Global nature deal edges closer to reality at UN summit
Montreal, Canada Reuters Negotiators at a UN summit to protect nature appeared closer to reaching a new global deal on Sunday that could see 30 per cent of land and sea protected by 2030, with hundreds of billions of dollars directed toward conserving the world’s wild places and species. China, the president of the COP15 […]
Sierra Leone passes new laws to boost landowners’ rights
Freetown, Sierra LeoneReuters Sierra Leone’s parliament on Monday passed two laws that lawyers say will help boost the rights of rural landowners and women against land grabs by big mining and agribusiness firms. The West African country has a history of sometimes deadly conflict between local communities and foreign companies that have cleared huge tracts […]
A fairer share: Black farming projects look to recoup historical US land losses
CAREY L BIRON, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports on how rural and urban growers of colour are trying to get a fairer share of US farmland…
In the US, Evangelical Covenant Church joins list of Protestant denominations rebuking Doctrine of Discovery
RNS The Evangelical Covenant Church became the latest Protestant denomination in the United States to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery, the theological justification that allowed the discovery and domination by European Christians of lands already inhabited by Indigenous peoples. Delegates at the Covenant Annual Connection voted overwhelmingly (84 per cent) on Friday to approve a resolution acknowledging […]
On the Screen: Pain and beauty come to the fore in the raw emotion of ‘LAND’
DAVID ADAMS watches Robin Wright’s directorial debut, ‘LAND’…
Land conflict: Affordable housing push fuels tensions in Burkina Faso
SAM MEDNICK, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports on how a recent government push to develop rural land for housing is inflaming tensions over land in the West African nation…
Price of marriage pushes land out of reach in Sri Lanka
Sainthamaruthu, Sri LankaThomson Reuters Foundation It was another day of agony for Rizeena, as she waited with her family at their home in eastern Sri Lanka to meet yet another potential husband for her sister – the 46th time they have tried to find someone to marry her in the past decade. Most of these […]
Worsening land inequality widens gender, climate change gaps
Bangkok, ThailandThomson Reuters Foundation Land inequality is growing worldwide, threatening the livelihoods of 2.5 billion people who directly rely on farming and widening disparities in gender, health and climate-change impacts, researchers warned on Tuesday. The widening gap in ownership and access to land especially hurts small and marginal farmers, women, and Indigenous and rural communities, […]
Landless Thais get homes in mangrove forest in conservation push
Bangkok, ThailandThomson Reuters Foundation Thai authorities have reached an agreement with a landless community that will allow villagers to live in a mangrove forest if they help protect the area, a unique collaboration that could work across the country, land rights groups said. Under a memorandum of understanding between the government, human rights groups and […]
Nearly one billion people scared of losing homes or land, poll finds
London, UKThomson Reuters Foundation Almost one billion people around the world fear losing their homes or land within five years, with owners and tenants in Burkina Faso and the Philippines the most concerned, a survey of 140 nations showed on Wednesday. About one in five adults (19 per cent) worry that their housing, fields or […]