News on Land

As Brazil lives through the last feverish week prior to this Sunday’s second round presidential election, reports have come in indicating an alarming increase in violent threats and attacks since the campaign’s start – occurring in both urban and rural areas.

Based in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, Swayam Shikshan Prayog has repositioned rural women as farmers

Agriculture can be a lonely endeavour but in the drought-hit belt of Marathwada, deep in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, women have been the driving force behind a new wave of sustainable farming.

Jose Domingo Ulcue Collazos was on his motorcycle when he was shot.

An indigenous teacher, Jose Domingo Ulcue Collazo was killed Monday night in the town of Santander de Quilichao in the department of Cauca, Colombia. His death makes him the 173rd social leader killed in Latin America in 2018.

Social organizations reported that the killing occurred between 4:30 pm and 8:00 pm local time while Ulcue was commuting on his motorcycle. 

The suspects shot Ulcue in the chest, he was later transported to the Francisco de Paula Santander hospital where he died.

Little has been done to reverse the damage of gold mining and villagers have little recourse, say experts

NA NONG BONG, Thailand - They came in the night - about 150 men wearing masks and wielding sticks, knives and guns who swarmed the village of Na Nong Bong in Thailand's northeastern province of Loei, firing into the air while threatening and beating residents.

It’s has been six months since more than 30,000 farmers marched from Nashik to Mumbai demanding attention to a series of agrarian and forest rights related issues. The protest march, led by the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) was called off only after the state administration promised that it will take steps to address all the demands of the protesters within six months. Some of the demands include:

Journalist Sue Branford and social scientist Maurício Torres spent a month learning about Ferrogrão (Grainrail), one of the newest threats to the Brazilian Amazon – first meeting with government officials in Brasilia and then travelling along the proposed route, speaking to both sides in the heated debate over its construction. This the first of their reports.

MANILA, Philippines — The deaths of nine sugar workers in Negros Occidental over the weekend is a sign of continuing social injustice, a land rights advocacy group that has been working with farmers on Negros island said Monday.

"The agrarian reform program began 30 years ago and thousands of farm workers remain landless, earning a measly amount of less than P100 a day," KAISAHAN, which has been working with agrarian reform beneficiaries or ARBs since 1990, said in a statement. 

Transparency International (TI) Kenya is sensitizing youth at the Coast on land and property rights to avert violence related to land disputes in the region.

The  organization’s Coast Senior Regional Officer, Ms. Mary  Maneno said the initiative is aimed at promoting youth land ownership rights as well as access to family and community land.

Speaking at a Kwale County  Youth Summit, Ms. Maneno, who is a lawyer by profession, said there is need to create awareness among the local youth and the populace in general, on solving land disputes amicably.

JOHANNESBURG: Thousands of land claimants are taking government back to court for failing to process old claims.

The Constitutional Court will hear the matter on November 6.

Admitting to have failed to comply with the court’s order to re-enact legislation within 24 months to enable processing of new claims, Parliament has pleaded for an extension of deadline.

Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga’s 2016 ruling interdicted processing of these claims, saying they were accepted based on an invalid legislation.

The Responsible Land Policy project (RELAPU) is being implemented in the two districts

Land conflicts are expected to reduce in Teso sub region after the German government and the Lands Ministry has come in to resolve land disputes and demarcate land in Soroti and Katakwi Districts.

The German International Cooperation (GIZ) in collaboration with the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, including local governments as well as Ateker Women Land Rights Partners (AWOLARIP) is implementing the Responsible Land Policy project (RELAPU) in the two districts.

• Provincial authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo have approved forest concessions for five communities.
• Following the implementation of a new community forest strategy in June, this is the first time the government has given communities control of forests.
• Sustainable use of the forest is seen by conservation and development organizations as a way to both combat rural poverty and fight deforestation.

Recent violent events in Nicaragua, as noted in my previous column, are forcing some of us on the left to take a hard look at power -- and how even power on the left can corrupt.

To better understand present-day events, harken back to Nicaragua at the time of the Sandinista Revolution and the agrarian reform which was to have lifted the poorest citizens out of poverty.