An 83-year-old Jesuit priest imprisoned in India on accusations of terrorism has been targeted because of his defense of indigenous people's land rights, church and human rights leaders say.
A licence to restart work at an iron ore opencast mine has been issued despite complaints of poor working conditions and dust and water pollution affecting the surrounding areas.
The second-biggest mountain in eSwatini, located in the north-east near the main border gate, is called Ngwenya because, at first glance, it looks like a crocodile. On its crown is a massive man-made crater, and on its side is a small hollow big enough to shelter a pride of lions, called the Lion Cavern.
Reports suggesting that a Canadian oil and gas firm is planning to start hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in one of Africa’s most sensitive environmental areas along the Namibia-Botswana border have made environmentalists, civil society organisations and local communities apprehensive about the long term effects of the activity on the Okavango Delta, one of Africa’s last natural sanctuaries.
The first of 10 Mondulkiri public officials implicated in illegal land grabbing in the province has been transferred from his position — a warning to others, according to a government spokesperson, but for local rights monitors a sign of continuing impunity over imprisonable crimes.
An inter-ministerial working group concluded an investigation into illegal encroachment of protected forests in Mondulkiri in late August, identifying 10 governmental officials allegedly involved in stealing state land.
Around 1,000 villagers from three Cambodian provinces blocked the road leading to the Land Ministry in Phnom Penh on Monday to demand government help in resolving disputes over land taken by private companies and politically connected businesspeople, sources in the country said.
Protesters from Koh Kong, Svay Rieng, and Tbong Khmum provinces held up photos of Prime Minister Hun Sen and his wife, and Cambodian King Sihamoni and the Queen Mother, as they launched their appeal, but were refused assistance by Ministry officials and left at the end of the day with no promises of help.
This year marks the 150th birthday of one of the most consequential laws in Indonesian history. In 1870 the Dutch adopted the Agrarische wet or undang undang agraria. This law contains the provision that would become known as the domein verklaring: ‘all land not held under proven ownership, shall be deemed the domain of the state’.
(Business in Cameroon) - On August 14, 2020, Ousmanou Biri, the regional president of the association for the cultural development of Cameroonian Mbororos - a community of sheep-breeding nomads well known in Cameroon- sent correspondence to the Minister of Land Affairs Henri Eyébé Ayissi. In his correspondence, Ousmanou Biri denounced the temporary concession of 100,000 hectares of land in Tignère (department of Faro et Déo) to an investor who wants to use the lands for a livestock project.
Intensive farming makes future pandemics such as Covid-19 more likely as wild animals carrying diseases known to infect humans are forced into increasingly close contact with us, a research report showed on Wednesday.
Writing in the journal Nature, a team of researchers from University College London (UCL) warned that animal pathogens are increasingly likely to make the leap to humans as land-use changes benefit animal hosts.
The UN estimates that three-quarters of land on Earth has been severely degraded by human activity since the start of the industrial era.
More than 30 Cambodian-Muslim families protested the construction of a road running through Kampong Chhnang province’s Chhong Kos village on Wednesday after they noticed a portion of an ancestral graveyard alongside the road was damaged.
The Cambodian-Muslim community also noticed the road was being built at a higher elevation, another reason they protested the construction, said Mat Sary, an imam (religious leader) in the community located in Kampong Chhnang town’s Khsam commune.
Oddar Meanchey provincial authorities remain puzzled about the Thai Appeal Court’s recent ruling in favour of more than 700 families who claimed to have been locked in a land dispute with three Thai-owned sugar companies in Samrong town and Chongkal district.
Provincial deputy governor Vat Paranin told The Post on Sunday that the land dispute with the firms was resolved in 2010. He said because the case occurred in Cambodia, the complaint should have been filed in a regional court.
BANGKOK, July 31 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A Bangkok court on Friday agreed to grant class action status to more than 700 Cambodian families suing a Thai sugar firm for evicting them from their homes, a lawsuit that human rights experts see as a test case for transboundary disputes.