• Researchers looked at 31 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America that hold almost 70% of the world’s tropical forests and 62% of the total feasible natural climate solution potential, and found that most of the tropical forested countries looking to benefit from carbon markets still need to define community carbon rights.
• There is significant public and private interest to use carbon markets to fight climate change and work toward the goals of the Paris Agreement, with the global LEAF coalition pushing to mobilize at least $1 billion to tackle deforestation and forest degr

THE government has been forced to reintroduce its defunct Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) after financial institutions grouped under the Bankers Association and resolved not to accept the state-issued 99-year farm leases.

Agriculture Minister Anxious Masuka said his government had over the past 10 years held discussions with senior bank executives as they dangled a carrot for the bankers to finance the state issued 99-year farm leases.

The government’s proposal is that the farm leases will enable resettled farmers to access financial loans and boost production.

Augur Investments through its chief operations officer Tatiana Aleshina has implicated President Emmerson Mnangagwa in the land dispute in which the City of Harare entered into agreement with the company.

In a sworn affidavit before the High Court in response to Harare North legislator Norman Markham, Savings Scheme and Jacob Pikicha High Court application (case number HC 425/21) seeking reversal of the agreement, Aleshina implicated the President, the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission and legal affairs Permanent Secretary Ms Virginia Mabhiza.

Today 05 March 2021 Masvingo Centre for Research Advocacy and Development (MACRAD), Livison Chikutu represented by Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA) filed two court applications concurrently at Masvingo magistrate court and Masvingo High Court on behalf of the Chilonga community. The application challenges the constitutionality of section 10 (3) (d) of the communal land act chapter 20:04 and the statutory instrument 50 of 2021 communal (setting aside of Land) (Chiredzi), notice 2021.

Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement Minister Dr Anxious Masuka has advised farmers to have a good relationship with banks as Government’s plan to establish Agribank as a land bank is in order and will be complete in the next two months.

Dr Masuka said Agribank will be responsible for investment support and group landing as the Government intensifies commercialisation of the agriculture sector.

He was speaking at Nyamuseve Irrigation scheme in Guruve while touring such schemes and farms in the province on a technical assessment visit.

In Zimbabwe, the government is planning to resettle more than 180 farmers displaced by the Causeway Dam in Machiki. The water impoundment project at this farm in Mashonaland East Province has disrupted the farmers' activities.

In Zimbabwe, disputes over the Causeway Dam project may soon be resolved. The government of this East African country has announced that it will compensate farmers for land lost at Machiki, a farm in Mashonaland East province. They will receive 235 hectares of irrigable land. These farmers were in the watershed of the water reservoir.

RUNDU – Communal land boards across the country are facing a challenge of many requests for land in their areas, with over 30 000 applications yet to be processed, land reform minister Calle Schlettwein has said. 

Applications for both existing and new customary land rights have increasingly gone up despite numerous achievements recorded over the last three years by the outgoing communal land boards. 

Schlettwein last week Friday inaugurated the communal land boards for Kavango East, Kavango West, Ohangwena and Zambezi at Rundu.  

DORDABIS residents have threatened war if the government fails to meet their demands listed in a petition they handed over last week, which land reform minister Calle Schlettwein said he had not received as of yesterday.

This is despite Windhoek rural constituency councillor Piet Adams confirming to The Namibian that he presented the petition to the minister's office.

Dordabis residents staged a demonstration last week over their landlessness and to demand an improvement in their living conditions.

A PROPOSAL to introduce a policy to prevent Namibians from owning more than one farm is unlawful and will not be implemented.

This is according to an update report on the implementation of the second national land conference issued by the office of prime minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila at the end of last year.

The land conference held in 2018 was tasked with reviewing the resolutions of the first national land conference held in 1991 to try and find lasting solutions to Namibia's agricultural and urban land problems.

• Reconnaissance Energy Africa, an oil and gas company with headquarters in Canada, has recently begun exploratory drilling in northern Namibia.
• Conservationists and local communities are concerned over the potential environmental impact that oil and gas extraction could have on such an important ecosystem.
• Northern Namibia and Botswana have a number of interconnected watersheds including the Okavango Delta – the potential for pollutants to enter watercourses and spread throughout the region are a particular concern.

On December 21, Reconnaissance Energy Af