News on Land

The Guardian Sustainable Business

The palm oil company at the centre of a bitter land rights struggle in Cameroon

Victoria Schneider in Cameroon

Monday 27 July 2015 08.45 EDT

Local residents complain expansion plans by Socapalm, Cameroon’s biggest palm oil company, will take over land that belongs to them. Read the full article here: http://gu.com/p/4bx7m/sbl

Via Global Landscapes Forum

2015 Photo Competition

This competition is part of the Global Landscapes Forum that will be convened in Paris in December 2015, parallel to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21).

Under the general supervision of the Director, ESW, and as a member or leader of one or more task teams, the incumbent will:

• provide managerial and technical leadership of FAO’s Strategy Team responsible for the delivery of corporate results on gender equality in access to resources, goods, services and decision making in rural societies;
• plan, allocate resources, implement, monitor and report upon the biennial programme of work under FAO’s strategic objective on gender, to achieve results on gender equality;

BY COHA NOVEMBER 2, 2015

By Evelyn Estrada

The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) announces the release of its 2010-2011 annual report, PUSHBACK: Local Power, Global Realignment.

Question: Dr. Quisumbing, tell us about yourself; what is your professional background?

Answer: I am an economist by training, and have worked on intrahousehold and gender issues, land and property rights for 20 years at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). I came to IFPRI after working at the University of the Philippines and the World Bank. At IFPRI, I led the gender and intrahousehold research program, and co-led work on poverty and economic mobility and gender and assets.

The current and impending food crises are increasing pressures on the ownership of land and its use for agriculture. What are the implications of this for family farmers? Land grabs cause large scale migration, poverty and conflict – not to mention environmental impacts. Biodiversity decreases when small family farms are replaced by mono-crops treated with pesticides and fertilizers. Small-scale farmers have little power to farm sustainably if they don’t have control over land: secure access to land is a prerequisite for farmers to invest in sustainable agriculture.

By Caitlin J Pierce

Date: December 22nd 2015

U Myint Tun was alone in his field in Sagaing Region when four officers pulled up in a military jeep with the bad news: His land now belonged to the government and he could no longer farm it. This was April 1996.

We, the women pastoralists gathered in Mera, India, from November 21-26, 2010, representing 32 countries, have met to strengthen alliances and forward practical solutions to issues that affect us.

By: Lin Taylor

Date: 12 July 2016

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation

Mass killings, forced evictions and conflicts over land put indigenous and minority groups at risk of being eradicated from their ancestral lands, a human rights group said on Tuesday.

By: Maka Angola

Date: January 29th 2016

Source: AllAfrica.com

ANALYSIS

Angolan investigative journalist and human rights defender Rafael Marques de Morais has submitted a complaint to the Office of the Attorney General about the behaviour of notorious Kwanza-Sul Governor, General Eusébio de Brito Teixeira, for illegal land-grabbing.