Latin America - Firewood for fuel, fruits to feed their families, palm fiber for baskets, medicinal plants to heal their children — women in forest-dwelling communities in Latin America use a wide array of products from their farmland and forests in their daily tasks.

But when it comes to tenure rights to those forests or participation in decisions about their management, women are often left on the sidelines.

Female farmers in Nigeria and Africa at the weekend called on leaders of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, to help them address issues of land rights. 

 

Johannesburg – The Constitutional Court ruled on Monday that a black community holds a right to certain portions of the Salem Commonage in the Eastern Cape and was dispossessed of the land due to past racially discriminatory practices.

According to the judgment, penned by Justice Edwin Cameron and concurred by nine others, the community had rights – but not exclusive rights – to the commonage.

The conflict in Argentina between the indigenous Mapuche community and the national government has claimed another victim: Rafael Nahuel, an indigenous 22-year-old who was killed while resisting a raid by government forces on indigenous activists in the province of Río Negro.

New group could help put pressure on Brazilian government to protect rights of Indigenous Peoples

SARAWAK'S last nomadic tribe, the Penan, have again pressed the state government to recognise their customary rights to land and a forest sanctuary they want called Baram Heritage Forest, by presenting to the government a “detailed community map” 15 years in the making.

A group of nine Penan chiefs, led by Ajeng Kiew, a penghulu of Baram Sungai Patah, flew from the remotest parts of Baram to present the set of 23 maps to Deputy Chief Minister Douglas Uggah Embas last Friday at the state legislative assembly building.

At a land policy conference last week, African governments adopted a resolution to grant documented land rights to at least 30 percent of their female populations by 2025. But to do that they must navigate a complicated mix of local laws and long-held customs.

AFRICAN GOVERNMENTS HAVE committed to addressing the challenges of granting women equal land rights and have said they will aim to have documented land rights for at least 30 percent of their female populations by 2025.

A serious man dressed in gákti, a traditional Sami (also Sámi or Saami) costume, speaks on a video on Facebook.

More than 100 families in Takeo province have been given back their land after a dispute with the Sun Hour company and an individual landholder.

The move follows protests and in front of the Ministry of Land Management as families asked the government to resolve their problems.

The 137 families were told officially on Saturday that 915 hectares in Tram Kak district’s Trapaing Kranhoung commune would be restored to them.

• Indonesian President Joko Widodo last month gave several indigenous communities back the land rights to the forests they have called home for generations.
• The total amount of customary forests relinquished to local groups under this initiative remains far short of what the government has promised, and looks unlikely to be fulfilled before the next presidential election in 2019.

The Marathwada region of Maharashtra is known for its drought-stricken conditions. Farmer suicides have been on the rise and families of the farmers are always on the fear that they would be losing their loved ones to the drought.

To add to plight, if the farmer belongs to the Dalit community, the struggles of the individual are more pronounced. The story of Kantabai Ichake entails similar struggles – a 70-year-old Dalit woman who is among many who have spearheaded the fight of Dalit women across Marathwada.