A giant Vietnamese agribusiness company is destroying indigenous land in Cambodia’s Ratanakkiri province, said a joint press release from Equitable Cambodia and Inclusive Development International that was published on Monday.

The human rights groups wrote that many indigenous people in Cambodia’s Ratanakkiri province have been waiting for years for the Vietnamese rubber company, Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL), to finally return their sacred land, as had been promised by a 2015 mediation agreement.

Some 50 people representing more than 100 families locked in a land dispute in Kampong Thom province’s Kraya commune, in Santuk district, travelled to Phnom Penh to submit a petition at the National Assembly, the Prime Minister’s Cabinet and the Ministry of Interior on Monday and Tuesday.

The petitioners, who are also requesting intervention in the land dispute to acquire authorised land titles, accused provincial authorities of an attempt to jail them, but provincial governor Sok Lou denied this.

The Land Portal Foundation’s Sierra Leone Country Portfolio provides a comprehensive understanding of the gaps and pitfalls in the country’s land investments scheme. ​

Sierra Leone is the first of a series of countries to get a new portfolio on the Land Portal. This knowledge piece summarizes the history and development of the country’s land governance system and analyses key elements of this system, such as the land legislation, trends in land use and land acquisition, how women access land rights and more.

• A court in Indonesia has sentenced two indigenous farmers to eight and 10 months in prison respectively for harvesting palm fruit from land whose ownership is contested by the community and a palm oil firm, PT Hamparan Masawit Bangun Persada.
• The ruling appeared to ignore evidence showing that the villagers are the rightful owners of the land; the defendants say they will appeal and also file a lawsuit against the company.

Land issues have forced work for the K2 billion PNG-China Integrated Agriculture Park Project in Korofeigu, outside Goroka town to stop.

Eastern Highlands Governor Peter Numu explained that negotiations led to the idea that the land would be given to the Chinese company.

It is understood that the Department of Agriculture and Livestock was not properly informed on the process and disagreed placed on a misunderstanding that the land had been sold to the Chinese company, believed to be China Railway International.

Hundreds of local residents and monks blocked a national road on June 19 in a protest against a sand dredging company they say is illegally occupying pagoda land.

About 600 residents and monks blocked National Road 6A from about 8 to 9:30am near the site of the sand dredging operation, which was set up along a section of the Mekong River in Kandal province’s Mok Kampoul district in Prek Anhchanh commune.

While indigenous communities in Cambodia stayed home to stem the Covid-19 outbreak, a Vietnamese rubber firm bulldozed their land. Experts say disputes arising from Cambodia's complicated land management system will be difficult to resolve.

When the indigenous Kreung and Kachok communities locked down their villages in Cambodia’s Ratanakiri province in March to keep safe from the novel coronavirus, no one knew change was afoot in their ancestral forest.

“Multinational companies have taken advantage of the COVID-19 Lock Down to continue with impugned violations rendering many homeless, hopeless and starving” ~ statement submitted by lawyers to a Ugandan high court. 

Despite a Ugandan government prohibition on land transactions during COVID-19 lockdown, illegal land evictions and concessions in community territories accelerated. Now the lockdown is gradually being lifted, communities continue to report cases.

Worried by the huge housing deficit estimated at over 17 million, the Group Chief Executive Officer, Oxford Group Nigeria, Teni Adesanya, has tasked the country’s economic managers to pass a law that would make land documentation seamless.
 
Specifically, he said if a bill that will make land documentation as easy as opening an email is passed into law, the country’s housing deficit would be addressed quickly.
   

MARGIBI COUNTY – Communities in Margibi and Bong Counties, represented by Green Advocates International (GAI) and three of its local partners, filed a complaint with the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO), against the operations of the Salala Rubber Corporation (SRC) in Margibi County (Liberia).

CAO is the independent watchdog and accountability mechanism for the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), of the World Bank Group.

The National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) says it has made plans to help 77,400 people set up farms.

According to the agency, the farmers would be drawn from across the 774 local governments areas of the country.

NALDA was created by Ibrahim Babangida, a former military ruler, in 1992 through decree No.92 but in 2000 it was abolished by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

President Muhammadu Buhari resuscitated the agency in May.

Siem Reap provincial deputy governor Ly Samrith expressed concern that land registration plans for residents scheduled to be completed by late 2021 could not be achieved because 80 per cent of the land had not been registered.

Land dispute issues are a major factor that poses a hindrance to the registration process in the province, Samrith said.