News on Land

Karamoja sub-region, located in north eastern Uganda, is characterised by harsh climatic conditions. These range from frequent droughts to high temperatures, with hot and dry winds all year round. In the last few months, the area has been experiencing particularly erratic rains across its nine districts.

Cape Town, South Africa faced a crippling drought between 2016 and 2018. The widely reported “Day Zero” crisis, wherein the city faced the real possibility of the taps being turned off, presented an acute shock and highlighted major vulnerabilities in the city’s water supply system, which relies largely on six large dams.

International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)  and the Land Portal are launching a new blog series on the governance of land-based investments in the Global South. The series will explore practical strategies and approaches adopted by rights defenders and others to address common challenges surrounding these investments.

• A subsidiary of South Korean paper company Moorim has cleared natural forests a tenth the size of Seoul in Indonesia’s Papua region over the past six years, a new report alleges.
• The report, published by various NGOs, alleges that the cleared areas consisted of primary forests serving as a habitat for threatened species and a source of livelihood for Indigenous Papuans.

Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Barbara Creecy has withdrawn an amendment to legislation that helped protect, among others, communal land rights holders from unwanted mining on their land. Was this because of Cabinet pressure from the mining ministry?

Minister of Environment, Barbara Creecy’s recent revocation of the 2021 Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations Amendment is effectively reversing some of the very important progress communities have made in their ongoing fight for environmental justice and self-determination.

In South Africa on 3 March 2022, mining-affected communities and the broader environmental justice sector woke up to the news that the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Barbara Creecy, had removed a vital protection for mining-affected communities.

Managers of iSimangaliso Wetland Park in KwaZulu-Natal say they are still committed to further engagement with community leaders over recent attempts to occupy land in the southern Futululu section of the park — but have also pledged to not ‘fold their arms’ in the face of the land invasion.

This would include pursuing legal options to safeguard the park’s World Heritage Site conservation status, the park’s senior biodiversity conservation manager, Sizo Sibiya, told an iSimangaliso investors’ conference at the weekend.

After almost six years, the Global Programme Responsible Land Policy completed its activities in Peru in late 2021. Thanks to the hard work of the ProTierras Comunales project team and partners, we can look back on interesting lessons learned and several good practices ready for replication (here you can find the final publication).

The Netherlands Enterprise & Development Agency (RVO) is looking for a program advisor in the team that manages the land governance support program LAND-at-scale. All applications should be submitted before April 1st. See the Dutch vacancy text below:

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Binnen het team Mondiale Vraagstukken Voedselzekerheid zoeken wij een Programma Adviseur Landrechten voor 'LAND-at-scale'.

Somalia has been at a crossroads in recent years, with one pathway leading towards forging state-building and re-establishing democracy and another threatening a regression on the substantive gains made on many fronts. Narratives of Somalia’s growth and potential fronted on social media by ordinary citizens and returning diaspora are contrasted by conflict and frequent attacks on civilians by armed non-state actors.

A key provision of the proposed amendment is that once the minimum threshold of 70% voluntary land pooling is achieved in a sector, it will be mandatory for the owners of the remaining 30% land to pool in their land.

main photo: Delhi’s land pooling policy is aimed at meeting its growing housing demand by providing about 17 lakh dwelling units in 95 urban villages located in the city’s urbanised extension. (Representational)

COLOMBO (IDN) — As land forgery continues unabated in Sri Lanka, something has to be done to prevent the prevalent rate of land fraud, with legal owners and innocent buyers unknowingly falling into these traps.

According to news sources, the Registrar General N C Withanage had said, as far back as March 2019, that 40 to 50 per cent of land deeds in Sri Lanka are forged documents.

But unfortunately, things continue to go from bad to worse.