News on Land
Get the latest news on land and property rights, brought to you by trusted sources from across the globe.
The Kruger National Park and its complex history of conservation and dispossession
KNP in perspective (Part One)
The Kruger National Park and its complex history of conservation and dispossession
By the 1950s, Kruger Park had become a global ‘must-see’ destination for tourists. Photo: SANParks Archives
From Recovery to Resilience: Community-led Responses to Covid-19 in Informal Settlements
In 2020, as Covid-19 spread rapidly across the cities where SDI is active, federations recognised the need for both urgent responses to the acute humanitarian crises facing their communities and longer-term strategies to engage with government and other stakeholders to address the prolonged effects of this global crisis.
Stealth Game: “Community” Conservancies and Dispossession in Northern Kenya
The fortress conservation model, created with support from some of the world’s biggest environmental groups and western donors, has led to land dispossession, militarization, and widespread human rights abuses.
Episode 1- Where do we land up on climate change?
In this episode of Land UP! we ask where do we land up on climate change?
We spoke to Indigenous climate activist Dr. Myrna Cunningham Kain, the Guardian's global environment editor Jonathan Watts and Co-Director of Prindex Anna Locke. We discussed the recent COP26, which took place in Glasgow in November of 2021, and what this means for Indigenous land rights.
Cobalt miners call out 'neocolonialism' as firms avoid accountability
Lawyers in the Congo provide a rare look at the workers extracting a metal critical to the battery business
The African Women’s Collaborative for Healthy Food Systems helps build a native seedbank in Lufwanyama District, Zambia
Lufwanyama District in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia, home to many remote communities that completely depend on smallholder agriculture for food and income, is on a mission to collect native seeds to build a seed bank.
The African Women’s Collaborative for Healthy Food Systems emphasizes the importance of local, agroecological, and equitable food systems, and raises awareness of peasant and indigenous women’s important contributions to food sovereignty and food justice, particularly during the COVID-19 crisis.
River turns black after coal mine dam collapse next to rural communities and Hluhluwe-iMfolozi game reserve
An anthracite mine in rural KwaZulu-Natal which has operated for more than 30 years and has reportedly been involved in several controversies during this time involving water pollution, illegal mine expansion and water shortages in neighbouring rural communities, experienced a slurry dam collapse on 24 December 2021. Large volumes of potentially toxic and acidic coal-mine effluent have spilled into rivers flowing through rural communities and the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi and iSimangaliso wildlife reserves.
In search of a fair deal
Burundi’s government is trying to increase its share of the mineral wealth that foreign mining companies extract from its soil. The government receives only 10% of the income from the minerals even though it owns the land, according to an official of the Ministry of Energy and Mines.
To put pressure on foreign mining companies operating in Burundi, the government ordered a shut-down last July of mines belonging to seven British, Chinese and Russian companies. It says the mines can re-open once the contracts have been renegotiated.
Why reconciliation agreement between Germany and Namibia has hit the buffers
In bilateral negotiations which are reported to have disregarded international participation rights based both in treaties and customary international law, both the German and Namibian governments have been accused of “seeking forgiveness without listening to descendants” and with no reference to the return of land to the dispossessed as part of restitutive justice.
The ANC’s inertia on land could be the betrayal of its founding principles
Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, a prominent South African Advocate and author writing an Op-Ed in the Mail and Guardian on 8th January, provides in depth analysis of the failure by South Africa's ANC ruling party to address land issues. He argues that "the backstory to the formation of the ANC (in 1912) was land... Yet the evidence since 1994 shows hesitation, timidity and indifference to the resolution of land".
Zimbabwe: High Court Gives Mnangagwa Greenlight To Evict Chilonga Villagers
THE fate of 12 000 villagers in Chilonga, Chiredzi, has been effectively sealed after the High Court on Thursday ruled there was “finite wisdom” in gave President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration’s decision to evict them.
The controversial decision by government, which courted global outrage, has been raging for almost a year now. High Court judge Justice Joseph Mafusire dismissed an application by villagers in which they were challenging their pending eviction.
‘They want to remove us and take the rock’, say Zimbabweans living near Chinese-owned mines
As companies extract wealth, villagers say they see little benefit and are instead exploited in quarries, live in homes damaged by blasts and are unable to farm polluted land