News on Land

Hundreds of people gathered in front of the Koh Kong Provincial Court on November 18 to await the sentencing of their three community land representatives who were accused of defamation related to a land dispute.

Provincial court prosecutor Un Sovantheany identified the three activists as Phao Nherng, Seng Lin and Khon Phon. They were sued for defamation by one of their former fellow representatives, Chhay Vy.

Vy said the three had falsely accused her of persuading people living in Sre Ambel district’s Chi Khor Leu commune to sell their community land.

This week from Geneva, the United Nations is hosting its annual Forum on Business and Human Rights. Thousands of participants from government, business and civil society groups from around the world will gather online to discuss current issues regarding the implementation of the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights – which outline the global authoritative standards on the business responsibility to respect human rights.

Coordination, data and inclusivity key to move ahead, says study

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) embraced REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) a decade ago, becoming an early adopter of the initiative in the region. However, the country’s rate of emissions from forest loss continues to be among the highest in the Congo Basin due to unsustainable logging, fuelwood collection, agricultural expansion and mining.

BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Thai authorities have reached an agreement with a landless community that will allow villagers to live in a mangrove forest if they help protect the area, a unique collaboration that could work across the country, land rights groups said.

Under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the government, human rights groups and about 45 families in the coastal town of Ranong, the community will not get ownership rights but will receive assistance in building homes and access to utilities.

KINSHASA, 16 November 2020 –The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in collaboration with the Global Battery Alliance (GBA), is aiming to raise US$ 21 million from public and private partners over the next three years to fund a series of initiatives aimed at addressing the root causes of child labour in mining communities.

The importance of a sound land administration system (LAS) cannot be over-emphasised.

This article seeks to examine the current state of the land administration system across all land-use categories in Zimbabwe, a general overview of the land administration challenges, with the aim of providing a policy proposition of how the land system can better be administered.

From 9-12 November 2020, 450 finance institutions from around the world will gather(link is external) for the first international meeting of public development banks, dubbed the “Finance in Common” summit, hosted by the French government. The institutions, which range from the World Bank to the China Development Bank, collectively spend $2 trillion a year on so-called development projects — roads, power plants, agribusiness plantations and more.

A Korean palm oil giant has been buying up swathes of Asia's largest remaining rainforests. A visual investigation published today suggests fires have been deliberately set on the land

Petrus Kinggo walks through the thick lowland rainforest in the Boven Digoel Regency.

"This is our mini market," he says, smiling. "But unlike in the city, here food and medicine are free."

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe’s dispossessed white farmers are trickling back to their land, this time as tenants to Black farmers, officials from the country’s governing and opposition parties claimed Monday.

In an interview with Anadolu Agency, George Makombe, a top official of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party and liberation war fighter, said reports of Black farmers renting out the land they repossessed from white farmers two decades ago are true.

Zimbabwe plans to select a financial adviser by Christmas to help it raise US$3.5 billion to compensate white farmers, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube says.

Resolving the issue is seen as crucial to restoring Zimbabwe’s relations with Western nations and multilateral lenders, including the U.S. and the International Monetary Fund, which have imposed sanctions on the country’s leaders and frozen financial assistance.

Coming from a farming family, Danny Hizon, 69, proprietor of Danizon Farms, says, “Farming, you could say, is in my blood.” Growing up, he was surrounded by the rice and vegetable fields in a remote village in San Rafael, Bulacan. During his childhood, his grandfather tried to teach him how to farm, but all that he wanted then was to study. Recalling those days, he shares that he was not interested in farming, so he would feign sickness as an excuse. “Bowing down made me nauseous.