News on Land

Attacks have raised concerns about further violence from illegal miners who often look for gold in protected areas or indigenous lands amid rising tensions over land ownership

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 29 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Brazilian army and police officers have ramped up security in the northern town of Humaitá in the Amazon region after illegal gold miners set fire to the offices of government environmental watchdogs, officials said on Sunday.

The 50-year civil war is over but, in the Cauca Valley, indigenous communities are on frontline of fight against drug gangs, riot police and deforestation

A green-and-red flag flies over a cluster of bamboo and tarpaulin tents on the frontline of an increasingly deadly struggle for land and the environment in Colombia’s Cauca Valley.

Santiago Maldonado was last seen alive in public in Patagonia on August 1 at a protest for the land rights of the Mapuche, a group of indigenous peoples from Chile and Argentina. Various witnesses recount seeing him being detained by military police and loaded into a van during a raid by state authorities, but there is no official record of his detention, and no information was provided to his family.

Indigenous leaders and forestry experts warned on Tuesday that without more funding and protection for forests and their peoples, the world will fail to meet the ambitious goals set by the Paris Agreement.

In "a declaration of the guardians of the forest," the coalition of indigenous groups called on countries to help stop the killing of its leaders, ensure legal recognition of their lands and designate environmental degradation a crime against humanity.

The government had reclassified four economic land concessions as state property, reclaiming almost 20,000 hectares earlier handed to private firms to use for rubber plantations.

A sub-decree issued on August 31 said the land in Kratie, Kampong Thom and Ratanakkiri provinces was to be taken back from four companies following an Agriculture Ministry proposal in March.

The companies were all supposed to develop rubber plantations, but failed to do so, clearing the land and then abandoning it.

The pioneers of the Aboriginal land rights movement in the Kimberley are working off a faded photograph to try to identify people who took part in the Noonkanbah land rights protests, which galvanised Indigenous resistance in the region almost 40 years ago.

The iconic image was taken in 1978 and shows dozens of Aboriginal people marching across the dusty paddocks of Noonkanbah Station, in protest against plans by American company AMEX to drill for oil near sacred sites.

The community council in the area has repeatedly denounced human rights violations against the Afro-Colombian, Mestizo and Indigenous peasants in the region.

A Colombian social leader, Jose Jair Cortes, was murdered in a rural area of Tumaco municipality located in the southwest department of Narino. 

Jair Cortes, a member of the local council of the Alto Mira and Frontera Community, was killed in a sector called Y, located in the heart of the city of Tumaco. The social leader was one of seven community leaders to receive death threats in recent months. 

The International day of Rural Women, which we celebrate today, is an annual event to recognise the role women play in agriculture and rural development.

In Kenya where the foundation of most communities is agriculture and livestock production, women contribute up to 80 per cent of workforce yet they only hold 1 per cent of registered land in their names and around 5-6 per cent of registered titles are held in joint names (Kenya Land Alliance, 2013).

Pipeline company downplaying major legal and financial risks of crossing unceded First Nations territory in British Columbia

The third-generation farmers question alleged discrepancy in issuance of permits among different parties to operate on the land.

Deaths of environmental activists locked in conflict with mining, logging and agricultural companies across three continents has passed 150

• Interactive: recording the deaths of environmental activists around the world

The number of people killed this year while defending their community’s land, natural resources or wildlife has passed 150 – meaning 2017 is on course to be the deadliest year on record.