Land

Guatemala’s Indigenous Campesinos Occupy Capitol Over Land Conflicts

August 19, 2017 Jeff Abbott, www.towardfreedom.com Resist! Guatemala, Indigenous Peoples, Land, Occupation

By Jeff Abbott for Toward Freedom. On August 8, one hundred Q’eqchi Maya families from the Department of Alta Verapaz arrived to the historic center of Guatemala City, the nation’s capital, to establish a permanent presence in an encampment near the Presidential Palace. They have announced that they will remain there until the administration fulfills the agreement between the campesino communities and the government established in April 2015 to end agrarian conflicts within the department. “We are here in front of the National Palace because of the failure of the state to comply with the accords that came after many dialogues with state officials on the land conflicts in Alta Verapaz,” said Carlos Choc, a member of a Q’eqchi community within the Municipality of Coban, Alta Verapaz, and a representative from the Comité Campesino de Altiplano(CCDA), the organization that coordinated the occupation.

Descendants Of Freed Slaves Fight For Their Land In The Amazon

August 9, 2017 Nick Barrickman and Alex González, www.wsws.org Resist! Amazon, Land, Slavery, Virginia

By Nick Barrickman and Alex González for WSWS - Local residents inform the International Amazon Workers Voice that Amazon is attempting to seize 50 acres of land owned by elderly working class descendants of slaves in Northern Virginia, pave over the residents’ homes, and build power lines. The soil that Amazon plans to cover with asphalt contains the sweat of slaves and the blood of Civil War soldiers. The residents’ ancestors, who worked the land as slaves, took possession of these plots after being freed by the Emancipation Proclamation and liberated by the Union Army during the American Civil War. American capitalism has come full-circle: the government is stealing land from the descendants of slaves and giving it to one of the world’s most powerful corporations. A representative of a community group called the Alliance to Save Carver Road (ASCR) told the IAWV, “The homeowners have been there for generations. Many of the properties were purchased by freed slaves. After emancipation, the slaves that worked that area were allowed to purchase property. A number of the property owners are descendants of those freed slaves.” Last month, Amazon subsidiary VAData, working in collusion with local government agencies and utility company Dominion Virginia Power, announced plans to construct 230,000 volt power lines running through the semi-rural community of Carver Road just outside of Gainesville, in order to power nearby internet data centers.

African Peasants Highlight Interconnected Struggles At Via Campesina Global Conference

August 3, 2017 Boaventura Monjane, www.towardfreedom.com Organize! Africa, Africans, Land, Land grabs

By Boaventura Monjane for Toward Freedom - (Derio, Basque Country) Peasants across Africa are intensifying their struggles against land grabs and other harmful policies that promote industrial agriculture. At a recent international conference organized by the world’s largest peasants movement, Via Campesina, African peasants had opportunities to share their experiences of struggle and to learn. “It is amazing to see how linked our struggles are”. With a countenance showing enthusiasm and eagerness, Nicolette Cupido could not conceal her emotions. There are two main reasons for her excitement. It was the first time she attended a global conference of peasants’ movements starting July 16 in Derio, in the outskirts of Bilbao, Basque Country. Her movement, the Agrarian Reform for Food Sovereignty Campaign (FSC), South Africa, was among the new organizations accepted into membership of Via Campesina. A community organizer and a member of the FSC, Nicolette engages in food production at home and community gardens in Moorreesburg, a village in Western Cape, 120Km away from Cape Town. She grows a variety of vegetables, that is the way she contributes in building food sovereignty. “I plant tomato, unions, beetroot, cabbage and carrots. The struggle for food sovereignty has to be practical, too”, she said. Like Nicolette, about 20 other African peasants representing movements from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Niger, Mali, Senegal and Ghana attended the conference.

Citizens Begin Reclaiming Coal Country After Decades Of Corporate Land Grabs

July 24, 2017 Emma Eisenberg, www.yesmagazine.org Create! Coal, Corporations, Land, Land grabs

By Emma Eisenberg for Yes! Magazine - “Land is the most important thing to us, yet it’s not clear at all who owns it,” says Karen Rignall, assistant professor of community and leadership development at the University of Kentucky. “Without broad-scale knowledge of the patterns of land ownership this region cannot work together to move forward. But who owns it on paper is not always who owns it in actuality. That takes time and money to find out.” The coal industry of central Appalachia has been on the decline for more than 30 years, with West Virginia and Kentucky losing more than 38,000 coal jobs in that time. As coal companies pulled out, they took with them the dollars that small towns used to use to fund their schools and infrastructure, and left behind abandoned mines, polluted rivers and vast swaths of vacant land. All over Appalachia, communities and organizations are working around the clock to come up with a way to “justly transition” the Appalachian economy to whatever comes next. Rignall and postdoctoral researcher Lindsay Shade are collaborating with a growing group of citizens that think a part of the answer to a post-coal economy may lie with an old land ownership study—and have been inspired by it to do a new one.

