Is the pandemic opening up forms of organizing to restore community control over resources or will it consolidate the efforts of those already holding the balance of power to usurp community control over land?
Kenya's President has intervened in a land dispute between Murang’a residents and Del Monte Foods after being pressured by the US government as part of talks around the proposed free trade agreement.
A decade ago, the Indonesian government began to heavily promote large-scale plantation in southern Papua. An investigation recently published explored how some outside investors gained rights to the land and the fallout for the indigenous population. Children were suffering from malnutrition while agricultural commodities are exported from their ancestral land.
- The Gecko Project
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14 July 2020
A push to privatise land and other resources in countries from Ukraine to Papua New Guinea is hurting indigenous people and the rural poor, while increasing the risks linked to climate change.
As institutional investors continue to seek “pockets of calm” amid the turmoil, farmland’s resilience during the global financial crisis and the pandemic’s immediate aftermath is likely to be top of mind.
While palm oil companies present themselves as benevolent donors during the pandemic, communities living in and around these plantations tell another story.
De Mbane à Dodel, en passant par Fanaye, les mouvements insurrectionnels et de résistance paysans sénégalais constituent les remparts pour conserver un patrimoine foncier qui aiguise l’appétit des multinationales et des hommes d’affaires, à l’image du litige qui oppose Babacar Ngom aux populations de Ndingler.
- Le Quotidien
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13 July 2020
Au Sénégal, la forêt de Balabougou a été déclassée sur une superficie de 1160 hectares dans le but de l’érection d’un agropole.
On parle de « plantations de caoutchouc naturel » mais pour l’Union des paysans indonésiens, il s'agit d'une appropriation à grande échelle des terres par Michelin et ses filiales
The Preah Vihear Provincial Court in Cambodia has dropped all charges against eight ethnic Kuoy villagers who were in a land dispute with the Hengfu Group Sugar Industry Co Ltd since 2014.
- Phnom Penh Post
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09 July 2020
Mining billionaire Andrew Forrest says conservation and heritage considerations must be balanced against the need for farming, after outbiding the Yi-Martuwarra people for a vast land holding on their territories.
We naively believed that collaboration with farmland investor NCH Capital would be our opportunity for honest business in Ukraine. The complete opposite turned out to be true.
- Baltic Course
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09 July 2020