News on Land

Residents of Rutile say they lack basic electricity and good roads. The absence of those amenities in Rutile have affected the lives of thousands of people and a host of small and medium enterprises.

Marina, a 50-year-old farmer and human rights defender from Colombia’s mountainous Catatumbo region, has never known peace. Dotted with lime-green coca plantations, this fertile but remote area near the Venezuela border has suffered decades of conflict between the army, paramilitaries and multiple guerrilla groups, two of which killed Marina’s father and brother when she was a child.

NT Health recommends ramping up flu vaccinations and unnecessary travel to remote communities be reduced

The Northern Territory government has finalised its plan to manage any outbreak of Covid-19 in remote communities, acknowledging that the risk to remote Aboriginal people is “severe”, and suggesting that all unnecessary travel to remote communities be reduced.

Young people should focus on agriculture, said the Minister of Youth Affair (MOYA), Mohamed Orman Bangura. According to the International Labour Organization data in 2019, the estimated youth unemployment rate in Sierra Leone was at 84.9% and 85.9% in 2018. The Ministry of Youth and the World Food Program (WFP) recently signed an MOU to encourage youth a agriculture project. One of the opportunities the Minister highlighted was through agriculture the economy would stabilize in chiefdoms and districts. He also added agriculture will create jobs for the youth.

Sierra Leone, a small country of about 7 million people in West Africa, known for its mineral wealth in diamonds, gold, bauxite, iron ore and rutile, is also naturally endowed with fertile land for agriculture, which over the years has attracted multi-national companies who come in with fabulous promises of development to the people but leave them further impoverished and cheated out of their God-given resources.
 

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has said that tenure rights to land and other natural resources are fundamental to food and shelter, which are the key elements of social and cultural practices underpinning Tanzania’s economic growth.

Speaking in Dar es Salaam recently, FAO Tanzania’s National Land Officer, Beatha Fabian, pointed out that security of tenure on natural resources such as land, fisheries and forests was very key since food security of billions of people in the world depends on it.

A group of 160 poor families from the Bunong indigenous community in Mondulkiri province’s Pech Chreada district have filed a complaint against their representative, accusing him of selling land earmarked for them as part of a social land concession.

Community member Kroeung Tola told The Post on Wednesday that the 160 families were entitled to 2,400ha to be divided between them as stated in a sub-decree in 2012, but as of now, most of the poor families had not received their plots.

Deep in the forest in Northern Sierra Leone, near the demarcation line between Koinadugu and Falaba Districts, a man named Foday uses a power saw to cut into a thick tree, removing the branches to shape it into a log. According to him, he has been working as a logger now for more than 20 years. He describes timber as a lucrative business, which brings income into his pocket.

The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) has begun taking inventory of all excavators that have been seized from illegal mining sites since the fight against illegal mining (galamsey) began in 2017.

The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Mr Kwaku Asomah-Cheremeh, explained that the measure was to ensure that all confiscated mining equipment was handed over to the ministry, in accordance with the country's mining laws.

The Resident Minister for North West, Madam Isata Abdulai Kamara, District Agriculture Officer, Charles A. Bangura, and 18 chiefs from 13 chiefdoms in Port Loko on Tuesday 25th February 2020, held a one day high profile consultative meeting with the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry at the administrative headquarters in Port Loko. The District Agriculture Officer, Charles A. Bangura welcomed the Minister’s delegation and gave an overview of the purpose of the ministerial visit.

Green Scenery a Civil Society Organisation working on environment issues has issued a press release calling for government to halt all logging and exporting of timber. Green Scenery is anxious to see the Government of Sierra Leone put behind logging and log exporting as a means of revenue generation.