COVID-19 may have forced the 50th anniversary of Earth Day to be commemorated online last year, yet millions of people participated in calls to action. As we begin to look beyond the pandemic, however, it's vital to remember that we cannot go back to business-as-usual as far as our planet is concerned.

Advancing women’s land rights is a priority for the international development agenda. Yet, there is no consensus on which rights should be monitored and reported. Three indicators of women’s property rights are widely used in the literature. Each captures a different aspect of women’s land rights, but a recent paper explores the extent to which these different rights are held by the same person, using data from six African countries.

By Nilesh Kunwar

Originally posted by Eurasia Review at: https://www.eurasiareview.com/03052021-pakistans-biggest-land-grabber-oped/

Photo: Pakistan's General Qamar Javed Bajwa

Oil companies are paying billions towards development in the Niger Delta, but it’s having little impact on the ground, say Tijah Bolton-Akpan and Miles Litvinoff.

By David Matsinhe for the Daily Maverick. 

Originally posted at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-04-25-recipe-for-conflict-n...

* This blog post was written by the following women:  Patricia Chaves, Gigliola Silva Araújo, Natali Lacerda and Tereza Borba. They take us back to 2015, through to the present, telling us about the process of localizing the land-related SDGs and empowering local women to build multi-stakeholder platforms in order to change and influence policies that can affect their families, communities and  lives. * 

“Tenure and its governance are crucial factors in the fight against inequality and discrimination, for sustainable use of the environment, social stability and resilience toward the overall achievement of the SDGs.”  FAO, Why Land Rights Matter, 2020

Worldwide, Indigenous Peoples are stewards over vast tracts of vital forest lands, but often without proper legal protections. Now a new landmark report has shown conclusively that when Indigenous Peoples have secure tenure over the forests they live in, deforestation and other forms of environmental degradation are at the very least tempered, if not halted altogether.