IXTLÁN DE JUÁREZ, Mexico, Jan 3 2019 (IPS) - “I dream of a healthy, sustainable, well-managed forest,” says Rogelio Ruiz, a silviculturist from southern Mexico, who insists that “we have to clean it up, take advantage of the wood, and reforest.”

These activities are essential for the ecosystem, especially to adapt to the impacts of climate change, the president of the La Trinidad Communal Lands Commissariat, in the municipality of Ixtlán de Juárez, in the state of Oaxaca, some 840 km south of Mexico City, told IPS.

THE GOVERNMENT’S latest policy addressing the problem of overlapping rights on forested land will be a major turning point for residents, as it will allow them to live in forested areas and sustain themselves legally and also bring a halt to further encroachment, officials said yesterday.

However, civil groups, including those at a recent forest governance forum, pointed out that many forest residents were still uncertain if the new policy will maintain their land rights. 

The world is losing an estimated USD 6.3 trillion to land degradation every year, while restoring 300 million hectares by 2030 could have a return of USD 7 to 20 for each dollar invested.

The Land Portal Foundation is pleased to announce financial support by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) to scale up work on information management and dissemination.

In particular, GIZ support will go towards expanding existing and creating new thematic portfolios on the Land Portal.

SOMSAK SAE-LAO, an assistant village chief in the small Nan community of Pang Kob, still has no idea whether his villagers could be subject to any benefits for helping protect surrounding forest under a global scheme known as REDD+, if implemented here.

The village has unresolved overlapping claims with Khun Nan National Park on a high mountain, thus becoming uncertain about their land rights.

The world is vastly underestimating the benefits of acting on climate change. Recent research from the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate finds that bold climate action could deliver at least $26 trillion in economic benefits through 2030. This ground-breaking research, produced by the Global Commission and more than 200 experts, highlights proof points of the global shift to a low-carbon economy, and identifies ways to accelerate action in five sectors: energy, cities, food and land use, water and industry.

Illegal gold mining in the Amazon has reached "epidemic" proportions in recent years, causing damage to pristine forest and waterways, a conservation group said Monday as it released an unprecedented new map of the activities.

• Colombia’s deforestation rate has been accelerating since the country’s peace accord in 2016, which formally ended a more than 50-year civil conflict.
• The Interfaith Rainforest Initiative in Colombia was launched in November to bring together scientists, development experts, indigenous peoples and religious leaders.
• The aim is to use their combined expertise to reduce deforestation via public policy and grassroots action.

Illegal logging and the encroachment of agriculture on the jungle, are the main drivers of the deforestation

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - The destruction of Brazil's Amazon rainforest reached its highest level in a decade this year, government data released on Friday showed, driven by illegal logging and the encroachment of agriculture on the jungle.

Bogota, 22 November 2018 – In an unprecedented and historic show of unity, leaders from every major faith tradition today joined indigenous peoples, Afro-Colombian communities, climate scientists, and NGOs in pledging to defend the Amazon and end deforestation.

The Lesetlheng community’s victory against mining interests signals a start to the recognition of land rights of which SA’s oppressed people had been deprived for generations

The judgment recently handed down by the Constitutional Court in Maledu and Others vs Itereleng Bakgatla Mineral Resources comes after years of the constitutionally protected land rights of South Africans living in the former homelands being ignored by the department of mineral resources, traditional leaders and mining companies.

"All around us, we have seen forest land taken for mining and for palm oil plantations that are not good for the environment or for the people"

GAJAH BERTALUT, Indonesia, Nov 13 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - In a community hall, a group of men sit cross-legged on mats, poring over documents and maps marked with forests, farmland, a river and the village of Gajah Bertalut in Indonesia's Sumatra island.