News on Land

In half the countries in the world, women face obstacles to land rights, leaving millions unable to unlock their full potential. But this challenge is #Solvable. In a new video, Landesa Researcher Gina Alvarado explains how improving land laws and confronting gender norms can help strengthen women’s land rights and create a more equitable world for all.

When Manjari was 23, she was elected the first woman pradhan in her village as well as in all of Himachal Pradesh. She hasn't looked back since.

The following story is developed from remarks at TEDxJakarta 2019.

Government vows to speed up return of confiscated farmland

The  Myanmar government has almost finished a review of farmland confiscated during military rule and will hasten its return this year, an official of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation said.

Riding a populist backlash against the elite, President Rodrigo Duterte vowed to rescue landless peasants from poverty. Instead, he has reinforced the monopolistic grip of landowners.

SAGAY CITY, Philippines — On the day the gunman murdered her husband, Elza Balayo was planning a treat for her five children, a fish to accompany the rice that was typically their sole lunch.

A government campaign to plant more trees has sparked a negative response from the indigenous communities of India.

The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations will work together with The Land Portal Foundation to create a community of experts for AGROVOC’s LandVoc scheme, enriching AGROVOC’s content, relevancy and use for the land and agricultural sector with an online course, along with a one-day workshop in May, 2020.

Six clans in Foya, Lofa County have officially informed the Liberia Land Authority (LLA) that they have identified themselves as separate land communities, completing the first step to acquire legal ownership of land for customary communities in Liberia.

The six clans include Upper and Lower Tengia, Upper and Lower Rankollie, and Upper and Lower Wuam. They made their community’s self-identification declaration at the LLA headquarters at Mamba Point in Monrovia.

The pumps' sensors record real-time data such as energy usage and pump speed in each location, which is then used to calculate groundwater extraction rates and levels

NAIROBI - High-tech solar pumps mapping underground freshwater reservoirs across Africa are collecting data that can help prevent them running dry, the project's developers said on Tuesday.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, indigenous pygmy communities displaced from their lands for “conservation” and a community leader imprisoned for defending their rights

Bernardo Caal is an indigenous Q’eqchi leader from Guatemala currently serving a seven year prison sentence. His crime? Defending the Cahabón River, one of the largest in the country, against two hydroelectric dams.  

The river is of plays a central role in the lives of 195 Q’eqchi communities in the municipality of Santa María de Cahabón, in the department of Alta Verapáz. Today it is under threat from seven hydroelectric projects that have already destroyed hectares of primary forests and hills that are sacred to the Q’eqchi.  

Ercilia Araya is the President of  Pai-Ote, a Colla Indigenous community of 60 people in the Atacama Region of Northern Chile.  Since 2014, Ercilia has been criminalized and harassed for defending her community’s land rights against mining projects, and denouncing the pollution of sacred water sources in the Andes.

The ancestral territory of Pai-Ote is of great mineral wealth and includes the “Maricunga Strip”, one of the most important gold districts in the country. At least a dozen gold mining projects, most of them Canadian, are operating there.