News on Land

Cape Town - An expert advisory panel on land reform and agriculture appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa last year has released a final report with recommendations. It also gave the go-ahead for a constitutional amendment for expropriation of land without compensation, but with strict conditions.

It is an 8 x 8 room without any ventilation or windows, but Shimon, a 20-year-old youth from Bihar, calls it home. It is his kitchen, living room and bedroom. It does not boast of any luxuries like a toilet and a bath, but he pays Rs. 1,500 for this "company-provided accommodation". Add to it the Rs. 5,000 he was asked to pay as advance by the garment factory he has been working for six years now. Yes, do the math. Shimon started work here as a child labourer.

Dear Colleagues:

I am very pleased to announce that my article -- an introduction on blockchain and the land surveying - has been published in the July/August issue of the LAND JOURNAL magazine of The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors / RICS.

“The traditional image of a surveyor’s activities seems far removed from cryptocurrency, coding, algorithms and network nodes. All the same, blockchain technology offers enormous benefits for land professionals.” - JDM

Women and non-binary people are running some of the best-known organic farms on Long Island, in what is a growing, $50 billion industry nationwide

AMAGANSETT, N.Y., (Reuters) - Sporting a backwards gray cap, studded earrings and a thin, head-to-toe layer of dirt, Layton Guenther took a break from the day's fieldwork to talk about their path from an upper-middle-class suburb to a Long Island, New York, farm.

Protecting the world’s remaining tropical forest cover from natural resource extraction is essential if the worst of climate change is to be avoided, and the rights of people who depend on those forests are to be respected. For this to happen, politicians have to see political advantage in voting for laws and budgets that promote such protection.

Women Movement for Sustainable Development (WOMUD) on Tuesday, July 23, 2019, launched the Women’s Participation in the Natural Resources Sectors Report under the title, “Strengthening the Voices of Women in the ongoing land debate in the country.”

The purpose of the program is to promote women’s access to control over productive resources, including land, natural resources that guarantee their rights to participate in decision-making and leadership processes.

The study affected 15 communities in Grand Bassa and Nimba counties from October 24, 2018, to January 23, 2019.

Indonesia’s Agrarian and Spatial Planning Ministry and the National Land Agency (BPN) have an ambitious target of distributing 60 million land certificates for land ownership by 2025. 11 million land certificates are expected to be distributed in 2019, under its Agrarian Reform program. The program’s intended purpose is to restructure ownerships, tenures and uses of agrarian resources, especially lands. 

Residents say that quality of life is under threat from increasing tourism and rising rents that are pushing out young people and poorer families

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Walking through the hip San Juan neighbourhood (barrio) of Machuchal, it is hard to miss the house painted bright yellow, green and red, with a sign on the side reading "Casa Taft 169".

The Caledon and Vaal rivers have Sesotho names that are very instructive. The Caledon is Mohokare and the Vaal is Lekoa.

Soweto, our melting pot of nations, in part is a result of this naming. The ubiquitous migratory labour system between SA and Lesotho has a long history.

It affects Lesotho more than any country in the SADC region in which Lesotho's only neighbour is SA.

According to a report, authorising the indigenous communities’ land titles can improve forest management and carbon storage

Recognising land tenures of indigenous communities and their management rights over forests can help tackle climate change, according to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that’s yet to be made public.