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Indigenous & Community Land Rights related News
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Xolobeni activist defies death threats to protect her ancestral land

9 February 2019
South Africa
Access to Land & Tenure Security
Indigenous & Community Land Rights
environment
extractive industries
land rights
land rights activists
land tenure
mining
rural population

Johannesburg - Wherever she goes, Nonhle Mbuthuma expects to feel the cold metal tip of a gun pressed against her head.

The land and environmental rights campaigner knows she could pay the ultimate price in her unwavering fight to protect her unspoilt, ancestral land from mining.

“I don’t feel safe at all,” says Mbuthuma, a founder of the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC), of the threats she receives from pro-mining interests.

“My voice is now the loudest. I’m seen as a ‘nuisance’ because I’m protecting my forefathers’ land and my children’s land.”

Palm oil industry expansion spurs Guatemala indigenous migration

7 February 2019
Central America
Guatemala
Land Use, Management & Investment
Indigenous & Community Land Rights
agriculture
extractive industries
indigenous peoples
palm oil industries
poverty

Death of Jakelin Caal in US custody highlights how land conflicts and displacement fuel flight from indigenous villages.

San Antonio Secortez & Guatemala City - The plantations' outer edges begin fewer than 20km from where seven-year-old Jakelin Caal is buried. The deep green rows of oil palm stretch along rural roads in the Alta Verapaz department of Guatemala.

On solid ground: armed with land titles, Tanzania's slum dwellers tackle poverty

6 February 2019
Tanzania
Access to Land & Tenure Security
Indigenous & Community Land Rights
Socio-Economic & Institutional Context
informal settlements
land titling
poverty
security of tenure (land)
slums
urbanization

The documents form part of a nationwide programme to secure property rights for home owners in informal settlements

DAR ES SALAAM, Feb 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - For Maria Mkwawa, the Tanzanian government's decision to issue her with a formal land title to her home in January was a pleasant surprise.

"It will help me in many ways," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"My family has a bright future."

Perak govt has encroached onto our land, claim Orang Asli

5 February 2019
Malaysia
Access to Land & Tenure Security
Indigenous & Community Land Rights
encroachment
land access
land administration
land rights
local community

PETALING JAYA: The Orang Asli community in Grik today claimed that the Perak government has encroached onto their land to carry out logging, barely a month after Putrajaya sued the Kelantan government for a similar alleged infraction.

Villagers from Kampung Tasik Cunex Grik have set up a blockade to prevent lorries from ferrying felled timber from entering the area.

On Feb 1, they lodged a police report on the matter.

They also claim the logging company and the Perak Forestry Department are threatening them.

The 2019 Grassroots Justice Prize

The 2019 Grassroots Justice Prize

6 February 2019
Africa
Latin America and the Caribbean
Asia
Global
Access to Land & Tenure Security
Indigenous & Community Land Rights
common rights
commons
community land rights
customary land rights
customary tenure
gender equity in access to land
indigenous land rights
land rights
legal empowerment
local community
marital property rights
women

Celebrating Great Deeds in Legal Empowerment

The biennial Grassroots Justice Prize competition is the world’s only competition recognizing grassroots organizations and institutions, large and small, across the globe, that are working to put the power of law into people’s hands.

This year, we are offering 3 prizes of $10,000 USD.

 

 

New appointments, new policies don’t bode well for Brazilian Amazon

4 February 2019
South America
Brazil
Land Policy & Legislation
Forest Tenure
Indigenous & Community Land Rights
Socio-Economic & Institutional Context
deforestation
environment
indigenous lands
land administration
land dispute
land use
  • Jair Bolsonaro took office on 1 January. Since then, he has made appointments to his government, and there have been statements by people in his administration, that are causing grave concern among environmentalists.
  • New Environment Minister Ricardo Salles has come out strongly for an end to the demarcation of indigenous lands, and in support of entrepreneurs and companies being allowed to self-regulate the environmental licensing process for major infrastructure and development projects.

Belize Land Crisis: Even the Swamp is Unavailable to the Poor

1 February 2019
Central America
Belize
Access to Land & Tenure Security
Indigenous & Community Land Rights
housing rights
illegal occupation
land dispute
land policies
land rights

Though both elected area representative PUP’s Francis Fonseca and UDP standard bearer Orson Elrington both claim to represent the people, the residents of the disputed 1.6 acres have told Love News that Fonseca is their attorney. While the parties are invested in Freetown, the people on the ground continue to live in homes that they don’t know if they will still be there when they return home. Love News spoke to a tour guide who makes a living at the tourism village who lives at the absolutely last house at the end of the disputed mangrove in Belama Phase 4.

In Paraguay, Rapid Deforestation Is the Price of an Economic Boom

1 February 2019
South America
Paraguay
Land Use, Management & Investment
Forest Tenure
Indigenous & Community Land Rights
climate change
environment
forest conservation
forest management plans
land policies
sustainable development

Paraguay’s main opposition party recently introduced a bill offering conscription-age youth an alternative to mandatory military service: replanting trees in depleted forests. The reforestation proposal highlights the seriousness of environmental degradation in Paraguay, mainly driven by the clearing of forests for agriculture, which has sustained one of Latin America’s highest economic growth rates. In an interview with WPR, Joel E.

Families told they have ‘no right to land’ vow to fight on

30 January 2019
Cambodia
Access to Land & Tenure Security
Indigenous & Community Land Rights
land dispute
land grabbing
land ownership
land policies
land rights
land rights activists

Authorities have claimed that some 100 families who clashed with police in Preah Sihanouk province’s Prey Nop district last week have no legal rights to the land as they do not possess proper titles.

However, the villagers claim to have lived there for a significant time after having paid for their plots – something not recognised by the authorities, with one vowing to die for his.

Aboriginal voices are missing from the Murray-Darling Basin crisis

30 January 2019
Australia
Access to Land & Tenure Security
Indigenous & Community Land Rights
indigenous land rights
indigenous peoples
indigenous tenure
water rights

The Murray-Darling crisis has led to drinking water shortages, drying rivers, and fish kills in the Darling, Macintyre and Murrumbidgee Rivers. This has been the catalyst for recommendations for a Royal Commissionand creation of two independent scientific expert panels.

Peasants’ rights, defended by the countries of the South, now backed by UN

29 January 2019
Global
Access to Land & Tenure Security
Indigenous & Community Land Rights
Land & Food Security
extractive industries
food security
land access
land grabbing
land ownership
land rights
palm oil industries
property
water rights

On 17 December 2018, the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly voted in favour of the ‘Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other Persons Working in Rural Areas’. The declaration is a major step forward for rural communities around the world, and especially in the Global South, as it recognises a wide range of rights such as the “right to land”, the “right to water” and the “right to food sovereignty”.

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