Water And Oil, Death And Life In Louisiana

July 19, 2017 Nora Belblidia, www.unevenearth.org Resist! Land, Louisiana, Oil, Water

By Nora Belblidia for Uneven Earth - Six months ago, a routine public hearing was scheduled in a nondescript gray government building in downtown Baton Rouge, Louisiana. “Normally these hearings go over really quietly,” said Scott Eustis, the Wetlands Specialist for Gulf Restoration Network (GRN). “Usually it’s me, my associates, and like ten people.” Instead, over 400 people showed up to the Baton Rouge hearing, and stayed for nearly six hours. The debate centered on the Bayou Bridge Pipeline, a proposed route that would run 163 miles from Lake Charles to St. James, forming the “tail” of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), and effectively connecting oil fracked in North Dakota to Louisiana refineries. If built, Bayou Bridge would cross 11 parishes, 600 acres of wetlands, 700 bodies of water, and the state-designated Coastal Zone Boundary. Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) is behind both the Bayou Bridge project and the more infamous DAPL, but the parallels run deeper than a mutual stakeholder. Just like in DAPL, those who resist the project are drawing connections between past wrongdoings, conditions today, and a future climate. Residents cite safety concerns, environmental racism, pollution, and threats to the region’s wetlands and seafood industries as reasons to oppose its construction.

The High Price Of Desertification: 23 Hectares Of Land A Minute

June 17, 2017 Busani Bafana, www.ipsnews.net Educate! Africa, Agricuture, Land, Zimbabwe

By Busani Bafana for IPS - BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Jun 15 2017 (IPS) - Urban farmer Margaret Gauti Mpofu would do anything to protect the productivity of her land. Healthy soil means she is assured of harvest and enough food and income to look after her family. Each morning, Mpofu, 54, treks to her 5,000-square-metre plot in Hyde Park, about 20 km west of the city of Bulawayo. With a 20-litre plastic bucket filled with cow manure in hand, Mpofu expertly scoops the compost and sprinkles a handful besides thriving leaf vegetables and onions planted in rows across the length of the field, which is irrigated with treated waste water. Mpofu’s act of feeding the land is minuscule in fighting the big problem of land degradation. But replicated by many farmers on a large scale, it can restore the productivity of arable land. “I should not be doing this,” Mpofu tells IPS pointing to furrows on her field left by floodwater running down the slope during irrigation. “The soil is losing fertility each time we irrigate because the water flows fast, taking valuable topsoil with it. I have to constantly add manure to improve fertility in the soil and this also improves my yields.”

Solution To Eviction And Gentrification?

April 1, 2017 Staff, www.rioonwatch.org Create! Brazil, Evictions, Gentrification, Land, Land trusts

By Staff of Rioonwatch - This is the second in a series of three articles summarizing reports on Brazilian housing law, organized by the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice at request of Catalytic Communities. The second report, summarized in part below, with additional information compiled by Catalytic Communities’ team, was produced by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer US LLP. To read the actual report, click here. Inextricably linked to Rio de Janeiro’s identity for more than a century, favelas today serve the essential function of providing affordable housing to nearly a quarter of the city’s residents. In recent years, however, many favelas have been subject to immense pressure in the form of both forced evictions and gentrification brought on by real estate speculation, that have affected the city as a whole.

Bill To Allow Pipeline Companies To Survey Without Permission

February 16, 2017 Staff, www.morgancountyusa.org Resist! Land, Legislation, Pipelines, Senate

By Staff of Morgan County USA - Mountaineer Gas wants to send its pipeline right through David Kerns’ family farm in Morgan County just east of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. Kerns has made it clear that he doesn’t want Mountaineer Gas coming onto his property. Now, the natural gas industry is going over the heads of David Kerns and other property owners who don’t want anything to do with this or other pipelines. And they are going straight to Charleston where Senator Craig Blair (R-Berkeley) has introduced legislation — SB 245 — that permits natural gas companies “to enter private property without prior consent from the owner” to survey land for proposed pipelines. Last year, Senator Charles Trump (R-Morgan), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, help shepherd a similar bill through his committee and onto the Senate floor, where Blair and Trump voted for it — but the bill was voted down 23 to 11.

