BOGOTA, Nov 28 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Indigenous groups in Paraguay, battling to protect their ancestral lands from expanding agriculture and cattle ranching, launched the first online map of their territory on Tuesday.

Paraguay’s beef and soy export industries are the main drivers of deforestation in the fast-growing South American nation, often coming into conflict with some 120,000 indigenous people, the World Resources Institute (WRI), a think tank, said.

Mapping land boundaries is an important way to boost a country’s economic growth and development. It contributes towards better security of land ownership, allows land owners to get bank loans and helps governments to tax owners correctly.

SARAWAK'S last nomadic tribe, the Penan, have again pressed the state government to recognise their customary rights to land and a forest sanctuary they want called Baram Heritage Forest, by presenting to the government a “detailed community map” 15 years in the making.

A group of nine Penan chiefs, led by Ajeng Kiew, a penghulu of Baram Sungai Patah, flew from the remotest parts of Baram to present the set of 23 maps to Deputy Chief Minister Douglas Uggah Embas last Friday at the state legislative assembly building.

Deadline: 01/10/2017

“Protecting our land for a prosperous future”

By: Adriaan Alsema

Date: 3 February 2017

Source: Colombia Reports

If it were up to the Colombian government, it will get rid of 75% of all the country’s coca, the plant to produce cocaine. Some 50,000 hectares are supposed to be eradicated in the country’s most ambitious counter-narcotics operations ever.

In total, the government wants to remove 100,000 hectares of coca, Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas told newspaper El Tiempo last month.

By: David Lumu

Date: November 10th 2016

Source: New Vision Uganda

Key among the solutions is reforming the land laws in the country to provide escape routes for Government in case land owners refuse compensation

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Land Policy Initiative (IGAD LPI) Project, in collaboration with the Land Policy Initiative (LPI) of the African Union and with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), this morning opened a one-day validation workshop on the Mapping of Research and Training Institutions and Country Profiles on the Status of Land Governance in IGAD Member States in Nairobi.

By: Kieran Guilbert
Date: November 1st 2016
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation

FREETOWN (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When floods struck several slums across Sierra Leone's capital last year, 55-year-old Amienata Bangura was forced to flee as her small shop, stock and years of savings were wiped out.

The World Bank estimates that by 2025 Indonesia will have 68 percent of its population living in cities or urban communities. As such, Indonesia’s cities are among the fastest growing cities in the world. However, without a unified spatial data system, urban planning is a daunting task while urbanization challenges become harder to predict. The World Bank's City Planning Labs project provides support for the development of a single spatial data infrastructure in the cities of Indonesia.

By: Kizito Makoye 

Date: September 8th 2016

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation

"The use of drones will help us to define the boundaries of plots of land on the ground with great accuracy"

By: Anthony King

Date: September 8th 2016

Source: UC San Diego News Center

By: Loh Foon Fong

Date: August 7th 2016

Source: The Star Online

SHAH ALAM: NGOs representing indigenous people are urging the federal and state governments to recognise the maps indigenous communities have drawn up to demarcate their land.