News on Land

Monrovia - The Civil Society Working Group on Land Rights Reform has launched what appeared to be a last minute fight in persuading the 53rd National Legislature to pass the Land Rights Act before the dawn of the hefty campaign season, which will virtually end the workings of that assembly.

In a press conference held in Monrovia on Monday, June 12, the CSO working group re-echoed their dismay over the delay of the passage of the bill and called on the law makers to act quickly as time is of the essence.

On December 22, 2016, President Michel Temer revised a law that specifically regularizes urban and rural land owned by the federal government, notably eliminating requirements for upgrading infrastructure on those lands.

The FRA sought to correct the historical injustice done to the traditional forest-dwelling communities by conferring rights to hold and own forest land where they traditionally lived and cultivated

NEW DELHI, Jun 12 2017 (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.

Mumbai's 150-year-old Bhendi Bazaar quarter is embarking on a unique community-led modernisation that could be a model for inner-city redevelopment across India

MUMBAI, June 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - All her life, home for Robab Nallwalla has been a one-room flat in central Mumbai, a space she shares with her parents and her brother - and more recently, her brother's wife.

The single room, similar to nine others on the dingy floor with no lift, was cramped and noisy, not a place she could invite friends to.

Colombia is home to a swathe of rainforest roughly the size of Germany and England combined.

CAQUETA, Colombia, June 9 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Seen from the air, muddy rivers snake through rolling forested hills stretching to the horizon in Colombia's southern province of Caqueta that for decades were rebel lairs and an epicentre of the civil war.

A peace deal signed last year between the government and the rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) ended half a century of conflict.

Guarani-Kaiowá leader Ladio Veron is touring Europe seeking international support to end attacks and killings of indigenous people, land theft and environmental harm in Brazil.

Guatemalan families face a violent eviction as they fled violence in their own homes.

At least 120 campesino families from Guatemala have installed a makeshift camp at the border between the Central American and Mexico as they fear a violent eviction from the army.

Forest dweller Utpal Nokrek, who is now at 32, has been restricted to a wheelchair for 13 years.

It was 3 January 2004 when Utpal was shot during clashes between the forest dwellers and police over acquisition of thousands of acres of forest land by the government in the name of an eco-park at Tangail's Madhupur forest.

"As the forest dwellers of Garo and Koch communities protested the eco-park project, rangers and police opened fire. I was shot during the clashes," Utpal said.

SAO PAULO, Brazil – On May 29 the NGO SOS Mata Atlântica and the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais released their annual report on the Atlantic Forest with some worrying results. The report shows that between 2015 and 2016, more than 29,000 hectares (71,660 acres) of native forests were lost. That’s a 57.7 percent increase over the previous year.

Worried by the high rate of deforestation in the state and its negative consequences, some communities in Cross River State have called for the adoption of forest governance as a way to tackle the menace.