After Protests, Republicans Pull Bill That Would Privatize Public Lands

February 7, 2017 Alexandra Jacobo, www.nationofchange.org Resist! Congress, Land, Protests

By Alexandra Jacobo for Nation of Change - Last week it was announced that a new bill introduced by Rep. Jason Chaffetz would propose selling 3.3 million acres of federal land in 10 different states. Thousands of people responded, with protests in several states. In Montana, over 1,000 public lands supporters joined Gov. Steve Bullock to show their opposition to the bill. Gov. Bullock stated, “Every one of us owns these public lands,” Bullock told the crowd. “And the beauty is, we don’t need permission to go on them, do we? These lands are our heritage. These lands are our birthright.” In New Mexico hundreds more rallied to protest the bill.

Opposition Grows Across Political Divides Against Sell-Off Of Federal Lands

February 2, 2017 Caty Enders, www.theguardian.com Resist! Federal land management, Land

By Caty Enders for The Guardian - Land totaling the size of Connecticut has been targeted in a new bill in the Republican House, uniting hunters and conservationists in opposition Now that Republicans have quietly drawn a path to give away much of Americans’ public land, US representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah has introduced what the Wilderness Society is calling “step two” in the GOP’s plan to offload federal property. The new piece of legislation would direct the interior secretary to immediately sell off an area of public land the size of Connecticut. In a press release for House Bill 621, Chaffetz, a Tea Party Republican, claimed that the 3.3m acres of national land, maintained by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), served “no purpose for taxpayers”.

15 Indigenous Struggles You Need To Know About

October 23, 2016 Intercontinentnal Cry, www.intercontinentalcry.org Educate! Finance and the Economy, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land

By Intercontinental Cry Magazine. Despite making up a tiny fraction of the world's population, Indigenous Peoples hold ancestral rights to some 65 percent of the planet. This poignant fact speaks well to the enormous role that Indigenous Peoples play not only as environmental stewards, but as political actors on the global stage. We're seeing that role play out right now on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota; but there are hundreds of other indigenous struggles just like that almost never make headlines. All over the world today, Indigenous Peoples are confronting the destructive practices of industry—leading the charge against climate change while defending the lakes, forests and food systems that all of us depend on. At the same time, they are blocking governments from weakening basic rights and freedoms and turning to the courts of the world to correct over 500 years of historical wrongs.

‘A Tourist in My Own Land’: The Bulldozing Of Indigenous Society

September 19, 2016 Mark Hand, www.dcmediagroup.us Resist! Indigenous Peoples, Land

By Mark Hand for DC Media Group - Native Americans are traveling the nation once again to raise awareness of their exploitation. This time, indigenous activists are spreading the word about an energy infrastructure company, with the backing of police agencies, politicians and union leaders, running roughshod over them. Among their recent stops was Washington, DC, where Native Americans pleaded for President Barack Obama and members of Congress to help them stop Energy Transfer Partners’ proposed Dakota Access Pipeline from snaking through their land.

Israeli Land Theft: 440% Increase In 2016

July 1, 2016 Staff, www.imemc.org Educate! Israel, Land, Palestine

By Staff of Palestinian Information Center/PNN - Israeli land confiscation policy has notably escalated in occupied Jerusalem and West Bank by 439% since the beginning of 2016, in comparison to last year, a Palestinian report revealed on Tuesday. Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem (ARIJ) revealed that Israeli authorities confiscated, since the beginning of the year, 7,773 acres of Palestinian-owned lands, recording an increase by 439% in comparison with last year, where 1,442 acres were seized.

Obama Appointed Judge Says Feds Cannot Regulate Fracking On Public Land

June 23, 2016 Timothy Cama, www.thehill.com Educate! Barack Obama, Fracking, Land, Regulation

By Timothy Cama for The Hill - A federal judge appointed by President Obama struck down the administration’s regulation on hydraulic fracturing on federal lands on Tuesday, ruling that the Interior Department does not have congressional authority to regulate fracking. The decision is a major loss for the administration, which worked for years to update its oil and natural gas drilling regulations to account for dramatic increases and innovations in fracking.

Big Oil & Gas Get Exclusive Access To Public Lands

June 20, 2016 Staff, www.therealnews.com Educate! Land, Oil and Gas, Public

By Staff of The Real News Network - The worlds biggest banks are driving climate change by pumping billions of dollars into extreme fossil fuels, according to a new report released this week from Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, Sierra Club, and Oil Change International. Investigative journalist Steve Horn has taken a closer look for us at the machinations of public lands and how theyre being auctioned off to oil and gas interests for drilling and mining for as little as $1.50 an acre. In the U.S., Keep It In the Ground movement has focused in on the leasing of public lands. Lets take a look at a clip from one of their campaigns.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 »

Daily movement news and resources