News on Land

A Canadian firm lost its license for the mining project in southeastern Peru but indigenous leaders now face charges including 'aggravated extortion'

LONDON, July 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A group of indigenous leaders is due to go on trial in Peru on Thursday for participating in a protest against a silver mine in 2011 that resulted in two deaths and 14 injuries, activists said.

Developing countries have been promised $100bn per year by 2020, with no sign of it arriving some are taking matters into their own hands

Developing countries, tired of waiting for help from rich countries to arrive and already facing mounting climate crises, are starting their own funds to deal with an uncertain future.

Joint FAO-Arab League event hears climate change poses serious risk to water availability

4 July 2017, Rome - Arab states must continue to seek innovations to overcome water scarcity in the face of climate change, said UN Food and Agriculture Organization Director-General José Graziano da Silva at an event co-hosted by the Arab League on the sidelines of FAO's biennial Conference.   

Director-General emphasizes FAO’s commitment to support the consolidation of peace

Report from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

05 July 2017, Rome – Colombia’s progress in using rural development as a tool to clinch peace after more than half a century of civil war can “fill the entire world with hope and knowledge,” FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said today.

Assault on daughter of environmentalist Berta Cáceres, who leads indigenous rights group, heightens fears of violence against campaigners in Honduras

The daughter of the murdered Honduran environmentalist Berta Cáceres has survived an armed attack, just weeks after being named leader of the indigenous rights organisation formerly led by her mother.

(IPS) – In Meghalaya, India’s northeastern biodiversity hotspot, all three major tribes are matrilineal. Children take the mother’s family name, while daughters inherit the family lands.

Because women own land and have always decided what is grown on it and what is conserved, the state not only has a strong climate-resistant food system but also some of the rarest edible and medicinal plants, researchers said.

Traditionally, women in the DRC gained shares in property through marriage, not inheritance. Today few realize that this custom contradicts the law, which codifies women’s rights to inherit land. In the North Kivu province, one organization is spreading awareness of the law and helping to resolve inheritance disputes.  

RUTSHURU, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO — When Salima Salumu’s mother died, she left a large plot of land for her children and ignited a conflict that is not unusual here in the North Kivu province.

21 June 2017: A policy brief by the Global Donor Working Group on Land discusses renewed global commitment to strengthen tracking of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator 1.4.2 on land tenure security.

Deadline: 

31/12/2017

Voice is a new innovative grant facility that supports the most marginalised and discriminated people in ten low- and lower-middle income countries in Africa and Asia. It aims to amplify and connect thus far unheard voices in efforts to leave no one behind.

Voice stands out from other grant-making programmes by developing a grant application and reporting process adapted to the five target groups and four grant types and that is accessible, user-friendly and innovative.

Deadline: 

14/07/2017

The Partnership Coordinator ensures the smooth functioning of the Land Matrix partnership, and is responsible for organizing, monitoring and improving project activities, under the direction of the Steering Committee. The position will be based at the University of Pretoria, hosted by the Department of Agricultural Economics and the Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation. The position will be at project manager level of the University of Pretoria.

Lagos state announced its intention to demolish the homes of around 300,000 people last year and this ruling is a landmark for residents resisting eviction

LONDON, June 21 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A series of brutal, government-ordered evictions that left more than 30,000 Nigerians homeless were deemed "unconstitutional" in a landmark decision by the Lagos High Court on Wednesday, activists said.

In April, three bus loads of men carrying sticks and machetes arrived in the village with the bulldozer - angry residents fought back

BUGABO, Uganda June 26 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - "This land is peaceful," said Abdul Seryazi, standing in his family fields in Bugabo, a village in central Uganda.

But a charred bulldozer alongside tells a different story.

In April, three bus loads of men carrying sticks and machetes arrived in the village with the bulldozer.