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.

We cannot talk about traditional knowledge without talking about the right to land, territories and resources – for us, it is ecosystem-based and language-based – they are linked to each other, environmental activist Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim told Landscape News.

Despite a legal ruling and international attention, Kenya's Ogiek people have continued to face evictions, underlining the inherent difficulties in implementing judgments

The continued dominance of colonial-imposed laws over pre-existing customary legal systems, has been the bane of land rights disputes involving indigenous peoples across the globe for many years.

Post-colonial states have been unable to address such issues since formal law has continued to prevail over ancient customary systems even post-independence.

LA PAZ, Apr 2 2019 (IPS) - The ancient Qhara Qhara nation began a battle against the State of Bolivia in defence of its rich ancestral lands, in an open challenge to a government that came to power in 2006 on a platform founded on respect for the values and rights of indigenous peoples.

Men and women from the Qhara Qhara indigenous people marched nearly 700 km over the space of 41 days, between the official capital, Sucre, and La Paz, the country’s political hub, to protest that the fragmentation of their ancestral lands threatens their culture.

The Ayoreo-Totobiegosode, an indigenous people in the heart of South America, has finally secured a key part of its territory after a 26 year struggle.

Ayoreo leaders received the ownership papers to 18,000 hectares of their ancestral land.

In more than a decade of working on women’s land rights, I have often been asked the question “where is the evidence?” While we have more and more insight into how secure land rights benefit women, men, and communities, the question remains “how to get there?”: we don’t know as much as we should (or would like!) about what works, or does not, to improve land rights for women.

The latest report from Mokoro's WOLTS project team is the product of rigorous field research in a third Mongolian community, in collaboration with the Mongolian NGO, People Centered Conservation (PCC). The report addresses critical issues at the intersection of gender, land, mining and pastoralism in Tsenkher soum, in Arkhangai aimag in central-western Mongolia.

KAMPALA – Rural women farmers have asked government to create more awareness about land registration processes and land rights Issues in order to save many from land grabbers.

The farmers, who met at Hotel Africana in Kampala on February 8 during the Women in Agriculture conference, told State Minister for Lands Persis Namuganza that majority of the rural women are still ignorant about land rights and Registration.

They say this has paved way for their rights on land to be violated by their spouses and land grabbers.

Celebrating Great Deeds in Legal Empowerment

The biennial Grassroots Justice Prize competition is the world’s only competition recognizing grassroots organizations and institutions, large and small, across the globe, that are working to put the power of law into people’s hands.

This year, we are offering 3 prizes of $10,000 USD.

On July 21, 2011 the then Acting Prime Minister Sam Abal announced the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry to investigate 77 land leases which were issued under the Somare government’s Special Agriculture & Business Leases (SABL). The inquiry, which was later extended by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill in October 2011 for a further five months, discovered that over 90 percent of the leases totalling over 5 million hectares were illegally obtained from traditional landowners (Zealand, 2015).

MIRI: Two crucial pioneering projects have started in Sarawak. First, an effort to publish the oral history of the 6,000 indigenous settlements statewide, and second, to use drones and GPS devices to do aerial mappings of native land.

The documentation of native oral history is meant to ensure that rich ancestral traditions and ways of life will not be forgotten.

Global survey of perceptions of property rights could help provide solutions to key development challenges

The first official results from an international survey of how secure people feel in their homes and on their land were published today, revealing that in the initial 15 countries surveyed, 25% of citizens are concerned that their property could be taken away from them. This aligns with earlier findings from a pilot study in three countries.