News on Land

Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Veng Sakhon has urged companies that were granted economic land concessions by the government in Koh Kong province to collaborate fully with local authorities in protecting forest land.

The LAND-at-scale programme got a great response to the second call for ideas. The programme received 25 new ideas from 19 different countries. Support continues for enhancing land governance and tenure security. This is evident in the response and effort from embassies, NGOs and knowledge institutes.

Current LAND-at-scale portfolio status

In October 2019, approval was given to 13 promising ideas. LAND-at-scale has been working closely with embassies, knowledge institutes and NGOs to transform these ideas into land governance projects.

Companies are seeking to press ahead with investments on community lands or even take advantage of the pandemic to avoid the usual authorization requirements

On May 22, the Georgian Parliament endorsed the amendments to the Forest Code of Georgia with its third reading with 79 votes in favor and none against – amid strong criticism voiced by the civil society organizations.  

Communities in biodiverse Tanintharyi Region are spurning big, top-down projects and seeking recognition for their own approach to conservation.

From its forested borderlands in the east, to vast mangrove forests and hundreds of island ecosystems in the Andaman Sea to the west, Tanintharyi Region is a bastion of nature and biodiversity. The region is home to one of the largest remaining expanses of intact low-elevation evergreen forest in Southeast Asia, a stronghold for endangered and endemic species including tigers, tapirs and pangolins.

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.

The Fresh Produce Development Agency has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Southern Highlands Provincial Government to collaborate and promote agriculture in Southern Highlands Province.

The partnership is for three years at a cost of K3 million which will see FPDA providing technical assistance and mobilizing farmers to use their land and prioritized farming especially potatoes. 

YANGON—A Kachin lawmaker voiced concerns in the Upper House of Parliament about an Australian-backed company’s plan to conduct a feasibility study for a large-scale mining exploration project in an area of Myanmar’s northernmost township with snow-capped mountains and a largely untouched environment.

Port Moresby’s suburban jumble that is Taurama Valley has been condemned as a failure and a disaster by city Governor Powes Parkop.

He said the valley, a large tract of customary land that stretches from the fringes of East Boroko to Taurama Barracks and further into Taurama Beach, which had been sold off cheaply by landowners, had seen an unprecedented boom in unplanned construction of suburban homes and businesses, and now home to tens of thousands of city residents.

Mondulkiri provincial Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction director Mao Chamroeun has denied allegations he collaborated with a third party to steal land from indigenous people.

A complaint dated May 11 with the thumbprints of more than 30 indigenous people from Pou Tru village in Sen Monorom commune, O’Raing district, claimed that on May 8, Chamroeun threatened locals and forced residents to measure their land and cede it to a man named San Saut.

The villagers further claimed Chamroeun had threatened to take the land on which no residents had grown crops

A journalist and radio station owner in Kampong Chhnang province was jailed on Friday on incitement charges in relation to his “exaggerated and inciting” news coverage and comments on a land dispute, officials said. 

Sok Udom, owner of the 99.75 FM radio station and Rithysen news website, was provisionally detained after he was questioned in court and charged with incitement to commit a felony, said Chhuon Sivin, a provincial court spokesman.