News on Land

Ministry of Lands has suggested that security feature which be included to land certificates in order to protect them from being tampered with as part of the lessons learnt from the pilot phase of the Strenghtening Land Governance Systems for Smallholder Farmers in Malawi peoject fo the review of Land Act.

Deputy Minister of Lands, Abida Mia made the suggestion Tuesday at Golden Peacock in Lilongwe when she opened a High Level workshop on lessons learnt from the pilot project on the implementation of land laws in Phalombe, Kasungu and Rumphi.

• Top Indonesian ministers who pushed for the passage of a deregulation bill that benefits the mining and “dirty energy” industry have links to some of those very companies, a new report shows.
• The report by a coalition of NGOs highlights “massive potential for conflicts of interest” in the drafting and passage of the so-called omnibus bill on job creation.
• Under the new law, coal companies can qualify for an exemption from paying royalties, as well as be absolved of criminal and financial sanctions for mining in forest areas.
• Act

There is a raging debate with regards to viability and legality of the barter deal that was agreed between Malawi government and an investor.

For the starters, we understand that, to address shortage of housing among police officers, Worldwide Construction Company was awarded a K9.9 billion contract to construct 140 houses (i.e. K70 million per house) at Area 30 in Lilongwe.

MORE than 100 lease holders have registered with the newly established Morobe Alluvial Mining Limited (MAML) to participate in the alluvial mining project in the areas of Wau and Bulolo in the Morobe province.

Morobe Governor Gibson Saonu said it has been three years of hard work.

He said they started feasibility work in late 2017 covering three districts in Morobe, Nawae, Markham and Wau Bulolo to determine available resources on their land and how the provincial government could assist.

“Based on ndings, alluvial can generate millions if managed well.

Sandwiched between China and India, the tiny Himalayan nation of Bhutan is feeling the squeeze as its giant neighbours square up for supremacy.

A close ally of India, Bhutan got a shock when China made sudden new claims in the summer - over a wildlife sanctuary in the east of the country, on land that had not been considered disputed.

Most Bhutanese commentators don't want to discuss this in detail, but many believe Beijing is trying to drag the Buddhist majority nation - population 750,000 - into the territorial stand-off with India.

FG has secured $2m each for the 36 states of the federation through a World Bank-funded programme to develop their land information system.

The Nigerian government has announced that it has secured the sum of $72 million from the World Bank for the 36 states of the federation to develop a land information system.

In a new study, researchers say that land inequality is rising in most countries. Worse, new measures and analysis proves that land inequality is significantly higher than previously recorded, with data reporting a 41 percent increase compared to traditional census data.

Authorities in Koh Kong province are searching for the individuals who set up border posts on nearly 200ha of protected forest, with officials and activists claiming that powerful tycoons had hired local people to encroach on the land.

On Sothearith, governor of Koh Kong’s Thma Bang district, told The Post on November 22 that after protected forest land was allocated to people who had lived in the district’s Russey Chrum commune for many years, some people came in to claim the conservation areas with the intent to sell the land to businessmen.

Environment, forest and climate change minister Md Shahab Uddin on Sunday directed the country’s eight divisional commissioners for taking measures not to lease out forestlands to individuals and businesses and to evict the grabbers of forestlands.

At a routine meeting with the divisional commissioners at his office, Shahab Uddin asked the officials to pass on the order to all 64 deputy commissioners not to lease out anymore forestland in protecting the country’s forests.

• Indonesia’s environment ministry has issued a new regulation allowing protected forest areas to be cleared for a “food estate” program.
• The program is aimed at boosting domestic crop supplies, but critics say it prioritizes the interests of agribusiness at the expense of small farmers and the environment.
• Indonesia degazetted 26 million hectares (64 million acres) of its forest over the past 20 years, primarily for large-scale agriculture, and today has 29.7 million hectares (73.4 million acres) of protected forest, an area the size of Italy.