This rapid scoping of the Food and Agricultural Organisation Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT) sought the views of different organisations, individuals and activists on the usefulness of the guidelines for promoting forest tenure reform in support of secure community land rights. The work aimed to inform and update Fern policy analysis and assess the potential for applying the VGGT standard in Fern’s advocacy strategies and campaigns on EU trade and forest policies. The main analysis and findings are shared in this document.

"Gender, Land and Mining in Pastoralist Tanzania" is the product of rigorous field research over two years by WOLTS team members from Mokoro and HakiMadini. Significant stresses from mining, population growth and climate change, as well as disturbing levels of violence against women have been uncovered in this study of two traditional pastoralist communities in Tanzania. Initial findings are based on repeat rounds of participatory fieldwork by the WOLTS team and have already received attention at national and local level.

Partnering towards access to land and secure land rights for inclusive development

The Elinor Ostrom Award is given in three categories: Practitioners, Senior Scholars and Junior Scholars, in the fields of natural resource management, commons, common-pool resources or collective action.

Winner of "Green Nobel" prize says illegal mining is a scourge as it pollutes rivers with toxic mercury and cuts down forests

BOGOTA - Colombian environmental activist Francia Marquez has faced death threats and been forced from her home in her battle against the mines that she says are polluting rivers and ruining land.

But she has no intention of giving up the work that this week earned her a prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, known as the "Green Nobel", which honours grassroots activism.

By Mary Hodgett (TIMBY)

In Liberia, two small communities are fighting to protect their homes, and land rights against a powerful wave of environmentally destructive industries.

Monrovia - Catholic Bishops Conference of Liberia (CABICOL) has said that the Land Rights Bill is crucial and should properly be reviewed before it is passed into law.

CABICOL said the bill must protect the rights of women and youth to own, manage and transfer land; contain accountable safeguard for community land ownership.

ONDON/BOSTON, April 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Activists are urging Commonwealth leaders meeting in Britain this week to throw their weight behind a campaign to preserve a centuries-old communal land ownership system on the Caribbean island of Barbuda.

After Britain abolished slavery in its colonies in 1834, Barbudans developed a system of communal land ownership, now threatened by government plans to introduce private land ownership to boost development and tourism.

Commercial Farmers Abusing Rural People’s Rights

As activists and policymakers from across the globe gather in Washington D.C. for the World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, it’s a good time to reflect on how commercial agriculture leaves peasants landless in Zambia.

Brazilian police have arrested a priest in the Amazon who championed the rights of smallholders against powerful agricultural interests.

Father Amaro Lopes is the best-known follower of the American-born nun, Dorothy Stang, who was murdered in 2005 in a killing orchestrated by landowners during a dispute that continues today.

Mekong Region Land Governance launches an updated guidebook for documenting customary tenure in Myanmar on 9 March in Yangon. 

This second edition of “Documenting Customary in Myanmar: A Guidebook” includes:

• an introduction to customary tenure concepts and principles,
• an overview of legal issues and challenges to claiming customary tenure under Myanmer’s current legal framework; and
• practical tools and resources to help people document their own customary claims.