News on Land

Peru - As the environment changes around us, finding solutions to benefit the common good has never been more pressing. Enter multi-stakeholder forums (MSFs), a seemingly simple idea of getting everybody in one room. These forums bring together government, communities, civil society organizations and business, to share information and find resolutions to commonly held challenges. Among the academic, donor and practitioner world, they have been held up as a panacea in addressing land-use change and climate mitigation.

Comment: The latest science shows the impacts of global warming – and solutions to it – risk worsening inequality if not coupled with support to the world’s poor

One of the fundamental truths of the climate crisis is that the countries and people who did least to create the problem are, in general, hit hardest by its effects.

The global initiative supports Helsinki’s goal of achieving a more significant role for cities in implementing the sustainable development goals.

The United Nations’ Social Impact Investing Initiative has opened a new office in Helsinki, further bolstering the UN’s presence in Finland.

The Social Impact Investing Initiative (S3I) of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) is a programme for promoting the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) in developing countries.

WINDHOEK – /Khomanin Traditional Authority Chief Juliane Gawa!Nas has demanded that the government avail Daan Viljoen Game Park, Namib Naukluft Park and farm Bona as communal land for her community.

Gawa!Nas made this appeal during a hearing of the Presidential Commission into Claims on Ancestral Land Rights and Restitution held at farm Baumgartzbrum, Khomas Hochland, Khomas Region on Saturday.

Yesterday, the day before Indigenous Day, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) included indigenous rights in its Special Report on Climate Change and Land.

This is a landmark action. In doing this, the IPCC have recognized that Indigenous peoples are crucial in combatting global climate change, by preventing deforestation and preserving ecosystems.

The year was 2009, and Typhoon Ketsana — known locally in the Philippines as Ondoy — had just struck Metropolitan Manila, Philippines. One of the strongest typhoons to have made landfall in the megacity, Ketsana displaced thousands of families and left them without their source of livelihood and income. I was a researcher then, assigned to do a rapid assessment of Tatalon, a village in Quezon City, known to be a site of informal settlement families.

 Former Zimbabwean deputy Prime Minister Professor Arthur Mutambara has warned South Africa against implementing a chaotic approach in the expropriation of land calling on them to learn from their northern neighbours. 

Said Mutambara at a presentation at Rhodes University:

“There is a problem that you must watch out for as South Africans, land expropriation is a good idea but might be abused by the elite who take a good idea and use it as a political tool.”

The moratorium was first introduced in 2011 and has been renewed regularly as part of the efforts to reduce emissions from fires caused by deforestation

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian President Joko Widodo has issued a permanent moratorium on new forest clearance for activities such as palm plantations or logging, the environment minister said on Thursday.

While likely to be welcomed by green groups, some do not think it goes far enough to protect remaining forests in the tropical archipelago.

In Brazil, a struggle over the future of the Amazon is taking place. The struggle will have global impact.

Lands managed by indigenous people possess the greatest levels of biodiversity. This is according to a study led by researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and published in the journal Environmental Science & Policy.

The team compared levels of biodiversity in 15,621 areas across three of the largest countries in the world – Australia, Brazil, and Canada.

Government needs to revisit customary law and use land reform to enable female farmers.

Globally women play a significant role in agriculture. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, women are the backbone of the agricultural sector and make up almost half of the agricultural labour force, according to a working paper about the role of women in agriculture by the Agricultural Development Economics Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.