Terra

Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights

Published in Monday May 20th, 2013 In Social movement news

The Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights champions women’s secure access to land by providing resources and training that connects policymakers, researchers, and practitioners around the world. We pilot innovative solutions to secure women’s land rights and educate development experts about the gap between customary and institutional law. Our program goal is to build capacity to promote approaches that strengthen and secure women’s land rights.

New Lands Act in Kenya Set for August, says Swazuri

Published in Monday May 20th, 2013 In In the media

Kenyans will have to wait up to August before their land problems will begin to be effectively tackled, the National Land Commission chairman has said. Mohamed Swazuri yesterday said the Lands Act will be fully functional only after it is passed by the national assembly. Swazuri said they are still collecting views from the public that will be used in forming a credible Lands Act.

Together, stronger to cope with the global, housing and territorial crisis

Published in Friday May 17th, 2013 In Mobilisation and agenda

“The people united will never be defeated!” was heard in several languages as the approval of the Declaration of the World Assembly of Inhabitants was welcomed, cementing the convergence of struggles of the inhabitants of towns and rural areas for systemic changes, which are essential to overcome the global crisis.

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Global Land Forum forges international agreement on territorial development

Published in Friday May 17th, 2013 In Social movement news

As the global population continues to grow and the demand for food and the land to produce it on increase in lock step, the International Land Coalition brought together 273 people from 47 countries in Antigua, Guatemala from April 23-27 to discuss territorial governance and food security in the context of rapid urbanisation and shifting patterns of land use throughout the developing world.

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Land Rights and Ethnic Conflict in Burma

Published in Monday May 13th, 2013

Burma is one of the world’s most ethnically diverse countries. Ethnic minorities make up an estimated 30-40 percent of the total population, and ethnic states occupy some 57 percent of the total land area and are home to poor and often persecuted ethnic minority groups. Most of the people living in these impoverished and war-torn areas are subsistence farmers practicing upland cultivation. Economic grievances have played a central part in fuelling the civil war. While the central government has been systematically exploiting the natural resources of these areas, the money earned has not been (re)invested to benefit the local population.

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Property and the Lady

Published in Friday May 10th, 2013 In In the media

THE halo has slipped from Aung San Suu Kyi’s head, at least in the eyes of the monks and villagers of Ah Lay Daw. The Nobel peace prizewinner, who has resumed her career as a working politician in Myanmar, dismayed villagers earlier this month by giving her backing to the development of a copper mine on nearby Letpadaung Mountain, on land that was confiscated from them by the government.

Secure housing for millions remains a global challenge

Published in Wednesday May 8th, 2013 In News on the Rapporteurs

For the millions of people facing forced evictions and displacement, access to secure and adequate housing continues to be a challenge. According to the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, it is estimated that more than 18 million people were evicted from their homes between 1998 and 2008

Housing Without Developers

Published in Tuesday April 30th, 2013 In Social movement news

(Português) Na semana passada o Studio X Mumbai realizou um workshop de um dia intitulado provocativamente “Habitação sem Construtoras”. Como elaborado em seu site, o workshop tentou desafiar a aparente inevitabilidade de soluções baseadas no mercado, para os problemas que eles mesmos associaram a privatização do mercado de habitação. Os participantes do workshop discutiram como o desenvolvimento das favelas na Índia e as habitações públicas no ocidente desafiaram as normas aceitas de soluções baseadas no mercado.

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Come Grab Our Land

Published in Friday April 26th, 2013 In Opinion

Bordered by a rubber plantation in the west, a forestry plantation in the east and a palm oil farm in the south, the 18 local communities that live in Ocean Division, southern Cameroon, have had an uphill struggle for the rights to their land. In 2008, the government leased much of their forestland, about 47,000 hectares, to international company United Forest Cameroon.
But only through a sustained campaign and involvement by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), a global coalition of organisations working to encourage forestland tenure, the communities were given back some of their land by a February 2012 prime ministerial decree.

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Mwingi Villagers Protest Court’s Eviction Order in Kenya

Published in Thursday April 25th, 2013 In In the media

More than 100 residents of Kawala in Mumoni district on Monday staged a sit in at the Mwingi law court premises protesting an order issued by the court to evict some of them. The group, that included uniformed school children, brought with them a memorandum addressed to Chief Justice Willy Mutunga.

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