Despite Tanzania’s progressive legal framework on land rights and governance;many women are often left out of community decision-making due to social and cultural norms that persist in some areas of the country. The author discusses a participatory initiative that is helping women make their voices heard when it comes to land governance.

This comic is based on field research conducted around the Feronia palm oil plantation in Tshopo province in north-east DR Congo as part of a project on ‘environmental defenders and atmospheres of violence’. The story focuses on people living next to the Feronia concession and how they experience and fight against the company. While the names in the comic are fictional;the described events are based on testimonies gathered during field research.

A 22 minute video about one of the biggest cases of agricultural land grabbing in Senegal: 20,000 hectares;first allocated to Senhuile-Sénéthanol;now known as Les Fermes de la Téranga. The Italian investors Tampieri Financial Group pulled out of the project in 2017 and the new owners – Agro Industries Corp;based in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands – arrived in 2018.

Describes how inclusive technology;a gender-responsive documentation process and shifting gender norms are empowering women through secure land rights. Includes recognising women as landowners;leading by example;securing land;securing futures.

The Key Messages on Sustaining Peace through Women’s Empowerment and Increased Access to Land and Property Rights in Fragile and Conflict-affected Contexts were intended to provide a reference on how to empower women and protect their housing;land and property rights in fragile and crisis affected contexts;and to set out why this is an essential element to sustain peace and stability. The publication includes a list of resources to further inform the development of related programmes and projects.

A policy brief introducing a new book edited by Khwezi Mabasa and Bulelwa Mabasa. The book examines how land and agrarian reform impacts nation building;citizenship and identity formation. It draws attention to the limitations of reducing land to a commodity and how this approach perpetuates social conflict and inequality in land reform policy implementation. The brief argues that it is important to explore the contested meanings of land in society. These varied meanings challenge traditional land reform perspectives.

Land is a commodity like no other. We live on it;we grow from it;we drink from it and build our futures upon it. But we don’t share it equally. The distribution of land has long defined the gap between rich and poor. Now new data shows clearer than ever how the way in which land is being shared and managed profoundly impacts extreme and rising inequality and the achievement of women’s and girlsrights. With the largest 1 percent of farms operating more than 70 percent of the world’s farmland;it is time that we called out the problem of extreme land inequality and committed to ending it.

As the global population continues to urbanize, increasing pressure is put upon urban centers and the carrying capacity of the already built-up areas. One way to meet these demands is horizontal expansion, which requires new lands to become incorporated into urban centers. In most cases, this demand is met by converting peri-urban land into urban land as the urban center expands. These processes of expansion into the peri-urban, however, create tension regarding land use and land rights, and may foster tenure insecurity if not well managed.

The burning and the deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon forest, which has been recently highlighted by the international press and occurs mostly on public or undesignated land, calls for an in-depth examination. This has traditionally been the main way to grab land, speculate, and simultaneously prove ownership by its occupation. The absence of mapping, registration, and an effective regulation of land property in Brazil, particularly in the Amazon, plays an important role in its deforestation.

The importance of agri-food systems for global sustainability calls for researching and advancing socio-technical transitions towards environmentally friendly models of farming. These transitions hinge on many prerequisites, one of which is providing access to land for farmers and new entrants who experiment with sustainable farming models. However, for socio-technical transitions in farming to be viable, access to land should be complemented with securing access to “intangible” resources such as skills, knowledge or networks.

Planning the adaptation of agriculture and forestry landscapes to climate change remains challenging due to the need for integrating substantial amounts of information. This information ranges from climate scenarios, geographical site information, socio-economic data and several possible adaptation measures. Thus, there is an urgent need to have a framework that is capable of organizing adaptation strategies and measures in the agriculture and forestry sectors in Mediterranean climatic regions.