News on Land

The Constitutional Court’s October 2018 judgment was pivotal in protecting the secure land tenure by persons previously disadvantaged by apartheid laws

The current clamour for redistribution of land in SA has heightened interest in land reform and placed raging sociopolitical discourse at centre stage.

Cape Town – A legal battle for ownership of rights to land leased to a major petrol station has ended up in the Constitutional Court.

Shell South Africa had in 1991 built a petrol station in Nelspruit (now Mbombela) in Mpumalanga, on land it leased from HL Hall & Sons and, according to court papers, Hall had undertaken that, if ever it wished to sell the land, it would first offer it to Shell.

The energy giant would then have 30 days to exercise its right.

• New Minister of Infrastructure Tarcísio Gomes de Freitas is considered one of President Jair Bolsonaro’s most capable ministers.

Rapid felling of South Sudan's teak forests, largely by foreign-owned firms, has drawn protests - and brings environmental risks

KATIRE, South Sudan - Sprawling teak forests, planted nearly a century ago to supply lumber and government income, are fast disappearing in South Sudan as timber companies take advantage of the country's chaos to extract large amounts of wood, environmentalists say.

In early October 2018, residents of Trapicheiros—a small favela of 52 families situated near Salgueiro in Tijuca, in the North Zone of Rio—began receiving messages of harassment from strangers on the Internet. 

Millions of peasant farmers in the rural areas of Sierra Leone do not own land of their own but have to rent from land owning families. Added to their poverty is the fact that they depend on Shylock money lenders to secure seeds and capital for their farming activities.

At the end of the day, their harvests are not only meagre but most it goes to paying debt and interest that are trapping them in a vicious circle of poverty, which when looked at closely are responsible for the majority of youths abandoning the countryside for life in the city.

The People's Movement for a Just Society (P-Move), a grassroots group campaigning for land rights for the rural poor, has asked the government to help 486 communities that are waiting for land title deeds. 

These forest dwellers, who have been living on national park land for generations, now find their homes are classified as encroaching on protected land following policy changes over the past 30 years. 

CANBERRA — A report from the U.N Environment Programme released last month seeks to make governments look beyond environmental law, and focus on gaps in implementation.

The report analyzes the global environmental rule of law and provides an important evidence base to help advocacy efforts on proper enforcement of laws.

“Governments talk about how good their laws are but they don’t necessarily talk about how these are being implemented.”

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.

• A court in Ecuador’s Sucumbíos province has ordered that the mining concessions already in operation on territory claimed by the Cofán indigenous people, and those currently in the process of being granted, must be canceled, affecting some 324 square kilometers (125 square miles) in total.
• The ruling also requires that reparations be made for any impacts caused by recent mining.
• For the community, the court’s decision is a victory that represents a milestone for the rights of all indigenous communities in Ecuador.

In January 201

Johannesburg - Wherever she goes, Nonhle Mbuthuma expects to feel the cold metal tip of a gun pressed against her head.

The land and environmental rights campaigner knows she could pay the ultimate price in her unwavering fight to protect her unspoilt, ancestral land from mining.

“I don’t feel safe at all,” says Mbuthuma, a founder of the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC), of the threats she receives from pro-mining interests.

“My voice is now the loudest. I’m seen as a ‘nuisance’ because I’m protecting my forefathers’ land and my children’s land.”

• Agriculture is the leading cause of tropical forest loss in Latin America.
• New research from the University of Bern says institutions – including environmental policies, laws and regulations – are vital in preventing agricultural expansion, and deforestation.
• Higher inequality can cause ruptures within communities, and prevent collective action needed to protect the environment.