and existing

interests in land make the use of eminent domain by government in acquiring land inevitable. However

most of the land earmarked for compulsory acquisition comprises of un- registered land whose interests

This paper describes the development of a Land Information Management System (LIMS) for County Governments in Kenya. In the new Constitution 2010, devolution of some national government functions and formation of county governments was provided for. These invoked the development of new land laws to guide the devolution processes and procedures. According to the County Government Act 2012, all County Governments are supposed to develop digital Geographic Information System (GIS) based spatial plans and these calls for development of LIMS for and efficient breakthrough.

The need for affirmative action and the mainstreaming of the commons community plus a comprehensive strategy to secure indigenous and community land has become a major global concern of the 21st century. To achieve this will require out of the box reform mechanisms and the participation of the communities concerned, such that the reforms recognize and embrace indigenous systems and structures that offer avenues to secure collective rights, land use and management of commons resources; namely pastures, water and forests among others.

Agriculture is an important engine for economic growth in Africa, but effective agricultural strategies to support rural development and poverty alleviation are scarce. State investment in the small-scale farming sector is minimal and the entrepreneurial family farm sector remains underrepresented. Meanwhile, large-scale land investments are advocated as means to bring capital to rural areas and stimulate development.

The last decade has witnessed a raft of political and legal reforms in Kenya and the efforts have paid dividends. Kenya is experiencing an unprecedented surge in foreign direct investments in varied infrastructure projects. In most cases the projects are situate in rural areas creating a buzz of excitement and igniting opportunities for poverty reduction initiatives directly or indirectly.

La Estrategia Nacional de Manejo de Cuencas Hidrográficas se enmarca en el Plan Estratégico Institucional (PEI) del MAG, denominado “Agricultura para el Buen Vivir” (una de cuyas prioridades sentar las bases para la adaptación del sector agropecuario al cambio climático) y en los lineamientos plasmados en el Plan Quinquenal de Desarrollo 2014-2019, que establece en su Objetivo 7 la ejecución de acciones que permitan al país transitar hacia una economía y sociedad ambientalmente sustentable y resilientes a los efectos del cambio climático.

Since the end of the Cold War, natural resources have assumed an increasingly prominent role in security, conflict, and peace studies. Scholars and development practitioners alike view the development of strong institutions, which aim to domesticate global regulatory regimes that foster neoliberal principles like privatization, transparency, and accountability, as necessary to mitigate natural resource conflict in resource-rich states, as well as enhance opportunities for peace and social justice.

Looking at several large-scale land deals in Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia, this extraordinary documentary highlights the nuanced impacts of these investments. Small-scale farmers and producers, national government officials, and African policy-makers unpack the deals, showing that there are winners and losers when providing investors access to large tracts of land in Africa. For example, land deals impact differently on women and youth, and altering land regimes also impacts on access to other natural resources such as water, fish, and local indigenous vegetables.

This guidebook provides conceptual, legal and practical tools and resources to help civil society organizations guide communities through the process of documenting customary tenure at the local level. It also provides suggestions for how to build on the momentum generated by the documentation process to develop strategies and actions to defend, strengthen and promote customary rights at community, regional and national level. The guidebook was developed out of practical experience and conversations with local groups in Myanmar that have been documenting customary tenure.