It’s now been over 10 years since countries around the world started to work on the international policy framework known by reference as the acronym REDD+, which stands for ‘reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, conservation and sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.’

Sarawak: The Sarawak government’s strategy for economic growth through commercial development of agricultural land has resulted in vast areas of land being opened for large-scale plantations, including oil palm. In some places this has affected lands subject to ‘native customary land rights’.

Sarawak in Borneo is now one of last frontier areas for palm oil expansion left in Malaysia. With most available lands in the Peninsula already planted and most of Sabah already leased out, in Sarawak such expansion is accelerating.

About 8 million indigenous people in India are in danger of being evicted from forests that their ancestors have lived in for millennia. This grave injustice follows a shocking supreme court ruling that rides roughshod over the rights of India’s indigenous people, known as Adivasi, or tribals.

Decades-long legal disputes over land could cost tens of millions of dollars, research says

LONDON - Food companies doing business in Africa risk becoming bogged down in decades-long legal disputes over land that could cost tens of millions of dollars, according to a report released on Monday.

From sugar to coffee and palm oil, agribusiness firms could find that the land they are using is already claimed or occupied by local people, researchers said.

Indigenous Náhuatl land and water defender Samir Flores Soberanes was a vocal opponent of the "Proyecto Integral Morelos" (the integral project for Morelos) in Mexico.

The project includes the construction of the 160-kilometre Morelos Gas Pipeline that would start in the state of Tlaxcala and run to the town of Huexca (in the state of Morelos) where it would supply a proposed gas-fuelled thermoelectric plant.

Scientists at the University of Bern have found a connection between rising levels of socio-economic inequality and the rates of deforestation in Latin America.  

In combination with a rising level or urbanization across Central and South America, human development is a growing threat to the lungs of the Americas. Agriculture in particular and a growing demand for meat around the globe has seen hectares of forrest replaced with farmland each year.  

The Supreme Court has directed 17 states to evict the Scheduled Tribe members and traditional forest-dwellers, whose claims to Forest Rights Act had been rejected, before July 27.

• A new UN Declaration protects peasant rights to land, seeds, and adequate incomes with an emphasis on civil and social rights.
• Peasants, which includes small-scale farmers, rural workers, fishing communities, pastoralists and landless agriculture workers, have been recognized as a vulnerable population with distinct needs for the first time ever.
• By protecting peasant rights, the new status aims to also help reduce climate change and protect biodiversity.

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