In a growing global movement, environmentalists are trying a new legal route to protect the planet - vesting rivers and reefs with "rights of nature"

WASHINGTON - For some, human rights are not enough - it's nature's turn, now.

In a growing global movement, environmentalists are trying a new legal route to protect the planet - vesting rivers, reefs and threatened habitats with "rights of nature" that override the long-held human right to harm.

A NORTH Queensland court has recognised the Widi people’s ancestral connection to a quarter-of-a-million hectares in the Isaac region.

At a special hearing on-country at Nebo today the Federal Court formally recognised the Widi people’s native title and interests over 249,766 hectares of land and waters, west of Mackay.

Assistant Minister for State Development Julieanne Gilbert said the determination recognised the Widi people’s ancestral connection to their country and further strengthened the Widi people’s culture and language for the next generation.

Women Movement for Sustainable Development (WOMUD) on Tuesday, July 23, 2019, launched the Women’s Participation in the Natural Resources Sectors Report under the title, “Strengthening the Voices of Women in the ongoing land debate in the country.”

The purpose of the program is to promote women’s access to control over productive resources, including land, natural resources that guarantee their rights to participate in decision-making and leadership processes.

The study affected 15 communities in Grand Bassa and Nimba counties from October 24, 2018, to January 23, 2019.

• The highly climate- and biodiversity-friendly agricultural practice of agroforestry is now practiced widely around the world, but its roots are deeply indigenous.
• Agroforestry is the practice of growing of trees, shrubs, herbs, and vegetables together in a group mimicking a forest, and its originators were indigenous peoples who realized that growing useful plants together created a system where each species benefited the others.
• Agroforestry is now estimated to cover one billion hectares globally and sequester over 45 gigatons of carbon from the

From 'smart tractors' to better land rights, farmers need different ways to adapt

The effects of climate change are already being felt across the agricultural sector. Drought has left India’s farmlands crippled. Prolonged flooding has left many U.S. farmers in the Midwest unable to plant their crops. Elsewhere, cyclones in the spring decimated Mozambique’s fields and left millions without food. 

Rights enforcement must be strengthened for forest landscape restoration efforts to succeed, said Steven Lawry during a webinar presentation hosted by the global forest team at GIZ, Germany’s development agency.

Lawry,  a principal scientist with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), presented findings on the role of tenure security in the adoption of forest landscape restoration practices.

A regional workshop on “Strengthening the Accessibility and Visibility of Agricultural and Land Data through the Use of Semantics - AGRIS in Europe and Central Asia” was held by FAO in collaboration with the LandPortal Foundation (the Netherlands) in Moscow, 27-28 June 2019, hosted by the Central Scientific Agricultural Library (CSAL).

AGRIS, or International System for Agricultural Science and Technology, came into being in 1974 on the joint initiative of around 180 FAO member states.

Countries and regions devastated by war and civil strife remain fragile and vulnerable for decades after the fighting has ceased. In this post-conflict period, as social, political, and economic institutions are rebuilt, reconfigured or established anew, land is increasingly acknowledged as not only a key driver or root cause for conflicts, but as a critical factor for relapse and a bottleneck to recovery.

Indians are facing a crippling water shortage and the government has not adequately responded to the situation. Illegal water mafias have emerged, profiting from the distress of the poor, while offering just enough water at exorbitant prices to get through another day. The solution to better manage water and prevent these local water mafias is to introduce water markets in India in a more systematic way.

Large-scale land transactions in which nations sell huge, publicly owned parcels to foreign and domestic corporations negatively affect local women more than men, a new study by Oregon State University shows.

The findings are important because the transactions, also known as land grabs, are occurring at a pace and scale that are unprecedented—at least 45 million hectares, and possibly as many as 200 million, have changed hands over the past decade, mainly in lower-income countries, OSU College of Forestry researcher Reem Hajjar said.

ABIDJAN - Every other day, Kouakou Marie Laure wakes up at 1am to fetch water for her family.

The mother of three carries a bucket on her head back and forth to the nearest affordable water source, a couple of kilometres away, about a dozen times to replenish the family's 200-litre tank.

The water usually lasts through two days of drinking, bathing, cleaning, and washing clothes.

• North America’s temperate rainforest extends some 2,500 miles from California to the Gulf of Alaska, providing important habitat for many species and playing a big role in global carbon sequestration. However, despite its uniqueness, there is no officially recognized name for the whole of the forest.