News on Land

Masrani stood at the confluence of two rivers in Indonesian Borneo as his father recited the most dreadful oath. The extreme form of sumpah adat, a ritualistic nuclear option for Indonesia’s Dayak indigenous peoples, was reserved for dealing with crises nothing else could solve. The forest chattered to the post-daybreak sounds of hornbills and proboscis monkeys as the two-dozen men assembled for the rite.

 

One by one, they beseeched the ancestors to punish those who had shifted their borders and robbed them of their territory.

 

By: Edwin Genoway, Jr 

Date: September 28th 2016

Source: Front Page Africa

Monrovia - A two-day dialogue on large scale land acquisitions in Liberia started Tuesday at a local restaurant in Sinkor.

Des géants indiens de l’agroalimentaire achètent ou louent de vastes surfaces arables en Éthiopie, en Ouganda et en Tanzanie.

By: Kizito Makoye

Date: January 25th 2016

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation

DAR ES SALAAM, Jan 25 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - "Free education but nowhere to sleep!" reads a poster scrawled in Swahili in Dar es Salaam's Jangwani slum, summing up the plight of hundreds of residents forcibly evicted from flood-prone areas of the Tanzanian capital.

By: John Wanyama

Date: October 6th 2016

Source: The Citizen Digital

The Ministry of land has raised a red flag over the rising cases of land grabbing and misuse of private land in the country.

 The day was spent in Theni district. Two public hearings were organized to learn about people's struggles and problems. The first public hearing was organized in Periyakulam. About 70 adivasis and dalits participated in the public meeting. Most of the adivasis were from Chokkanalai, Chinnor, Karumparai, Kadapparaikuli, Chellankalam and the dalits were from the city of Periyakulam.

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With limited land, access to it has been a prevailing issue which leads to human rights violations to farmers, and to the disadvantaged women and indigenous peoples.

How agricultural land is owned, what is grown on it, and by whom, will probably determine much of the next century’s politics, profits and, possibly, revolutions.

By: Theresia Tjihenuna
Date: February 10th 2016
Source: AllAfrica.com / The Namibian

Government says it is not responsible for a stand-off involving two resettlement beneficiaries and a previous farm owner who is refusing to vacate land that has been sold to the state.

By: Alfred Brownell
Date: November 4th 2016
Source: India Blooms

Washington, DC Nov 4 (IBNS): Alfred Brownell, a campaigner for the land rights of Liberia's local communities, and his staff at Green Advocates have gone underground after threats from the police. 

[From the UN Women West Africa blog] Early in June, Sierra Leone will host a national conference, the first of its kind, on Women’s Rights to Property and Land. Plans are well underway with key stakeholders for the organization of the event.