The effectiveness of sustainable land use governance can be undermined if local affected people perceive land-use policies as not reflecting social objectives, or as ‘unjust.’ To transform externally-conceived sustainability principles from the international level into on-the-ground practice, involves the interplay of various organizations and peoples from the government, civil society, and the private sector.

Environmental policy interventions often result in conflicts because they fail to recognize people’s identity and sense of belongings, as shaped through the places where they live. A recent paper explores a case study of a palm oil project in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, in which competing claims of recognition and land rights have led to conflict between transmigrants and indigenous Kutai people.

This commentary was written by Anna Malindog-Uy for the ASEAN Post and selected as one of the top stories of 2020

Main photo: this file photo shows an armed Malaysian policeman manning a security checkpoint in Lahad Datu, Sabah. (AFP Photo)

FRONT LINE DEFENDERS has documented 821 human rights defenders (HRDs) who have been killed in the four years since we started producing an annual global list in cooperation with national and international NGOs. Seventy-nine percent of this total came from six countries: Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and the Philippines. The vast majority of these cases have never been properly investigated, and few of the perpetrators of the killings have been brought to justice.

Por: Taran Volckhausen

Desde la invasión de las Américas –lo que es conocido como “descubrimiento” – por los colonizadores europeos, el conflicto por la tierra siempre fue una constante en la historia de estos territorios. Indígenas, pueblos originarios, campesinos y comunidades quilombolas[1], entre otros actores que luchan por el derecho a la tierra, son el cuerpo resistente al proceso de colonización que nunca terminó.