As indigenous campaigner Alessandra Munduruku wins the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, she says the Amazon is 'crying for help

SAO PAULO, Oct 22 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Alessandra Munduruku, a leader of Brazil's Munduruku indigenous community, has seen her home broken into and been threatened over her work defending her people and their Amazon land from illegal miners and loggers, hydropower plants and other threats.

Main photo: The area of China's proposed Vang Vieng development project in Laos is shown in a March 2019 photo (RFA).

A controversial Chinese development project in Laos is now moving ahead despite environmentalists’ warnings and long delays caused by villagers’ objections to surveys of their land by the Chinese firm, Lao sources say.

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 18 — The Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) intends to reclaim some 350,000 hectares of land that it has leased to FGV Holdings Berhad (FGV) as a means to shore up its financial position, Berita Harian reported today.

Development on one of the last large lakes in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh is impacting communities that rely on it for their livelihoods and causing significant flooding in the city as the result of runoff during heavy rains, an environmental watchdog said Thursday, calling for an end to the practice.

BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Chinese tech giant Tencent is creating a “smart city” that utilises technology to put people and the environment first, a model that could be applied to other urban developments after the coronavirus, the project’s architect said on Wednesday.

Net City will be a 2 million square metre (21.5 million square feet) neighbourhood in the southeastern city of Shenzhen, comprising Tencent offices and residences for its employees, as well as public amenities such as parks and a waterfront area.

The Land Portal is an independent non-profit based in the Netherlands, delivering a clear strategy to draw together reliable and trustworthy evidence for use in program development, advocacy campaigning and policy formulation for better land governance.

Nairobi, 14 May 2020 – As COVID-19 spreads around the world, billions of people have been told to stay at home, practice physical distancing, wash their hands regularly and wear masks. However, these simple preventive public health measures are almost impossible to follow for those who are homeless, or who live in unsafe or overcrowded conditions.

In a bid to create avenues of job creation for Ghana’s teeming unemployed youth, the government through its numerous policies, programmes and initiatives instituted the ‘one district, one factory’ programme to be implemented in the various districts of the Volta Region.

The programme is also intended to provide opportunities for the private sector to cash in by setting up factories and industries using indigenous raw materials and also making use of local labour as a way of creating employment.

Many governments, businesses and local communities have made commitments towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) but COVID-19 may set some of these commitments back.

COVID-19 is raging everywhere, resulting in much of the world in self-isolation and the closing of borders worldwide. With comparisons to the 1918 H1N1 influenza pandemic, we are experiencing a literal one-in-100-year event.

The Can Gio Mangrove Biosphere Reserve, located in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City, is one of the world’s largest areas of reforested mangroves.

BY MICHAEL TATARSKI ON 21 APRIL 2020

Mongabay Series: Global Forests

Cadasta Foundation is pleased to welcome Chuck Conley as its new Director of GIS and Technology. In this role, Chuck will serve as Cadasta’s technology solution lead and will work alongside senior leadership to lead, analyze, develop, and implement innovative technical strategies to document the land and resource rights of vulnerable communities.