To amend various laws under the administration of the Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, so as to substitute certain obsolete definitions to ensure legal certainty; to effect certain consequential amendments in this regard; and to provide for matters connected therewith. BE IT ENACTED by the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa

SALGA supports the amendments on tenure grants although it proposed that the provision of bulk services for alternative land and the delivery of municipal services should also be included in the tenure grant. SALGA supports the amendments as it affects limitations on evictions and additional rights to occupiers. The amendments on the establishment of a land rights management board and land rights management committees are also supported by SALGA. The submission discussed the challenges of evictions and the impacts of this on municipalities in detail.

The Committee welcomed the Quarterly Reports as they showed the progress that had been made in dealing with claims. However discomfort was expressed at the pace of restitution. The Committee was very interested in the research aspect of the Commission’s brief.

To amend the Restitution of Land Rights Act, 1994, so as to amend the cut-off date for lodging a claim for restitution; to further regulate the appointment, tenure of office, remuneration and the terms and conditions of service of judges of the Land Claims Court; to make further provision for the advertisement of claims; to provide that the lodging of fraudulent claim shall be an offence; t provide for additional factors which must be considered by the Court when considering whether to order restoratio; to extend the Ministers powers of delegation; and to provide for matters connected there

The purpose of the Mekong Land Research Forum online site is to provide structured access to published and unpublished research on land issues in the Mekong Region. It is based on the premise that debates and decisions around land governance can be enhanced by drawing on the considerable volume of research, documented experience and action-based reflection that is available.

This report presents a political-economic analysis of
land governance at the regional level, focusing on the
Mekong Region

What rural dwellers in the Global South experience as land grabbing, tends to be seen in the Global North as ‘agricultural investment’. The World Bank has been at the forefront of a drive to legitimate these investments, convening to win support for a code of conduct based on Responsible Agricultural Investment (RAI) principles. Many key civil society groups reject the proposal for a code of conduct, objecting to the top-down process by which it was formulated and arguing that it was more likely to legitimate than prevent land grabbing.

This website contains mainly news reports about the global rush to buy up or lease farmlands abroad as a strategy to secure basic food supplies or simply for profit. Its purpose is to serve as a resource for those monitoring or researching the issue, particularly social activists, non-government organisations and journalists.

... This study was intended to find out the benefits of forests, especially for non-wood forest products (NWFPs), to forestdependent local people and the relation to their socio-economic status. Sampling (169 respondents) was chosen to be an equal distribution of household’s economic status. The survey was conducted face to face with structural interviews using both open-and closed-ended questions. The results showed that bamboo and bamboo shoot were considered as the most collected NWFPs in the Bago Yoma region.

... Massive scale plantation forestry in Myanmar began in the early 1980s as a drastic measure to fulfil the increasing demand for timber and to prevent the conversion of deteriorated forestland to agricultural land. More than 30,000 ha of forest plantations have annually been formed since 1984 (Myanmar Forest Department 2000). Myanmar has also launched a Special Teak Plantation Program in 1998 which has an annual plantation target of 8000 ha in addition to the normal plantation scheme.

Abstract: "Land-grabbing is occurring at a significant extent and pace in Southeast Asia; some of the characteristics of this land grab differ from those in regions such as Africa. At a glance, Europe is not a high profile, major driver of land-grabbing in this region, but a closer examination reveals that it nonetheless is playing a significant role. This influence is both direct and indirect, through European corporate sector and public policies, as well as through multilateral agencies within which EU states are members.

Organised by the Land Deals Politics Initiative (LDPI) in collaboration with the Journal of Peasant Studies and hosted by the Future Agricultures Consortium at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex...Rich site with full texts of more than 170 papers and presentations from the Conference