Small island state leaders at U.N. climate talks have spoken consistently of loss of life and property caused by powerful storms

BONN, Germany, Nov 17 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - From Fiji to St. Lucia, small island nations have taken every opportunity to flag the growing risks of climate change to their land and people at U.N. talks in Bonn - but their cry for help has fallen on deaf ears, officials and experts said on Friday.

We all know the first and most basic lesson of economics: incentives matter. This is surely why, as a new investigation by The Guardian has revealed, fires in the favelas of Sao Paolo are happening where land values are greater.

Members of the Brazilian indigenous Guaraní community took part in peaceful protests against privatisation of state parks. Their demonstrations were also calling attention to their dire living conditions. For instance, Guarani living in São Paulo are confined to two tiny villages the size of four football pitches. Land is a vital part of the Guaraní culture and tradition, however their current condition means that they are slowly losing touch with their cultural past by not being able to utilise their land for fishing, gathering and planting.

BOGOTA, Nov 28 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Indigenous groups in Paraguay, battling to protect their ancestral lands from expanding agriculture and cattle ranching, launched the first online map of their territory on Tuesday.

Paraguay’s beef and soy export industries are the main drivers of deforestation in the fast-growing South American nation, often coming into conflict with some 120,000 indigenous people, the World Resources Institute (WRI), a think tank, said.

The blockchain technology was first developed for peer-to-peer currency transactions. Innovators are now seeking to use the technology to update and secure the land records in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Known as disruptive technology that no one can control and hegemonise, blockchain is a decentralised distributed digital ledger collectively maintained by a new work of computers, called nodes. This will not allow one person to modify without those who maintain the records agreeing to the change. 

The mention of Sierra Leone invariably conjures images of the protracted civil war and the Ebola outbreak that afflicted this West African country.
However that is not all about Sierra Leone; there are a lot of positives the country can showcase which include good practices in land administration.

At the just-ended 2017 Conference on Land Policy in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, the West African country unveiled its good practices from implementing the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT).

More than 100 families in Takeo province have been given back their land after a dispute with the Sun Hour company and an individual landholder.

The move follows protests and in front of the Ministry of Land Management as families asked the government to resolve their problems.

The 137 families were told officially on Saturday that 915 hectares in Tram Kak district’s Trapaing Kranhoung commune would be restored to them.

India needs to design its tree-based programmes better to meet climate goals

• Brazilian president Michel Temer has twice survived National Congress votes to initiate impeachment against him on extensive corruption charges.
• Temer did so by selling out the environment, particularly the Amazon, to the ruralists who largely control the assembly.

A grassroots revolution is occurring in East Arnhem Land as Aboriginal Australians strive to become landlords rather than tenants on their own land.

USAID LandLinks is working to support private sector partners to de-risk investments and secure legitimate land rights in order to improve livelihoods and other outcomes for communities affected by investments. Join us, along with Agrilinks, Microlinks, and a panel of experts, for an interactive online discussion on the Business Case for Land Rights: Private Sector Perspectives on Responsible Land-Based Investment.