Land Rights

Decolonizing Black Women’s Health Through Land Reparations

April 26, 2023 Farah Tanis, Resilience. Create! Black America, Black Women, Health Care, Land Rights

One day, my mother dialed zero for the operator. As a Black woman living in Reagan’s 1980s era, isolated and economically struggling while surviving physical and sexual violence, she knew could not count on her predominantly white neighbors to stop her from committing suicide. My mother was past the stage of suicidal ideation and well into a solid plan to kill herself after my father had beaten her for confronting him when he sold off her land in Florida. It wasn’t until years later that I understood the manifold losses my mother sustained as a result of my father selling her 2.5 acres of land north of Miami.

Mexico: Wind Energy Is Not As Clean As You Think

April 22, 2023 Michael Fox, The Real News. Resistance Report Corporatism, Land Rights, Mexico, Wind Energy

March 2023, U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry met with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Oaxaca, Mexico, to discuss U.S.-Mexico collaboration over renewable energy. It was announced that the United States would commit to invest in at least 10 new wind and solar parks in the region — already one of Latin America’s top wind power hot spots. But there’s a problem. These wind farms there have been largely constructed and run by foreign transnational corporations. Residents say that while on the surface these wind turbines are generating clean energy, they have been disrespecting communal land rights, stiffing local residents money owed for renting their land, and refusing to benefit the local community with discounted or subsidized utility rates.

Peru: Rosalino Flores’s Death And Comuneros Win Land Struggle

March 30, 2023 Clau O'Brien Moscoso, Black Agenda Report. Resist! Coups, Land Rights, National Strike, Peru, State Repression

Perú continues to face crises upon crises over 100 days since the coup regime ousted democratically elected President Pedro Castillo. The masses have remained mobilized in the streets and delegations from various regions throughout the country continue coming to the capital city to overturn this dictatorship, as well as to reinforce their local struggles and blockades. Despite a long battle in the hospital, a young person lost his life at the hands of this regime. This past Friday also marked the victory of an indigenous campesino community in Cusco from being evicted from their ancestral lands.

The Kichwa Community Demands Justice For Violation Of Territorial Rights

March 29, 2023 Matias Perez Ojeda Del Arco, Forest Peoples Programme. Resist! Conservation, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Peru

A public hearing was held for the writ of amparo lawsuit filed by the Puerto Franco Kichwa community, who sued the Peruvian State and the Cordillera Azul National Park (PNCAZ) for failing to title their traditional lands, the imposition of an exclusionary conservation model and the generation of profits from the sale of carbon credits without their consent, in the San Martin region of the Peruvian Amazon. On 22 March, a public hearing was held as part of the amparo process that has been going on before the Mixed Court of Bellavista since 2020, brought forward by the Indigenous Kichwa community of Puerto Franco and the Ethnic Council of the Kichwa Peoples of the Amazon (CEPKA).

Life Inside An MST Landless Workers’ Settlement In Brazil

March 10, 2023 Michael Fox, The Real News Network. Create! Brazil, Land Rights, Landless Movement, MST, Worker Rights and Jobs

For nearly 40 years, Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) has been fighting the concentration of landownership among the country’s elite through the direct occupation and settlement of fallow lands. Founded at the end of Brazil’s military dictatorship, the MST now has settlements and occupations throughout the nation. TRNN contributor Michael Fox reports from an MST settlement in the state of Paraná, where landless workers have built their own homes, schools, and cooperative farms. Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement, or MST; the largest social movement in the Americas, one and a half million members.

Native American Sacred Sites Are Being Damaged At Thacker Pass

December 30, 2022 Last Real Indians. Educate! Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Lithium, Nevada, Sacred sites

Nevada - The Thacker Pass Lithium Mine in northern Nevada is headed back to Federal Court on January 5th as the lawsuits against the project near completion, but project opponents are raising the alarm that Lithium Nevada Corporation has already begun work on the proposed mine. Lithium Nevada’s workers at Thacker Pass have begun digging test pits, bore holes, dumping gravel, building fencing, and installing security cameras where Native Americans often conduct ceremonies. Lithium Nevada also conducted “bulk sampling” earlier this year, and may be planning to dig dozens of new test pits across Thacker Pass. They are claiming this work is legal under previous permits issued over a decade ago. But tribes and mine opponents, including the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and Summit Lake Paiute Tribe, disagree.

