Commercial agriculture has driven land use changes and not only affected millions of hectares of forested land, but also farmers’ and local people’s land rights. Efforts to combat deforestation are at the forefront of the international aid agenda, and clarifying and securing land rights is important for its success.
La organización Front Line Defenders ha documentado 821 casos de Defensores de Derechos Humanos (DDH) asesinados en los últimos cuatro años, desde que empezó a establecer un listado general a nivel mundial en cooperación con ONG nacionales e internacionales. El 79% de este total se produjo en seis países: Brasil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, México y Filipinas. La gran mayoría de estos casos no ha sido debidamente investigada, y sólo unos pocos responsables de estos crímenes han sido llevados ante la justicia.
The Santa Clara de Uchunya community has lived in a remote section of the Peruvian Amazon for generations. Like many indigenous groups, this community of the Shipibo-Konibo people have traditionally managed and relied on forests for hunting, fishing and natural resources.
But in 2014, someone started cutting down large sections of the community’s ancestral forests.
After years of efforts, land rights are finally getting global attention. With several land-related indicators included in the Sustainable Development Goals, the land sector now has the unique opportunity to create an unprecedented momentum around land tenure issues and bring it to a higher level on the development agenda. Our goal is, of course, to contribute to the success of the SDGs, but also to be part of sustainable development in its real and practical sense!
Much of the world’s rural landscapes are technically managed by national governments with limited recognition of, or support for, the rights and management responsibilities of the rural poor who live in these areas. In an era of large-scale land acquisitions for global commodity production, this has led, in some cases, to governments allocating vast tracts of land and resources to companies with limited or no consultation of the people affected.
For hundreds of years, pastoralists in Ethiopia’s lowlands have relied on strong customary land tenure systems to survive. Historically, legislation has failed to clearly define communal rights to rangelands, and the specific roles and responsibilities for both communities and local government to administer and manage these resources. This legislative deficiency prevented pastoral communities from fully exercising their constitutional rights to land (Ethiopia’s Constitution broadly recognizes pastoral communities’ right to access land and prevents their involuntary displacement).
Earlier this year, the outgoing President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf handed over power to George Weah in the country’s first peaceful and democratic transition of power since 1944. It was a moment that crystallized just how far Liberia had come in the last 13 years, since a 2005 peace agreement brought an end to over a decade of civil war, raising hopes internationally that the country remains on course towards lasting peace.
By Tim Hanstad, Co-Founder & Senior Advisor, Landesa
This is the second blog in a series of two that are based on a keynote address made at the 2018 India Land Development Conference.
Los derechos legales otorgados a las comunidades indígenas en Bolivia y Chile difieren enormemente. Val Reynoso investiga.
Bolivia y Chile difieren significativamente en la manera en que sus gobiernos abordan las cuestiones relacionadas con los pueblos indígenas. Estas diferencias son causadas por el sistema económico neoliberal y los legados de la era de Pinochet en Chile, así como por el enfoque de los asuntos indígenas y la redistribución de la riqueza en Bolivia.
Por Silvia Martínez, Prensa Latina, 16 de diciembre de 2017
Roma (PL) El 2017 marcó un retroceso en la noble meta de hambre cero señalada por la ONU para 2030, al registrarse 38 millones de personas más en el ejército de los hambrientos del planeta comparado con 2016.
La sexta avenida, entre quinta y cuarta calles está prácticamente tomada por campesinos, hombres y mujeres que se trasladaron a vivir ahí –frente a Casa Presidencial– porque fueron expulsados violentamente de comunidades en donde vivían, y según lo dicen, están dispuestos a continuar resistiendo hasta tanto el gobierno no les dé una respuesta clara y concreta a sus peticiones que tiene relación con la restitución de las tierras que históricamente les pertenecen.
