The Maasai community of Musul have lived on the same land in Laikipia county for generations. It is their source of food and water, the heart of their culture and beliefs, and their ancestral home. But until recently, their legal rights to govern it were tenuous.
It was good land. Before the company’s arrival in 2011, the people of Ngovokpahun village had used it to grow cocoa and other cash crops to help them pay for their children’s education. But when Italian Agriculture offered to build them a school, health center, and roads, provide them with employment, and pay rent, leasing out the land seemed like the wiser option. The company drafted the agreement and the landowners signed.
My name is Silas Siakor and I am the Country Manager at IDH, The Sustainable Trade Initiative in Liberia. I have worked on natural resource governance for the past 20 years - with a focus on land and forest. I am deeply honored to speak at this year’s conference to share some reflections based on the Liberian experience and to send a clarion call to civil society, academia, and private sector to step up and do more to strengthen land governance. The future of our planet depends on it.
The day I first met Dr. Tajamul Haque, I did not realize I was meeting the man who would change the trajectory of tens of millions of lives across India – and my own.
When Talabitti’s husband died in 2016, her claim to the family land seemed to die with him. Though her husband had worked the family land by himself, upon his death his male cousins laid their claim. If Talabitti attempted to make a competing claim, they threatened to drive her away – with violence, if necessary. Sadly, this threat materialized.
2020 was a tough year on many fronts, and land rights were no exception. COVID-19 hindered land rights advocates from doing field research, meeting with government officials, prioritizing policy initiatives, and obtaining funding.
Despite these headwinds, we have seen important advances, and the field continues to grow. Here are eight breakthroughs in 2020 to celebrate:
Article written by Radha Krishna Khadka for Online Khabar, originally posted at: https://english.onlinekhabar.com/history-of-land-rights-movement-in-nepal.html
Photo: A rally organised in Surkhet district headquarters Birendranagar demanding establishment Organised Settlement Commission on September 07, 2017
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I am Dolene Miller, an Afro-descendant from the Caribbean (Atlantic) Coast of Nicaragua and for me it is important and very necessary to support any initiative to protect my community from COVID19. As ethnic minorities, we are facing a health crisis in precarious conditions because the national government itself has not wanted to assume its responsibility to protect the population from infection, has not issued a quarantine and, on the contrary, is promoting massive activities according to its thesis of contagion of the herd.