News on Land

Residents of Macleantown near East London say wealthy outsiders are grabbing land from them, with the complicity of municipal officials. Buffalo City denies it but has launched a probe.

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Photo: Johnnie Isaac

Wetlands – land consisting of swamps or marshes – have, during the centuries, been demonised as places of pestilence, drained for agriculture or urban development, and polluted or paved over.

But today, they are emerging as crucial ecosystems in the fight against climate change.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate, has warned of the need to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.

February 2, 2022 (GLOBAL) — Six years into the establishment of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Land Portal is re-examining progress made on land-related SDG indicators. More than a dozen land-related indicators are housed over five SDG goals. The newly updated SDG Land Tracker features completely revised and updated narratives for 13 land-related indicators describing why the indicator is important and how the indicators are measured and monitored.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries on January 21 signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with three companies geared towards the production of a minimum of 400 tonnes of additional vegetables per year to supply the domestic market and ship abroad.

The signatory companies of the MoU, entitled “Agriculture 4.0 and Greenhouse Cooperation: Transforming Farmers to Agropreneurs”, were listed in a post on agriculture minister Veng Sakhon’s Facebook page as Agri-Sambathkhmer Co Ltd, PLMP Venture Capital Co Ltd and ISBP Group-Sun Business Investment Globe Co Ltd.

The multiplicity of acts of ownership or enjoyment, the non-respect by the actors of their fields of competence, the anarchic occupation of the public domain, the insufficiency and / or inadequacy of the modes of advertising during the procedure of registration of plots of land, the slowness in the processing of land files and the difficulties of application of certain court decisions etc., are all evils that characterize state and land management in Mali.

Join the Resource Equity in an accredited ten-week online course. Explore what works to advance women’s land and resource rights and address gender inequality. Gain expert insights into how to avoid the unintended and harmful consequences of gender-neutral thinking in land laws, policies, and programs.

Ten Native American tribal nations, forming the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, have received ownership of 215 hectares (532 acres) of California’s redwood forest. The tribal council is partnering with Save the Redwoods League, which donated the land, to protect and restore their traditional coastal forest. Together they have developed a 30-year conservation plan to protect endangered species such as the northern spotted owl (Strix Occidentalis Caurina) and marbled murrelet (Brachyramphus mamoratus).

Pastoralist communities are effectively losing their rights to their communal lands through an obscure and predatory engagement process that involves conservation NGOs and self-seeking community leaders

Nigeria’s smallest yet most populous state continues to destroy informal settlements in defiance of the courts.

On the night of 8 April 2017, the people of Otodo Gbame went to bed thinking they were safe. The previous year, the Governor of Lagos had promised to destroy this crowded waterfront community, but a November 2016 court ruling had forced the state government to suspend its plans.

Failed government leadership, the lack of accountable partnerships between aid partners and the government, rampant corruption, and psychological dependence on aid have kept Somalis on life support.

As Madagascar, Malawi and Mozambique mop up after Cyclone Ana, scientists caution that South Africa’s east coast could be hit by intense tropical cyclones.

Over the past week, the first seasonal cyclone in the Southwest Indian Ocean killed at least 34 people in Madagascar and two in Mozambique, and left large swathes of Malawi without power. 

The European Union’s landmark anti-deforestation law should require businesses to respect traditional communities’ rights over their territories or risk failing to deliver on its objectives, more than 191 Indigenous, environmental, and human rights organizations from 62 countries said today in an open letter to EU policymakers.