Full Coverage: Land

31.05.2005 Près du dixième de la population mondiale consommerait des aliments produits en utilisant des eaux usées. Étant donné la croissance démographique et le fait que davantage d’eau douce est détournée vers les villes pour la consommation domestique — dont 70 % repart en eaux usées —, le recours aux eaux usées est appelé à augmenter, tant en volumes qu’en superficies irriguées.

30.05.2005 The Government of India has proposed the Rural Employment Guarantee Act to guarantee 100 days employment for families in rural areas. This Act has still not been introduced in Parliament and there is a great deal of debate about it. SEWA strongly supports this Act with employment proposals more oriented towards developing the varied skills and employment potential in the villages, and the implementation decentralized and as far as possible carried out through local organisations.

24.05.2005 With their hopes fading, 12,000 rural Brazilians marched over 200km to the capital last week to encourage President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to push for land-reform. When Lula came to power in 2002, his working-class background legitimized promises for land reform--but the policy has since stalled with inter-administration bickering.

23.05.2005 There may be a chink in the armour of Robert Mugabe's programme of farm seizures. If a dispossessed farmer is a national of a country which has signed formal investment agreements with Zimbabwe, international arbitration procedures could be available.

17.05.2005 Two leaders of Ecuador's Huaorani indigenous group traveled to Washington, D.C. last week, asking for help to get a moratorium on new oil projects in their territory and one of the world's most important parks in terms of plant and wildlife biodiversity. The group says those who live in the area and would me most directly affected have had no say in the process.

03.05.2005 While indigenous leaders say that constitutional amendments proposed by the government will forever deny Bushmen rights to their traditional land in the diamond-rich Central Kalahari Game Reserve, the government contends that the change is aimed simply at rendering the constitution "tribally neutral," denying that the land has been earmarked for diamond mining.

01.05.2005 RIO DE JANEIRO, May 1 (IPS) - The massive march that will set out this Sunday - May Day - and reach the Brazilian capital on May 17 has been organised by the Landless Workers Movement (MST) to protest the government's economic policies, which are an obstacle to agrarian reform, the activists say.