• At the COP26 climate summit, U.K.

• A new report identifies the main threats to biodiversity in Sri Lanka — river diversion, habitat loss, pollution, invasive species, overexploitation, and climate change — as well as updates the catalog of the island’s wealth of plant and animal life.
• The 6th National Report to the Convention on Biological Diversity is the most comprehensive analysis yet of the country’s biodiversity, with more than 100 experts from different fields contributing to the effort.
• It identifies five protected area clusters and recommends systematic interventions to li

New agricultural methods to build climate change resilience for small-scale farmers will fall flat unless they are deeply respectful of indigenous knowledge systems, research has found.

LONDON: A British Pakistani family from Birmingham has complained to Overseas Pakistanis Commission Punjab that their land worth tens of millions of Rupees has been taken over fraudulently by three men with powerful connections.

• Fires have swept through large swaths of peatland forest in the western part of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island since the start of the year, an area that usually sees much smaller, controlled fires.
• Environmental activists say they suspect the fires might be linked to palm oil companies with plantations in and around the burned areas.
• They warn the burning could get worse in the coming months, with the dry season in this part of Sumatra expected to peak only in August.

JAKARTA — Fires in areas of carbon-intense peatland forest on the

Main photo: A screenshot of a video of villagers in Lang village, Ea Pok town, Cu Mgar district in south-central Vietnam's Dak Lak province who have been proesting since mid-May to reclaim about 40 hectares of arable land from a forestry company. (Protesters' Facebook page).

Hundreds of ethnic minority households from a commune in south-central Vietnam's Dak Lak province are fighting to reclaim their land from a forestry company after 40 years of working on it as hired laborers.

ZANZIBAR's Land Commission plans to survey 2,000 plots, prepare 3,400 maps and conduct valuation on 400 areas in the next fiscal year.

Land and Settlement Development Minister Rahma Kassim Ali told the House of Representatives here on Monday that the commission will as well prepare 2,000 titles on land use rights; 140 land rent contracts; and 100 identities for three-acre use.

MOGADISHU — 

At a news conference in Mogadishu, Somalia’s special envoy for humanitarian issues on Monday said more than six million Somalis were affected by the record drought.

Abdurahman Abdishakur Warsameh said the number of people suffering was quickly approaching half of Somalia’s population.

Warsameh said the drought has hit 72 of Somalia’s 84 districts and that six of them were already facing famine-like conditions with extreme food insecurity.

People living in southern Angola are experiencing the worst drought in 40 years, with many crossing the border into Namibia in search of resources and relief after consecutive years of below-average rainfall affecting their crops.

The International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) says the Angolan provinces of Huila, Cunene and Namibe are hardest hit, with nearly 1.6 million people facing crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity during the six-month period ending in March.

MEMBERS of Parliament have called upon the government to allocate sufficient funds to the National Land Use Planning Commission so that it can perform its functions of addressing land conflicts in the country.

They said the commission was formed to ensure sustainable land management systems, which address issues of land degradation and conflicts but lack of funds has crippled the entity to realise its objectives.

Land Portal and Global Data Barometer Publish Benchmarks to Assess the State of Open Land Data in 100+ Countries

11 May 2022 (GLOBAL) — Today the Data for Development Network, Latin American Open Data Initiative, and the Land Portal Foundation are launching the 

The polls have delivered a new chapter for the country, allowing attention to turn to other pressing problems. 

After a 15-month delay in voting, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud became Somalia’s new president on 15 May. Political leaders had disagreed over the election process, including whether to conduct a one-person, one-vote election or an indirect one. In the end, May’s poll was indirect, with clan delegates voting for parliamentarians, who then cast their ballot for the president.