News on Land

NEW DELHI, Jun 12 2017 (IPS) - In Meghalaya, India’s northeastern biodiversity hotspot, all three major tribes are matrilineal. Children take the mother’s family name, while daughters inherit the family lands.

Because women own land and have always decided what is grown on it and what is conserved, the state not only has a strong climate-resistant food system but also some of the rarest edible and medicinal plants, researchers said.

Colombia is home to a swathe of rainforest roughly the size of Germany and England combined.

CAQUETA, Colombia, June 9 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Seen from the air, muddy rivers snake through rolling forested hills stretching to the horizon in Colombia's southern province of Caqueta that for decades were rebel lairs and an epicentre of the civil war.

A peace deal signed last year between the government and the rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) ended half a century of conflict.

Guarani-Kaiowá leader Ladio Veron is touring Europe seeking international support to end attacks and killings of indigenous people, land theft and environmental harm in Brazil.

Guatemalan families face a violent eviction as they fled violence in their own homes.

At least 120 campesino families from Guatemala have installed a makeshift camp at the border between the Central American and Mexico as they fear a violent eviction from the army.

Forest dweller Utpal Nokrek, who is now at 32, has been restricted to a wheelchair for 13 years.

It was 3 January 2004 when Utpal was shot during clashes between the forest dwellers and police over acquisition of thousands of acres of forest land by the government in the name of an eco-park at Tangail's Madhupur forest.

"As the forest dwellers of Garo and Koch communities protested the eco-park project, rangers and police opened fire. I was shot during the clashes," Utpal said.

SAO PAULO, Brazil – On May 29 the NGO SOS Mata Atlântica and the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais released their annual report on the Atlantic Forest with some worrying results. The report shows that between 2015 and 2016, more than 29,000 hectares (71,660 acres) of native forests were lost. That’s a 57.7 percent increase over the previous year.

Worried by the high rate of deforestation in the state and its negative consequences, some communities in Cross River State have called for the adoption of forest governance as a way to tackle the menace.

The young Changemakers who won seed grants through our Land and Corruption Programme last year are making progress with their projects.

Here are their stories:

Ariel Lashansky

From exposing dodgy land barons in Zimbabwe, to public-private sector collusion forcing locals off their land in Uganda, we’re using the power of video show how land corruption affects lives and what we’re doing to bring about change.

Take a look:

Ghana

This film was made by widowed farmers in Kulbia village in northern Ghana. It documents how land rights violations are destroying their livelihoods.

Malian men control access to land and decide which parts women are allowed to farm - that's a problem for women as erratic weather increases competition for land and harvests

BOGOSSONI, Mali, May 29 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Anthio Mounkoro has been farming land in Bogossoni for as long as she can remember – but none of it was ever hers.

"The land I've been cultivating my whole life is my father's," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation while meticulously watering a batch of shallots, careful not to waste one drop from the hose.

National laws and regulations in low- and middle-income countries consistently fail to protect the land rights of women living in indigenous and rural communities, making them ill-prepared to reach the targets set by the Sustainable Development Goals or the Paris Agreement on climate change, a new report called “Power and Potential” released by the Rights and Resources Initiative, or RRI, reveals.