JAKARTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Indonesia has cut back its planned transfer of state forests to local communities this year by half - an area twice the size of Los Angeles - because of the coronavirus outbreak, according to the Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

Bambang Supriyanto, the ministry’s director general of social forestry and environmental partnership, said social distancing measures from March to June had halted the technical work needed on the ground to certify the handover of land.

We should recognise that people in informal settlements have the same right to share the city with the same dignity and equality as other residents. Without the active participation of informal settlement residents in upgrading projects, any upgrading plans proposed are destined to flop. Post the pandemic, we (Namibian planning practitioners, donors and private sector) should look towards the inclusion of people in informal settlements communities in planning and upgrading of the informal settlements. 

Main photo credit: Unsplash

Is the COVID-motivated shift enough to support all the laid-off garment industry workers? Who will really benefit?

People more likely to die of starvation caused by the economic fallout of COVID-19 pandemic than the disease itself, says the report

West and central Africa are staring at an unprecedented hunger crisis: At least 19 million people could face food insecurity between June and August 2020, due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

The findings by Action Against Hunger, a global humanitarian organisation, noted that people were more likely to die of starvation caused by the economic fallout of the pandemic than the disease itself.

The Lagos State government says it has set up drop box facility at the Land Registry in its Lands Bureau to ensure unhindered land title documentation in this dire period of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The drop box facility is administered at the collection centre of the Lands Registry, said the Permanent Secretary of the Lagos State Lands Bureau, Mr. Olabode Agoro, at a webinar on: “COVID 19 Disruption and Land Title Administration in Lagos State: Preserving the Business of Real Estate”, organised by DF Legal, a firm of legal practitioners.

From forced displacement to conflict over resources, the coronavirus pandemic has created a “perfect storm” for land rights abuses - and the situation is likely to worsen, researchers and activists warned on Thursday.

The migration of men to rural areas due to lockdowns and job losses has increased competition over land, with a disproportionate impact on woman, said organisers of a land rights webinar.

he successful integration of a number of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been driven by cooperation with large-scale miners (LSMs), refiners, traders and the embedding of traceability measures, says natural resource transformation nongovernmental and nonprofit organisation IMPACT.

Emmanuel Okas Wike is the President, Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers. He spoke to ANN GODWIN in Port Harcourt on how the Land Use Act has undermined professional practice, measures that could transform the real estate sector, and the role of estate surveyors in developing the economy.

Oxfam International warned Thursday that up to 12,000 people could die each day by the end of the year as a result of hunger linked to the coronavirus pandemic—a daily death toll surpassing the daily mortality rate from Covid-19 itself.

April saw the highest global daily mortality rate for Covid-19 thus far with just over 10,000 deaths per day.

The impact of COVID-19 has been felt across the globe in a wide range of countries and very different environments. The pandemic has already affected countries in every region, making this a truly global situation where every country must take steps to prepare and respond.

With the COVID-19 pandemic still expanding across the globe, ACT NOW is urging the PNG government to drop its plans to put customary land into the hands of commercial banks.

The COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated once again that customary land is a vital and irreplaceable resource for our families and communities.

It should be inconceivable that the government would put customary land at risk by allowing commercial banks to hold the title as security for financial loans.

A giant Vietnamese agribusiness company is destroying indigenous land in Cambodia’s Ratanakkiri province, said a joint press release from Equitable Cambodia and Inclusive Development International that was published on Monday.

The human rights groups wrote that many indigenous people in Cambodia’s Ratanakkiri province have been waiting for years for the Vietnamese rubber company, Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL), to finally return their sacred land, as had been promised by a 2015 mediation agreement.