News on Land

Located about 50 kilometres from the Noordoewer border post that separates Namibia from neighbouring South Africa, Aussenkehr has vast vineyards that stretch as far as the eye can see.

The Public Enterprises Holding and Administration Agency (PEHAA) accused the Benishangul-Gumz and Gambela regions of illegal land distribution.

According to the Agency, the land distributed by the regions was the property of the Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE) which took it from agricultural investors who failed to repay their credit and have since been unaccounted for.

The Agency’s finance director, Sewagegn Chane, told The Reporter that more than 158 rain-fed agriculture projects have been returned to the bank.

The Preah Vihear Provincial Court has set tentative dates in December this year to announce the verdicts for three separate wildlife sanctuary land grab cases, which happened last year.

Provincial court spokeswoman Chum Kaniya said on December 10 that the court’s investigating judge had heard the three cases of forest logging and land encroachment on December 8.

On December 10, deputy head of the provincial Department of Environment Meas Nhem said he attended the hearings for all three cases.

According to police sources, the IGP's wife, using one Ijeoma Emeribe to front, encroached on the said land in June 2020.

It was learnt that three persons died in a welding gas explosion while clearing the land with the police authorities covering it up on the order of Adamu.

Not satisfied, Ayuba petitioned the police who invited Ijeoma to submit her documents for investigation in Abuja AGIS.

Eleven monks in Kampong Speu province have escaped to avoid being defrocked by the provincial monk council after authorities found that they were involved in state forest land encroachment.

Phnom Sruoch district’s deputy chief monk Venerable Nou Chin told The Post on December 8 that the provincial authorities had torn down some hermitages built illegally by the monks in the Kirirom National Park area.

The construction was led by Sam Norn, the former monk at the Buddhist Cultural Centre within the National Park areas.

The Kingdom of Lesotho recently signed on to the International Fund for Agricultural Development’s (IFAD) extension of the Smallholder Agriculture Development Project (SADP) to improve the livelihoods of vulnerable small-scale farmers. SADP II, the project’s second phase, targets youth and women to build the rural economy and sustainable farming. 

A growing number of reports show that large-scale deforestation continues in Cambodia’s protected forests, often with tacit endorsement from government officials—despite promises of conservation.

Editorial

A series of reports this year show that protected forest areas across Cambodia are under increasing threat from land grabs and deforestation.

THE attitude towards agriculture in PNG, especially farming is one that it is for the poor and the elderly.

The (online) course runs between 15 Feb and 05 March 2021 in close collaboration with Freiburg Academy of Continuing Education (FRAUW), UNIQUE Forestry and Land Use & other renowned forest carbon experts (Solidaridad etc.).

IMPORTANT TO KNOW: The course will be held online this year (due to the pandemic restrictions) and there will be reduced fee opportunities for participants without institutional support or with low income.

The pandemic, conflict and other health crises have hit livelihoods and food security dramatically, a UN report warns

Nearly 22 million people face "crisis-level or worse" food insecurity in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) due to conflict and the Covid-19 pandemic, an arm of the United Nations has warned.

The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), part of the UN, said the number of food-insecure people has risen by more than six million since 2019, making it the world’s biggest food crisis.

Main photo: Fourteen Lao Christians evicted from their homes in Luang Namtha province's Long district are shown in a February 2020 photo. (Citizen Journalist)

Seven Lao Christians evicted from their homes in southern Saravan province in October for refusing to renounce their faith have returned to their village, but are being refused permission to rebuild homes demolished by authorities when they were first thrown out, RFA has learned.

Seeking quick returns, Chinese investors are driving a scramble for plantation land in parts of northern Myanmar.