Cases of double ownership of land are common in Kenya, where cartels collude with officials to create parallel titles for parcels want to acquire illegally

NAIROBI/ACCRA, Feb 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - On a recent Saturday afternoon, Joseph Njuguna received a worrying call. Without his permission, someone was excavating a small piece of land he had bought six years ago.

When he reached the site he found an excavator digging up soil, and two yellow Tata trucks waiting to ferry it away.

“We will fast for as long as we have to,” say protesting farmers who face displacement, even as the Kaleshwaram irrigation project has already received environmental clearance.

Ranga Reddy woke up at 5 am on December 1o, 2017, bathed in cold water and dressed in a white veshti and shirt. He had a busy day ahead.

The State of Open Data is an ambitious research project reflecting on 10 years of action on open data and providing a critical review of the current state of the open data movement across a range of issues and thematic areas.

 

 

On February 14th we will examine the most effective strategies to combat women’s diminishing land rights within communities.

Individual titling is the most commonly accepted strategy for protecting women’s land rights, but it it is not without its problems. It can lead to increased domestic violence or result in women being run off their land. The webinar's guest presenters -- Rachael Knight of Namati and Judy Adoko of Land and Equity Movement of Uganda (LEMU) -- suggest a more effective strategy. 

Families forced to relocate due to the construction of the Lower Sesan II Dam are asking Stung Treng provincial authorities to register their new village as indigenous collective lands.

The 67 families from Sre Ko commune received authorisation to set up the new village on their community forest and ancestral lands after their old homes were flooded in October when a gate to the controversial hydropower dam was closed.

They are now seeking indigenous collective land status to protect themselves from being displaced by future development.

While property is often contested in Brazil, it is usually waged over remote jungles or distant mountains - vast swathes of land that can be mined or farmed for profit.

As the tiny island destroyed by a hurricane tries to rebuild, the PM of neighboring Antigua aims to revoke centuries-old rights

Nearly four months after Hurricane Irma devastated the tiny Caribbean island of Barbuda, residents fear the central government on neighbouring Antigua is poised to revoke a centuries-old system of communal land rights in what activists have described as “disaster capitalism” at work.

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.

“Today we mourn the fallen, but they died in a dignified way on Mapuche territory, on their land,” a relative of the deceased Mapuche member said.

Following the murder of a 21-year Mapuche member by Argentine police, the Indigenous community has declared it will continue to fight for its land rights regardless of increasing military and police repression under the government of Mauricio Macri.

At a land policy conference last week, African governments adopted a resolution to grant documented land rights to at least 30 percent of their female populations by 2025. But to do that they must navigate a complicated mix of local laws and long-held customs.

AFRICAN GOVERNMENTS HAVE committed to addressing the challenges of granting women equal land rights and have said they will aim to have documented land rights for at least 30 percent of their female populations by 2025.

More than 100 families in Takeo province have been given back their land after a dispute with the Sun Hour company and an individual landholder.

The move follows protests and in front of the Ministry of Land Management as families asked the government to resolve their problems.

The 137 families were told officially on Saturday that 915 hectares in Tram Kak district’s Trapaing Kranhoung commune would be restored to them.