News on Land

The entirety of three protected forests are now classified as private land, an investigation from rights group Adhoc has found, along with tens of thousands of additional hectares of what has once been state public land.

In total, an area slightly smaller than the size of Jakarta has been reclassified since the beginning of this year.

In three cases, Adhoc’s findings show that entire protected forests – Snoul Wildlife Santuary, Preah Vihear Protected Area and Peam Krasob Wildlife Sanctuary – have now been reclassified.

By: Reese Ewing
Date: April 7th 2016
Source: Reuters / Daily Mail

SAO PAULO, April 7 (Reuters) - A Brazilian court has ordered the government to suspend its agrarian reform program, citing evidence that instead of helping the poor it was used to hand out free land to thousands of politicians, business owners and wealthy individuals.

By Desta Gebrehiwot
Date: November 15th 2016
Source: AllAfrica.com / The Ethiopian Herald

The United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) stressed the need for rehabilitating dry lands in order to cope with the negative impacts of climate change, land degradation and drought.

By: Shubham Ghosh

Date: April 25th 2016

Source: One India

Kathmandu, April 25: A year has lapsed since a devastating earthquake left Nepal in the ruins but still several people, particularly the women, are yet to get funds to rebuild their lost property for they do not own land and neither can prove the ownership of the land where they lived, international anti-poverty organisation Oxfam informed last week.

Executive Director Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) Karamat Ali said on Saturday that the 70 percent of the sitting national and provincial assembly members have feudal background and they happen to be major hurdle in introducing land reforms in the country.

By:Sophie Mbugua

Date: 8 December 2016

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation

WITU, Kenya (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Too poor to buy land where they grew up on Kenya's palm-fringed southern coast, Sylvester Jefua and his wife migrated 300 kms northwards to Witu Forest, where they felled seven acres of trees and built a mud and thatch house for their family.

Ten years later, Jefua, 36, still does not feel secure.

By: Alisa Tang

Date: May 10th 2016

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation

BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Villagers from northeast Thailand traveled to Bangkok on Tuesday to demand that police and human rights groups investigate the disappearance of a prominent land rights activist who went missing last month.

While the recent tornados in the U.S. Midwest and last year’s hurricane Sandy along the U.S.

By: Touch Sokha and Ananth Baliga

Date: December 23rd 2016

Source: Phnom Penh Post