Lufwanyama District in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia, home to many remote communities that completely depend on smallholder agriculture for food and income, is on a mission to collect native seeds to build a seed bank.

The African Women’s Collaborative for Healthy Food Systems emphasizes the importance of local, agroecological, and equitable food systems, and raises awareness of peasant and indigenous women’s important contributions to food sovereignty and food justice, particularly during the COVID-19 crisis.

An anthracite mine in rural KwaZulu-Natal which has operated for more than 30 years and has reportedly been involved in several controversies during this time involving water pollution, illegal mine expansion and water shortages in neighbouring rural communities, experienced a slurry dam collapse on 24 December 2021. Large volumes of potentially toxic and acidic coal-mine effluent have spilled into rivers flowing through rural communities and the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi and iSimangaliso wildlife reserves.

Burundi’s government is trying to increase its share of the mineral wealth that foreign mining companies extract from its soil. The government receives only 10% of the income from the minerals even though it owns the land, according to an official of the Ministry of Energy and Mines.

To put pressure on foreign mining companies operating in Burundi, the government ordered a shut-down last July of mines belonging to seven British, Chinese and Russian companies. It says the mines can re-open once the contracts have been renegotiated.

In bilateral negotiations  which are reported to have disregarded international participation rights based both in treaties and customary international law, both the German and Namibian governments have been accused of  “seeking forgiveness without listening to descendants” and with no reference to the return of land to the dispossessed as part of restitutive justice.

Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, a prominent South African Advocate and author writing an Op-Ed in the Mail and Guardian on 8th January, provides in depth analysis of the failure by South Africa's ANC ruling party  to address land issues. He argues that "the backstory to the formation of the ANC (in 1912) was land... Yet the evidence since 1994 shows hesitation, timidity and indifference to the resolution of land".  

THE fate of 12 000 villagers in Chilonga, Chiredzi, has been effectively sealed after the High Court on Thursday ruled there was “finite wisdom” in gave President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration’s decision to evict them.

The controversial decision by government, which courted global outrage, has been raging for almost a year now. High Court judge Justice Joseph Mafusire dismissed an application by villagers in which they were challenging their pending eviction.

As companies extract wealth, villagers say they see little benefit and are instead exploited in quarries, live in homes damaged by blasts and are unable to farm polluted land

High Court judge Justice Martin Mafusire has dismissed an application by Chilonga villagers challenging government’s plans to evict more than 12 000 families from their ancestral land in Chiredzi to pave way for a lucerne grass project.

By Nyashadzashe Ndoro 

by Valisoa Rasolofomboahangy on 5 January 2022 | Translated by Pénélope Vasina

The Rights and Resources Group has several interesting job opportunities available.

Africa’s “Great Green Wall” initiative is a proposed 8,000-kilometer line of trees meant to hold back the Sahara from expanding southward. New climate simulations looking to both the region’s past and future suggest this greening could have a profound effect on the climate of northern Africa, and even beyond.

Please apply for plot allocation – Tawana Landboard chair