This case study focuses on the capacity of local communities to monitor biodiversity and resources in Madagascar, Nicaragua, Philippines and Tanzania. It makes a controlled comparison between local community monitoring and trained scientists’ monitoring and conclude that local and indigenous communities generate similar and equally good outputs as the trained scientists, and are much more cost efficient. The cases suggest that it is fully possible to build a cheap and effective MRV system based on community monitoring of Non-Carbon Benefits

Unfolding analysis reveals two types of land disputes prevalent in postwar northern Uganda: cases that involve a legitimate cause of action and those that do not.1 Since mediation and alternative forms of dispute resolution rely on parties’ willingness to negotiate in good faith, cases featuring ‘bad faith’ and land grabbing—where powerful parties intentionally exploit another person’s vulnerability in order to illegally2 claim land—pose a serious challenge for local land dispute mediators. Such mediators must wrestle with whether and how to remain neutral in the face of injustice.

The Amazonian economic occupation over the last forty years has been extremely harmful to the environment and to the traditional populations. One of the strategies to overcome this difficulty, dealing with sustainable development, is the development of productive units—starting with non-timber forest products (NTFP)—and the Payment for Environmental Services (PES) for the residents and/or owners of forest areas.

 It is well recognized that secure land and property rights for all are essential to reducing poverty because they underpin economic development and social inclusion. Secure land tenure and property rights enable people in urban and rural areas to invest in improved homes and livelihoods. Although many countries have completely restructured their legal and regulatory framework related to land and they have tried to harmonize modern statutory law with customary ones, millions of people around the world still have insecure land tenure and property rights.

El propósito de esta publicación es identificar buenas prácticas en proyectos mineros que afectan a comunidades indígenas y compartir las lecciones aprendidas con empresas mineras, entidades públicas con injerencia en el sector, organizaciones indígenas y otras organizaciones de la sociedad civil, y el público en general.

We believe that law should in principle assist vulnerable communities in changing power relations. Law is fundamentally a ‘neutral’ set of rules that constrains power by requiring decisions and actions of those in power to comply with legal rules, rights and obligations. Unfortunately, we have seen the powerful appropriate law as a tool for only protecting and strengthening their interests.

 
La obra jurídica elaborada por María Clara Galvis Patiño y Ángela María Ramírez Rincón sistematiza y analiza decisiones judiciales de altas cortes de nueve países de América Latina: Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panamá y Perú.
El citado Digesto refleja los debates y problemas jurídicos que han tenido que resolver los jueces ante el alto número de conflictos sociales relacionados con la propiedad de la tierra, el territorio y los recursos naturales de los pueblos indígenas.

This paper briefly explains the unique relationships of Orang Asli with the customary land. It further demonstrates the common views that there is a collision between the Orang Asli notion of land ownership and that of the state. In particular the discussion highlights the interpretation of customary tenure under section 4 (2) (a) of the National Land Code, 1965 and it significance with the Orang Asli customary land.

Malaysia has declared its vision of developed country status by the year 2020. Much has been written about its top-down development approach, its relative economic success and the social as well as environmental costs of such approach. In 2011 and 2012 the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM) set into motion a national inquiry into the status of customary rights to land in the country. As part of the inquiry, a nationwide series of consultations was held over several months in 2012, culminating in formal public hearings in Peninsular Malyasia, Sarawak and Sabah.

The increasing importance of the Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) in Tanzania, where 17 WMAs are now functioning and 22 others are in various stages of development, begs the question of what successes have been achieved and what challenges remain to be addressed if this Community-Based Conservation model is to be sustained and even scaled up. There has not been a country-wide evaluation of WMAs since the pilot-phase evaluation in 2007 at a time when most WMAs were too new to yield firm projections for the long term.