News on Land
Get the latest news on land and property rights, brought to you by trusted sources from across the globe.
Religion Ministry Requires Pagoda Land Titles, Monks Fear Suppression
The Religion Ministry will now require pagodas to have hard land titles as part of an effort to better regulate religious institutions in the country, a move some monks said would tighten authorities’ control of monks who participate in social work.
On Monday, the ministry issued a new directive requiring pagodas to file for land registration with authorities’ assistance, as well as announcing a temporary halt to new applications to establish Christian churches.
Science must back initiatives to restore Africa’s forests, say experts
A call for evidence-based approaches and community engagement to increase tree cover
This article was originally published by Landscape News.
Our disease is landlessness
Main photo: Cambodian farmer and land rights activist Oum Samorl (photo: Ridan Sun)
Cambodian farmer Oum Samorl and her family lost their farm to a corporate land grab 15 years ago. They have never stopped feeling the loss, especially during the pandemic.
Oum Samorl remembers the day in June 2006 when tractors invaded her family’s farm in Cambodia’s Pailin province.
LAND-at-scale Tender: Colombia
Farmers brave bullets, prison for community land titles
Main photo: The family of Chai Bunthonglek, a farmer who was killed in 2015 in a community farm in Klong Sai Pattana in Surat Thani province in southern Thailand, Aug 24, 2020. (Photo: Thomson Reuters Foundation/Rina Chandran)
SURAT THANI: Somruedee Bunthonglek has not repaired the bullet holes in the pickup truck her husband was driving when he survived an assassination attempt barely a year after her father was shot dead on the same communal farm in southern Thailand.
“No vaccine against deforestation”: COVID-19 webinar explores realities for Indigenous Peoples during the pandemic
COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted Indigenous Peoples around the world, cutting a swathe through communities with limited health facilities, disrupting already fragile economies and shining a harsh spotlight on the increased vulnerabilities created by insecure tenure in a time of global pandemic.
Changing the lens: webinar tackles regulatory rollback and championing indigenous voices in the “green recovery”
COVID-19 has exacerbated an already deeply alarming regulatory vacuum, which is being exploited by unscrupulous governments and private sector operators to ramp up the destruction of vital indigenous forestlands – this threatens efforts to rebalance humanity’s relationship to nature with indigenous and local voices at its heart.
Toma de tierras en Argentina: qué hay detrás de la "oleada" de ocupación de terrenos
Federal government to clear 400 hectares of land in Ekiti for allocation to farmers
The federal government, through its Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, FMARD has concluded arrangements to clear 400 hectares of farmlands at Iyemero Ekiti axis of the State’s agricultural processing zone as part of its intervention programmes code-named ‘Agriculture Jobs Plan’.
The information was disclosed at a meeting of the State Coordinator of the FMARD, Mr Olufemi Daramola with the Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Dr Olabode Adetoyi in his office in Ado Ekiti.
Kratie land disputes ‘resolved’
The Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction said on Tuesday that it had completed handing out land concessions to 1,382 families in Kampong Damrei commune, in Kratie province’s Chhlong district.
Its statement came as some residents claimed they never received the land.
The ministry said the provincial administration and land division committee had separated families who were entitled to the land into three groups and completed handing it over on June 10.
Mondulkiri District Governor Transferred Over Illegal Land Grabbing
The first of 10 Mondulkiri public officials implicated in illegal land grabbing in the province has been transferred from his position — a warning to others, according to a government spokesperson, but for local rights monitors a sign of continuing impunity over imprisonable crimes.
An inter-ministerial working group concluded an investigation into illegal encroachment of protected forests in Mondulkiri in late August, identifying 10 governmental officials allegedly involved in stealing state land.