Main photo: Cambodian farmer and land rights activist Oum Samorl (photo: Ridan Sun)
Cambodian farmer Oum Samorl and her family lost their farm to a corporate land grab 15 years ago. They have never stopped feeling the loss, especially during the pandemic.
Oum Samorl remembers the day in June 2006 when tractors invaded her family’s farm in Cambodia’s Pailin province.
Main photo: Protesters call in Phnom Penh for government authorities to intervene in land-rights disputes, Jan. 13, 2020 (RFA).
Cambodia’s government is unable to resolve the country’s myriad land disputes because many of them involve senior officials, Minister of Interior Sar Kheng said in a rare acknowledgement Tuesday, as a rights group urged authorities to take action against all perpetrators of illegal land grabs equally.
When the indigenous Kreung and Kachok communities locked down their villages in Cambodia’s Ratanakiri province in March to keep safe from the novel coronavirus, no one knew change was afoot in their ancestral forest.
A Lao woman held since March for protesting the government seizure of village land for a medical college and hospital was released after her family accepted compensation for their property loss, RFA has learned.
Keo, a resident of Xiengda village in the Saysettha district of the Lao capital Vientiane, was detained on March 16 after arguing with police in a dispute that was later shown in a video published on Facebook, local sources told RFA in an earlier report.
She has now been freed from detention, a family member told RFA’s Lao Service on June 8.
BACKGROUND
Land governance across borders or transnational land governance looks at rule making, standard setting and institution building across borders. Empirically, one can see a variety of patterns of regulatory governance emerging. The studies commissioned by IGAD in 2016 reviewing the of land governance systems in the IGAD Member States identified four transnational elements:
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.
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.
"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.
Land and water-related conflicts are flaring up across Kenya, amid drought, population growth and high unemployment
By Kagondu Njagi
CHUKA, Kenya - Phyllis Mugeni was watering her greens when she spotted a dozen armed men advancing from the lowlands to attack farmers working on the banks of the River Naka in the foothills of Mount Kenya.
Modern land registration systems are usually compulsory. Countries must be able to keep track of land, ownership and land use. This is important for planning, real estate sales and urbanization. When land is properly and legally registered, it should protect landowners.
The National Land Policy (NLP) will seek to ensure that a staggered, accessible and affordable process of compulsory registration is enforced after the ratification of the policy.
By: Nure Alam Durjoy
Date: December 02, 2016
Source: Dhaka Tribune
By: Rina Chandran
Date: November 16th 2016
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
MUMBAI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Conflicts related to land and resources are the main reason behind stalled industrial and development projects in India, affecting millions of people and putting billions of dollars of investment and the economy's health at risk, two reports said.