News on Land

TAK: Three large tracts of woodland -- about 45 rai altogether -- were found to have been encroached on inside the Mae Sot National Forest Reserve in Phop Phra district, according to a local media report.

The encroachment was reported to the 6th Forest Protection Unit in Mae Sot district by local villagers.

On Saturday, forest protection officials were dispatched to an area near Moo 7, Ban Pakha Kao, in tambon Khirirat of Phop Phra district to investigate.

Authorities in Laos’ Luang Prabang province arrested three rural villagers for trespassing after they tried to mine gold on land granted in a concession to a Chinese company, RFA has learned.

The villagers, from Phapon village in Luang Prabang’s Pak Ou district, were initially detained by Chinese employees of the Thian Chin Huakjan-Lao mining company. The Lao authorities arrived later to take them in. They were accused of illegally mining gold on the concession land.

For a commercial farm investor, who by profession is an agricultural economist, putting his money and energy into commercial farming demonstrates keen interest. Not only was he born into a family of farmers who have been involved in the development of commercial farms but he too has been involved in sectors that are more close to his passion and ambition.

Monrovia — In fulfillment of the Ministry of Agriculture's new vision to shift from subsistence to mechanized farming, Agriculture Minister, Jeanine Milly Cooper, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with a local farm, Kpawee Farm, for the use of a power tiller in preparation of the planting season.

The power tiller was among several donated agriculture equipment and implements -dusty with spider web increasing on them -have been kept at the ministry's warehouse off Somalia Drive, now renamed Japan Freeway.

Destruction in Brazil’s portion of the Amazon rose 30% in March, compared to the same month a year ago, according to the country’s space research agency, INPE.

In the first three months of the year, Amazon deforestation was up 51% from a year ago to 796 square kilometers (307 square miles), an area roughly the size of New York City.

On January 9, 2020, thousands of police entered the Dong Tam commune in Hanoi. A clash erupted, leading to the killing of three policemen and a civilian later named as Le Dinh Kinh. Once a veteran soldier and chief of police, the 84-year-old Kinh had become a leader of the Dong Tam people in a longstanding land dispute with the government.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to turn our world upside down, and our thoughts are with everybody directly or indirectly affected by the virus. To ensure the health and safety of all of us and those around us, LANDac has made the following decisions.

LANDac 10-year anniversary

CENTRAL Governor Robert Agarobe is advising villagers to use the state of emergency period to farm their land.
Agarobe called on villagers to concentrate on farming instead of travelling to town to buy sugar and rice which was also putting themselves at risk of being infected by the coronavirus.
He said eating fresh food from the garden was better than buying junk food from the shops.
“It could be a good way too for young people to learn their traditional way of living by making gardens, growing crops and storing them for later use,” he said.

• The social distance at the farms implies that farmers must limit the number of labour force-carrying an activity at a time.

As indigenous groups lock down in villages, trespassers are taking advantage of their absence to steal their land

By Richard Pearshouse, Amnesty International’s head of crisis and the environment, and Jurema Werneck, executive director of Amnesty International Brazil