News on Land

Forest ownership is changing across Europe. New community and private forest owners are bringing fresh interest and new objectives to forest management[1]. According to the COST Action FP1201 “Forest land ownership changes in Europe” report 2015[2], common property regimes, such as rural common ownership/rural communities have been identified in 16 EU, including all Mediterranean countries.

• The struggle for access to safe and sufficient water for drinking and irrigation defines life for the indigenous Wayuu of La Guajira, Colombia’s northernmost department.
• Activists have described the Wayuu as being in the throes of a humanitarian crisis, with Wayuu children suffering high rates of malnutrition and death as a result of water and food scarcity.

The actions of a national bank and an influential politician — in alienating a small community from their land — amounts to corruption, says Transparency International Sierra Leone. The fallout includes five community members imprisoned for murder and scores of residents forced to flee their impoverished community.

Five years ago people were evicted from their shacks in Durban to make way for housing for members of the African National Congress

DURBAN, South Africa - Five years ago Ndabo Mzimela was evicted from a cramped backyard shack in Durban to make way for the construction of subsidised government housing.

Those houses, he and other residents said, were allocated exclusively to paying members of the African National Congress (ANC), the South African ruling party that has been beset in recent years by allegations of widespread corruption.

KUCHING, Nov 5 — Works Minister Baru Bian today defended the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government against criticisms for not giving a specific allocation in the federal Budget 2019 for the perimeter survey of native customary rights (NCR) land in Sarawak.

He said the critics were implying that the PH government is not concerned about NCR land and not treating it as an important issue.

Baru pointed out that land matters are not under the purview of the federal government and nor does it have any say in state land matters.

Kolkata: The Mamata Banerjee government will introduce a Bill in the state Assembly to ensure land rights to the residents of enclaves (Chitmahal) in Cooch Behar.

It may be mentioned that 14,854 people had become Indian citizens with 51 enclaves of Chitmahal coming within the country's jurisdiction in July 2015. But still, land rights issues have not been settled yet for thousands of enclave dwellers.

Now, in a bid to give relief to them, the state government is going to table the Bill in the forthcoming Assembly session.

The planned prosecution of Supreme Court judges who acquitted 11 peasant farmers jailed over the death of police officers during a violent land eviction in 2012, known as the Curuguaty Massacre”, could undermine the rule of law, a UN expert said on Monday.

“These are fundamental elements in the full enjoyment of human rights,” UN Special Rapporteur on independence of judges and lawyers, Diego García-Sayán, said in a press release.

During his campaign, he pledged to take away their territory. His victory will embolden the brutal mining and logging gangs

For some low-income Jordanians the attention and funds directed towards refugees from Syria are a source of tension

DHLAIL, Jordan - Syrian refugee Umm Mohammed fidgeted in her chair in a breezy office in Dhlail city, northern Jordan, before joking: "We don't know how to sit still."

Along with others who fled conflict in neighbouring Syria, she works with low-income Jordanians in this industrial town famed for its dairy and textile factories.

But their work is different: retrofitting homes to make them green.

Nigel Scullion gave almost half a million dollars to groups to argue how they might be negatively impacted by land rights claims

Sri Lanka’s civil war ended nearly a decade ago, but Maithili Thamil Chilwen’s barren plot of land still resembles a battlefield.

There is only a mound of dirt where her home once stood in Keppapilavu village in the country’s northeast; the rest is just dirt, gravel, and broken shards of doors and windows from her demolished home.

On July 26, 2018, farmers in Xai-Xai, Mozambique, achieved a milestone. They met to formalize their new farmers’ association, elect leaders, and prepare a petition to the local government for land. The association, christened Tsakane, which means “happy” in the local Changana language, was the culmination of six years of resistance to a Chinese land grab that had sparked protest and outrage. The association now has a request pending for its own land.