Abahlali baseMjondolo’s Fight For Dignity And Land, 17 Years On

December 5, 2022 Tanupriya Singh, People's Dispatch. Organize! Land Rights, Poverty, South Africa, State Violence

17 years ago, the residents of 12 informal settlements in the city of Durban came together and formed Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM), or ‘shack dwellers’ in Zulu. The movement emerged at a time of widespread mobilizations against the ruling African National Congress’ failure to fulfill its promises to provide services and housing for the poor in post-apartheid South Africa. “What do we want?” AbM’s founding member and president, then 30 year-old S’bu Zikode had asked in 2005, “The basics. Water, electricity, sanitation, land, and housing.” Over the following years, AbM grew into a militant collective with more than 100,000 members, fighting for dignity and land for the urban poor in the face of deadly repression by state forces.

Apaches Get Rehearing In Fight To Preserve Oak Flat

November 19, 2022 Alejandra Molina, Religion News Service. Educate! Apache, Arizona, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Sacred sites

Arizona - A federal appeals court will rehear Apache Stronghold’s case against the United States to save the sacred site of Oak Flat, a 6.7-square-mile stretch of land east of Phoenix that a private venture is seeking to turn into an underground copper mine. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals announced Thursday (Nov. 17) that it will rehear the case in front of a full 11-judge court instead of the original three-judge panel. Earlier this summer, the divided federal appeals court, in a 2-1 ruling, held that the government could proceed with the transfer of Oak Flat to Resolution Copper, a company owned by the British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto. It ruled that Apache Stronghold, a nonprofit working to protect Oak Flat, failed to show a substantial burden on its religious exercise.

Canadian Land Defenders Continue Struggle Against Illegal Developments

October 1, 2022 Matthew Walters, Left Voice. Resist! Canada, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Landback

Ontario, Canada - On September 12-13, Indigenous land defenders were once again in courts after over 20 months of fighting land grabbing in Ontario, Canada. The case is between Foxgate, a real estate development company in Ontario, and 1492 Land Back Lane, a land reclamation started by land defenders from Six Nations established on the land Foxgate seeks to develop on. Foxgate points to the agreements between themselves and the “official” government of Six Nations, the Six Nations Elected Council (SNEC), obtained after acquiring rights to the land from Haldimand County, as proof that they obtained “free, prior and informed consent” for the rights to the land. Whatever technical and legal trickery Foxgate may use to defend their development, the clear and easily provable facts are that this land is and remains unceded, and the Haudenosaunee have not been meaningfully consulted.

A Land Deal Benefiting A Billionaire’s Soccer Team Is Muscled Through

September 22, 2022 Mick Dumke, Propublica. Educate! Billionaires, Chicago, Illinois, Land Rights

Chicago, Illinois - Citing years of broken promises to build affordable homes, a Chicago City Council committee rejected a plan to lease public housing land to a professional soccer team owned by a billionaire ally of Mayor Lori Lightfoot. That was on Tuesday. Less than a day later, allies of the mayor called a do-over and reversed the vote. The full City Council then voted Wednesday to approve a zoning change needed to let the Chicago Fire soccer team build a practice facility on the 26-acre site. A June story by ProPublica detailed how the land was once part of the ABLA Homes, a public housing development on the Near West Side where 3,600 families lived. After demolishing most of the ABLA buildings and displacing thousands of people, the Chicago Housing Authority promised to build more than 2,400 new homes in the area. So far, it has finished fewer than a third of them.

