TBILISI, Oct 31 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - COVID-19 will not spell the end of world cities, which are set to grow further over the next decade, the United Nations said on Saturday, urging civic leaders to use the pandemic as a springboard to build better, more liveable urban centres.
KB.L seeks to bring to life all aspects of the ‘land issue’, recognizing that land is both a deeply important aspect of our history, and an emotive issue shaping our political landscape. KB.L seeks to develop a comprehensive sense of this history, heritage and memory through a combination of news, commissioned articles and links to research. We aim to be recognised as a trusted site providing a wide range of land related news content and research links both nationally and within Southern Africa.
How can we reconcile the hazards of social interaction in a COVID-19 world with the importance of community participation to the successful, and sustainable, implementation of on-going land projects?
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.
COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted Indigenous Peoples around the world, cutting a swathe through communities with limited health facilities, disrupting already fragile economies and shining a harsh spotlight on the increased vulnerabilities created by insecure tenure in a time of global pandemic.
COVID-19 has exacerbated an already deeply alarming regulatory vacuum, which is being exploited by unscrupulous governments and private sector operators to ramp up the destruction of vital indigenous forestlands – this threatens efforts to rebalance humanity’s relationship to nature with indigenous and local voices at its heart.
A compilation of land related news curated by knowledgebase.land - a website maintained by Phuhlisani NPC, a land sector NPO in South Africa. KB.L seeks to bring to life all aspects of the 'land issue', recognising that land is both a deeply important aspect of our history which simultaneously shapes the contemporary political landscape. KB.L aspires to be recognised as a trusted site providing a wide range of land related news content and research links in the South Africa and the sub continent.
One of the ugliest features of the modern world is the exploitation of natural resources for private gain irrespective of its consequences for the environment and the larger community, especially the poor majority.
At least 1.76 million jobs in the nation of about 16 million people are at risk due to COVID-19, while the poverty rate could double, to about one-in-four people, the World Bank said in May. Cambodian human rights groups have this year called for a freeze on loan repayments due to the virus and for lenders to return more than one million land titles held as collateral.
As the world struggles to deal with the shockwaves created by the Coronavirus pandemic, scientists have been drawing direct links between the emergence of new diseases, collapsing biodiversity and the destruction of vital forestlands which for generations have been stewarded by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.