News on Land

Seeking quick returns, Chinese investors are driving a scramble for plantation land in parts of northern Myanmar.

Good and responsible land governance and an efficient land administration system, including land use planning, are one of the pillars for sustaining food security and nutrition in Ghana.

It is estimated that five per cent of the total population in Ghana are food insecure and two million people are vulnerable to becoming food insecure.

It is further estimated that 68 per cent of the land in Ghana are used for agriculture, while 15 per cent are used as permanent natural pastures.

UNLESS Lesotho governments refrain from the habit of awarding grossly inflated tenders for various infrastructure projects, future generations will be caught up in a massive debt trap which will only impede the country’s development, analysts have warned.

More than 200 indigenous Bunong families in Mondulkiri province have asked authorities to retrieve 5ha of community forest land they claim had been secretly stolen from them by speculators.

Roch Chok, a representative of the more than 200 families, told The Post on November 30 that two people in Koh Nhek district’s Or Buonloeu commune deployed two bulldozers to clear the forest land on November 29.

The two, he said, claimed to represent an unnamed tycoon with the title oknha – an honorific bestowed on those who donate at least $500,000 to the state for development.

For Zimbabwean organic farmer, Elizabeth Mpofu, access to healthy food is liberation.

Millions of people across the world go to bed hungry. Scores do not have access to nutritious food owing to an inequitable global food system focused on industrial mass food production. The food from this system is less nutritious, more expensive and less friendly to the environment.

The Cardamom Mountains sit off the Gulf of Thailand in southern Cambodia and provide important habitat for a multitude of plant and animal species, many of them already threatened with extinction.

Due to Cardamoms’ remoteness, they had largely been spared the human encroachment that has razed much of the rainforest across the country – until infrastructure development in 2020 opened up the area to loggers, poachers, and others seeking to exploit the region’s forests.

Despite recent advancements in land reforms across Africa, women and girls are still hugely disadvantaged, according to a recent meeting of experts. The 2020 Africa Land Forum (ALC), which took place online between 15 and 17 September, brought together 500 participants to explore the theme ‘Delivering on the African Union Agenda 2063 by Promoting People-Centered Land Governance in Africa’.

Minister of Interior Sar Kheng has instructed all provincial governors, and the Mondulkiri provincial governor in particular, to regularly inspect forests and natural resources in helicopters.

Sar Kheng, also the deputy prime minister, said relevant ministries and leaders in Mondulkiri have to protect natural resources. The work, he said, will gain the support of people and attract tourists and investors to the area.

“It is our ancestral wealth,” he said.

The Energy Ministry has commenced a stakeholder engagement in communities with the Jomoro Municipality of the Western Region for the acquisition of a 20,000-acre plot of land for the Petroleum Hub.

Back in March 2019, Cabinet gave the approval for the establishment of the much-awaited petroleum hub in the Western Region to house all infrastructure projects in the petroleum industry.

Kagenal Incorporated Land Group (ILG) a group in the Central Inland Pomio (CIP) LLG in Pomio district of East New Britain will be receiving 52 per cent revenue of a project that is underway in their LLG.

The project is known as Reducing Emission Deforestation Degradation (REDD+) operating under a company, Night Incorporate, which is an American corporation that operates in the country in partnership with the LLG specialising in carbon trade credit.

CIP LLG has preserved 60 000 square kilometers of land for reforestation under this project.

Land-related crises are common in Nigeria. It is, probably, as old as the society. It is rooted in structural, historical and socio-economic dynamics; and it is compelled by growing urbanization.

Though a national challenge, land-related crisis is more pronounced in Lagos State. Considering its status as the nation’s commercial and economic hub, buying a piece of land in Lagos and putting up a structure on same is usually herculean. The situation is, however, further complicated by the confrontational actions of land grabbers and land speculators popularly known as Omo-Onile.