Movement To ‘Re-Indigenize’ Yellowstone Gains Steam

September 13, 2022 Mike Koshmrl, WyoFile. Create! Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Wyoming, Yellowstone

Old Faithful, Wyoming - Tom Wadsworth read straight from the 154-year-old treaty that displaced his ancestors from their land as he made a case that Shoshone and Bannock tribal members should be allowed to hunt, fish and gather inside Yellowstone National Park. Signed at Fort Bridger on July 3, 1868 in what’s now southern Wyoming, the treaty granted the Shoshone and Bannock native people the right to “hunt on the unoccupied lands of the United States” in perpetuity, so long as game was found and peace with white people maintained. Yet, today, with a few exceptions, hunting isn’t allowed by tribal members or anyone else in Yellowstone or the rest of the National Park Service’s 400-plus units in the Lower 48. Wadsworth, the captain game warden for the Shoshone-Bannock tribes, suggested the federal government didn’t uphold its end of the deal.

Why Baltimore Kept Cutting Deals With A Developer Who Didn’t Deliver

August 21, 2022 J. Brian Charles, The Real News Network. Resist! Baltimore, Development, Displacement, Housing, Land Rights

Sweat trickled down Dan Bythewood’s forehead under the hot July sun. He promised the West Baltimore crowd he would keep his comments short so the 100 or so people who watched—activists, press, residents, and political leaders—could quickly retreat from the heatwave gripping the city. The developer, who is Black, stood behind a podium placed in front of the technicolor homes on Sarah Ann Street, a narrow stretch of concrete not wide enough for two cars to travel in opposite directions. Bythewood, president of the New York development firm La Cité (“the city” in French), trained his sight on the historic Sarah Ann Street homes almost two decades ago, with plans to redevelop the houses and the surrounding Poppleton neighborhood.

Community Prepares To Fight Old Growth Logging Project

August 17, 2022 It's Going Down. Resist! Biden administration, Forests, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights

This morning, community members organizing with Cascadia Forest Defenders hung a 30 foot-wide banner across Highway 126 in the Willamette National forest in opposition to the proposed Flat Country old growth timber sale. The organizers are calling on the Willamette National Forest and the Biden Administration to drop the proposed timber sale in light of the significant impacts that it would have on the climate, drinking water, and community safety. The action comes less than six months after President Biden signed Executive Order 14072 on Strengthening the Nation’s Forests, Communities, and Local Economies, which directs his administration to create stronger protections for public forests in an effort to mitigate the climate crisis, and only weeks after environmental groups sent the Forest Service an ultimatum to reconsider the sale.

Mining Giant Rio Tinto Hit By Legal Battle Over Sacred Apache Site

August 7, 2022 Francesca Washtell, This Is Money. Resist! Apache, Arizona, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Rio Tinto

The serene Oak Flat upland lies in the heart of Arizona. With its beautiful peaks and forest, it is a beloved spot for campers, hikers and rock climbers. Above all, it is the center of the San Carlos Apache tribe's religion, a place of devotion where their gods dwell and they still perform traditional ceremonies. But it is now at the center of a dispute between the tribe and FTSE 100 giant Rio Tinto. It is also shaping up to be an acid test of the mining group's claims that it is determined to respect sacred sites. Wendsler Nosie Sr of the Apache Stronghold – a coalition of Apaches and non-Apache supporters that is bringing the case – describes it as the 'most sacred site where we connect with our creator, our faith, our families and our land'. He says: 'It is a place of healing that has been sacred to us since long before Europeans arrived on this continent.'

Court Rules New York Illegally Took Mohawk Land In 1800s

March 16, 2022 Last Real Indians. Resist! Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Legal System, New York (NY)

Akwesasne Territory – The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribal Council is pleased to report that the decades-long dispute over the reservation boundary has been decided upon by the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York. In a summary judgment ruling issued by U.S. District Judge Lawrence Kahn on Enniskó:wa/March 14, 2022, the court ruled that New York State’s purchase of reservation lands in the 1800s violated the federal Non-Intercourse Act. “To say that we are pleased is an understatement,” shared Tribal Chief Beverly Cook. Chief Cook added, “We should all be proud of the perseverance that our recent and ancient ancestors displayed, who stood fast in their determination to protect our lands. We stand in the footprints of our parents and grandparents who fought relentlessly to reclaim our land that was illegally taken.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

Daily movement news and resources