News on Land

Cabinet has started considering fresh amendments to the different laws relating to land management. The State Minister for Urban Development, Dr. Chris Baryomunsi, says there are plans to amend the Land Act to allow for compulsory land acquisition to eliminate one of the main bottlenecks to kickstarting large infrastructure projects. Baryomunsi was speaking during a presentation of the ministry's achievements in line with NRM's manifesto.

PESHAWAR: Terror incidents reduced significantly in erstwhile Fata after merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The credit for improvement goes to the security forces and other institutions.

However, increasing land disputes are now troubling the peaceful environment of merged districts and dozens of people have lost their lives in clashes over such disputes. Peaceful resolution of these disputes by bringing all parties to disputes to negotiating table is a huge challenge for the administration.

The Catholic Professionals Society PNG in association with the Individual & Community Rights Advocacy Forum support the opposition to the proposed sand mining in Madang and PNG.
This was highlighted in a press conference that was held in Port Moresby today.

A statement from the press conference authorized by the President of the Catholic Professional Society, Paul Harricknen expressed several concerns in support of the opposition to sand mining by the landowners.

Last week’s violence was some of the worst the border has seen, with more than 40 killed. 

• Botum Sakor National Park in southern Cambodia has lost at least 30,000 hectares of forest over the past three decades.
• Decades of environmental degradation go back to the late 1990s when the Cambodian government began handing out economic land concessions for the development of commercial plantations and tourist infrastructure.
• NGOs in Cambodia are said to be unwilling to speak out against the destruction of Botum Sakor because they are afraid they will not be allowed to operate in the country if they do.

(Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The European Investment Bank (EIB) has pledged to address gaps in the implementation of a power project in Nepal, handing a rare victory to indigenous groups and local communities who had raised concerns about being uprooted from their land.

A complaint by Nepali civil society groups had pointed to inadequate analysis of environmental and social impacts of the Marsyangdi Corridor Transmission Line project, and a failure to consult with local communities and obtain their consent.

Local people evicted and livelihoods at risk in Barguna district, as civil society group warns plant will damage important hilsa fish populations.

A Chinese-backed coal power plant is being built in Bangladesh allegedly by evicting locals from their land and grabbing a riverbed.

This is a re-post of an earlier annoucement, now focusing on LAC, francophone West Africa and the Arab region. The deadlline for application is 16th May.

Information and communications technology (ICT) has been taken as a key driving force in transforming the traditional Nepali society into a knowledge-based society. Successive governments in Nepal have envisaged that the goal of prosperity will also be achieved through the optimum utilization of advanced technologies. 

Patches of forest cleared and tended by Indigenous communities but lost to time still show more food bounty for humans and animals than surrounding forests.

On social media, global indigenous leadership addresses South African magnate Elon Musk, who has launched a global award for carbon sequestration projects. Up-to-date technological solution is the same it has always been: ancestral wisdom