An in-depth global review of land resource resource grabbing is both timely and essential reading.

Today, I am on board the Greenpeace Arctic Sunrise ship, as we confront the fossil fuel company, Shell, for its role in causing climate devastation around the world - while paying nothing for this destruction. It is now a  trend almost everywhere in the world, fossil fuel and oil extraction are becoming the new trend and a real treasure, to a chosen few. True, governments do need money, and it seems easier and quicker for them  to have it through the exploitation of fossil fuels.

Land Portal and partners welcomed a virtual full house on 17 November for the inaugural webinar of a new series exploring strategies and approaches to address common challenges surrounding large-scale land-based investments.  

Once again International Development organizations (World Bank, IFAD, FAO, USAID, GIZ and others) came together to discuss the Voluntary Guidelines, which were approved in May2012. An indisputable success of this was to have also associated the largest peasant movement, La Via Campesina, which from the day of approval enthusiastically applauded this process.

By Yuliya Panfil, Jon Unruh and Michael Cholod

Seven months have passed since Russia invaded Ukraine, displacing more than 13 million people—one-third of the country’s population—and leveling entire towns. 

And yet, despite all odds, Ukraine is turning the tide against its more powerful neighbor. Ukrainian forces have staged a rapid counter-offensive, liberating thousands of square miles of territory that displaced Ukrainians are beginning to return to.

Ido Lekota is a former Sowetan political editor. 

Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Thoko Didiza tabled a R17, 3 billion budget in the past week to help support food security in the country.

Didiza said the money will be distributed through a range of programmes, including the commercialisation of black farmers through land development support.

"If you look at the R17.3bn of our budget, the majority of that is transferred to provinces dealing with food security," she said.

USAID is supporting the government with a strategy to create municipal land offices that manage local land administration campaigns and deliver land titles to rural Colombians

The effectiveness of sustainable land use governance can be undermined if local affected people perceive land-use policies as not reflecting social objectives, or as ‘unjust.’ To transform externally-conceived sustainability principles from the international level into on-the-ground practice, involves the interplay of various organizations and peoples from the government, civil society, and the private sector.

Article written by Hal Brands and originally published by Bloomberg at: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-16/china-s-land-grab-in-bhutan-is-the-new-face-of-war

(Photo: Buddha at the border. Photographer: Arun Sankar/AFP/Getty Images)

The Pax Americana made outright invasions too risky, so autocrats are swallowing their neighbors one piece at a time.

By Nilesh Kunwar

Originally posted by Eurasia Review at: https://www.eurasiareview.com/03052021-pakistans-biggest-land-grabber-oped/

Photo: Pakistan's General Qamar Javed Bajwa

Oil companies are paying billions towards development in the Niger Delta, but it’s having little impact on the ground, say Tijah Bolton-Akpan and Miles Litvinoff.