Earlier in the year Prindex – the first ever global measure of land and property rights – released its full 140-country dataset. The results are sobering. Almost 1 billion people around the world feel it is likely or very likely that they will lose their land or home within the next five years.
BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Thai authorities have reached an agreement with a landless community that will allow villagers to live in a mangrove forest if they help protect the area, a unique collaboration that could work across the country, land rights groups said.
Under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the government, human rights groups and about 45 families in the coastal town of Ranong, the community will not get ownership rights but will receive assistance in building homes and access to utilities.
A Korean palm oil giant has been buying up swathes of Asia's largest remaining rainforests. A visual investigation published today suggests fires have been deliberately set on the land
Petrus Kinggo walks through the thick lowland rainforest in the Boven Digoel Regency.
"This is our mini market," he says, smiling. "But unlike in the city, here food and medicine are free."
Advisors at the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) are proposing a separate entity for the management and administration of land resources in Ethiopia, a recommendation prominent experts in the field have been forwarding for many years.
Pannel of experts who have been working on agricultural reform programs in light of the eight bottlenecks and recommended solutions of the sector identified by the national Home Grown Economic Reform; among these establishing a separate entity to properly manage land issues was a priority.
The people of Ajaji community in Illah, Oshimili North Local Government Area of Delta State, are not happy with the state government. Right under their nose, the state government allegedly leased out a large chunk of their land to a private firm with interest in agriculture.
Trouble started several years ago when Delta was yet to be carved out of the defunct Mid-West Region. At the time, there was a land dispute between three communities, including Ajaji in Illah, Ogbe-Onihe in Akwukwu-Igbo and Ugbolu.
The Preah Vihear Provincial Court has dropped all charges against eight ethnic Kuoy villagers who were in a land dispute with the Hengfu Group Sugar Industry Co Ltd since 2014.
Wednesday’s decision was made by the judge who tried the case on June 10. The eight were accused of detention and illegal confinement.
Defence lawyer Sam Tithseyha told The Post on Thursday it was the right decision because they are the victims and this decision shows their innocence as they are not guilty of the charges and have good names in society.
At least 1.76 million jobs in the nation of about 16 million people are at risk due to COVID-19, while the poverty rate could double, to about one-in-four people, the World Bank said in May. Cambodian human rights groups have this year called for a freeze on loan repayments due to the virus and for lenders to return more than one million land titles held as collateral.
Some 50 people representing more than 100 families locked in a land dispute in Kampong Thom province’s Kraya commune, in Santuk district, travelled to Phnom Penh to submit a petition at the National Assembly, the Prime Minister’s Cabinet and the Ministry of Interior on Monday and Tuesday.
The petitioners, who are also requesting intervention in the land dispute to acquire authorised land titles, accused provincial authorities of an attempt to jail them, but provincial governor Sok Lou denied this.
The government, through the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, has advised individuals and investors interested in acquiring lands in the Voltaian Basin to contact the Lands Commission for guidance and assistance.
“Any individual, private or public establishment, be it local or foreign, intending to acquire land in the subject area for any developmental land-use activity is required to contact the Lands Commission Secretariat in the region where the land is situated or Head Office of the Lands Commission in Accra,” it said in a statement.
Cambodia’s government is unable to resolve the country’s myriad land disputes because many of them involve senior officials, Minister of Interior Sar Kheng said in a rare acknowledgement Tuesday, as a rights group urged authorities to take action against all perpetrators of illegal land grabs equally.
Speaking at a conference that included provincial governors and local authorities from across the country, Sar Kheng did not disclose the names of the involved officials but said that at least one of the disputes involved one of Cambodia’s deputy prime ministers.