A new study makes a significant contribution to the growing body of research showing that recognizing the land rights of and partnering with indigenous peoples can greatly benefit conservation efforts.
Mexico, one of Latin America’s big economic power houses, held presidential elections on 1 July 2018. The newly elected president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was elected with 53% of the national vote for his left-wing progressive agenda, defeating the party of the outgoing president, Mr Peña Nieto. López Obrador promised the country’s indigenous peoples significant change, including recognition of land rights. Only time will tell whether his promises will turn reality.
“We feel as if we’re combatting an organized criminal gang,” said Everton Barros Dias, head of forest monitoring for the Environment and Sustainability Secretariat (SEMAS) in the Amazonian state of Pará. He explained how “impotent” he feels, as his agency engages in an “unequal fight” to combat a rising wave of illegal deforestation in this key Amazonian state.
A recent report by Norway’s Office of the Auditor General had some tough criticisms for the country’s International Forests and Climate Initiative (NICFI), one of the chief funders of REDD+ initiatives around the world.
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is inviting indigenous peoples’ organizations and communities, and organizations that work with them, to apply for grants that fund projects and partnerships to promote the self-driven development of indigenous peoples and their unique cultural identity.
Deadline: 08/06/2018
This new IPAF cycle will focus on indigenous youth.
Sao Paulo, Brazil - Thousands of indigenous Brazilians from across the country have rallied in the capital, Brasilia, to call authorities to protect their land rights.
Organisers of the annual "Free Land Camp" in Brasilia said more than 3,000 people reached the city this week to denounce what advocacy groups say is a continuing and unprecedented rollback of indigenous rights in the country.
BONN, Germany (Landscape News) — The devolution of land tenure rights to forest-dwelling communities over the past quarter century has led to the development of entrepreneurial initiatives with substantial positive socio-economic outcomes for livelihoods, according to a leading scientist.
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.
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.
BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The brutal rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in India, that has triggered massive protests, highlights nomadic tribes’ vulnerability and lack of land rights, activists said.
According to the police, the girl was kidnapped, gang raped and killed in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir as part of a plot by Hindu residents to evict her nomadic Bakkarwal community from a village where they had temporarily settled.
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.
Protecting the land and resource rights of indigenous peoples will not only provide security for historically exploited groups but also help the global fights against climate change and biodiversity loss, said speakers on Monday at the annual United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.