Posted at 11/10/2011 7:14 PM | Updated as of 11/11/2011 10:03 AM

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines could unveil a comprehensive mining policy by the end of 2011 that addresses thorny issues hampering the industry, including when the national government can overrule provincial bans, a government official said on Thursday.

A government panel created last month to craft a new mining policy is expected to submit its proposals on November 15 for approval by President Benigno Aquino before the year ends, Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) director Leo Jasareno said.

Governments of two southern provinces, Zamboanga del Norte and South Cotabato, have banned open-pit mining, affecting existing and planned projects and worrying investors.

TVI Resource Development (Phils) Inc., the local unit of Canada’s TVI Pacific Inc., has sought a court order to stop the ban in Zamboanga del Norte, which took effect this week and would force the firm to close its polymetallic mine within one year.

A similar ban last year in South Cotabato has put at risk the $5.9 billion Tampakan copper-gold project of global miner Xstrata Plc and Indophil Resources NL.

“While serious efforts have been extended to address the issues on mining through the years, it has been shown that many measures still need to be put in place to ensure the survival of the industry,” Jasareno said in a speech at a mining conference.

He said the new policy would likely be enacted through an executive order (EO) by the president rather than a vote in Congress, and should correct inconsistencies between national and local laws that have seen some provinces ban government-approved projects.

The provincial governments have cited environmental reasons in banning certain mining methods, although the national mining law does not prohibit open-pit mining.

The Southeast Asian country, which has an estimated $1 trillion worth of metallic mineral reserves, considers mining as a growth sector that will attract investments and create jobs but the uncertainty has been a deterrent to investors.

Last month Jasareno told Reuters mining investment this year might not even reach $1 billion, or about one-third of a government forecast of $2.8 billion.

Jasareno said the new policy would also address the issue of revenue-sharing between the government and the industry, which opposes a proposal for additional royalties.

“We hope that the new mining policies can finally lead the industry to a middle ground where the concerns of every stakeholder will be reasonably addressed,” he said.

A member of the Mundari tribe stands amongst cattle in Terekeka, South Sudan. Credit:Jared Ferrie/IPS Buy this picture

WASHINGTON, Dec 6, 2011 (IPS) – While the United Nations climate talks in Durban enter their ninth day of political feet-dragging, researchers and peasants around the world are busy connecting the dots between so- called “green climate solutions”, industrialised agriculture and chronic hunger.

New research released Tuesday by the U.S.-based Oakland Institute (OI) reveals the nexus between “false” fuel alternatives such as the development of agrofuels and agroforests and the massive land grab underway in Africa that is stripping thousands of peasants of their land and means of subsistence.

The research cites the hypocrisy of major industrialised actors like the U.S. and the European Union, as well the World Bank Group (WBG) and other development agencies for pouring money into assisting victims of famine and natural disasters, all the while making massive investments in schemes that heat the earth and stifle local development.

Industrial agriculture and biofuels: neither clean nor green

Industrialised agricultural practices currently produce 13.5 percent of all green house gas emissions, mostly methane and nitrous oxide. The latter is emitted in huge doses through the spraying of fertiliser, which is used 800 times more frequently today than it was 100 years ago.

The production of fertilisers themselves requires the burning up of fossil fuels, emitting up to 41 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).

Read More…At the Nexus of Agrofuels, Land Grabs and Hunger – Part 1 – IPS ipsnews.net.

Posted on 05 December 2011 by admin

By Busani Bafana

Durban, 5 Dec. — Negotiators at the 17th Conference of Parties owe it to the world’s more than seven billion people to deliver a deal with a work plan for agriculture, a sector that is expected to be the worst affected by climate change.

Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, CEO of Food Agriculture Natural Resources Policy Advocacy Network told participants at the Agriculture and Rural Development Day (ARRD) event on the sidelines of COP 17 that what was need was a work programme for agriculture. She said she hoped that South Africa’s minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Tina Joemat Patterson would take up the cause.

“We believe she will send the message to the right messenger to make sure we deliver a deal that will talk to farmers, the private sector and everybody who needs food to survive,” Sibanda said.

On behalf of a grouping of agriculture and advocacy organisations, Sibanda presented an open letter to Patterson calling for the inclusion of agriculture as an adaptation approach in the text to be agreed on by climate change negotiators. The groups have warned that COP 17 should be the show time for agriculture, which has been repeatedly taken off the agenda in two previous climate change negotiations.

“The turnout for COP 17 has been overwhelming and we believe we are on the right track,” said Sibanda. “This is a sign of commitment and sign of more ambassadors for our message that we are presenting to the minister to take to the boys and girls upstairs.”

Read More… Negotiations Must Deliver a Work Programme on Agriculture.

Source: www.ips.org (InterPress Service website)

A number of NGOs and university students will stage a demonstration and read a declaration to express their stance on the ASEAN summit. They will hold the protest in front of the consulate general buildings of the US and Japan in Denpasar, since it is impossible to hold it in Nusa Dua where the summit is taking place, due to tight security.

To prepare the declaration, around 20 local institutions participated in a seminar about “building a sovereign regionalism and opposing the domination of global capitalism” in Denpasar on Wednesday.

At the seminar, which was organized by Udayana University’s Law School, they discussed their stance relating to the ASEAN summit, particularly about what is at stake, and a range of issues about East Asia.

They also discussed the impact of ASEAN upon regional security and the Indonesian people in general, as well as the problems facing agricultural, plantation and fishery sectors in connection to the Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

The issue of global capitalism in ASEAN, labor, migrant workers and education were also discussed during the seminar.

M. Teguh Surya from the Indonesian Environment Forum (WALHI) criticized the Master Plan on the Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesian Economic Development 2011-2025, which he considered neglected the impact of environmental damage.

“Indonesia, just like other ASEAN countries, has been a supplier of natural resources to global industries, and this is stated in the master plan, but there is no concern regarding the environmental damage resulting from this.”

He said that the document on the acceleration of the economy only favors the interests of advanced countries, such as Japan, Korea and China.

“Indonesia is very prone to natural resource exploitation, which could marginalize 90 percent of its people if there is no protection [from the government].”

He cited the economic acceleration in Bali, which focused on tourism. “Tourism development has caused changes in spatial planning policy, and this is something that could bring the island to collapse. One of the clear examples is the water crisis experienced on the island.”

Bonnie Setiawan, executive director of Alternative to Globalization (RAG) and a researcher with the Institute for Global Justice, said the new regime in ASEAN has allowed neocolonialism to flourish.

“Indonesia, which supplies low-paid laborers and raw materials, is very open to imports and foreign investment from international corporations,” he said.

ASEAN has been part of the global supply chain by “revising their structures, norms and regulations”, he added.#

The council, chaired by the prime minister, will look more closely at consolidating the laws governing land records and benami transactions to plug violation of ceiling laws.

A key agenda drawn by rural development minister Jairam Ramesh will be to nudge the states to abide by the Supreme Court’s Samata judgment of July 1997 banning transfer of land and mining leases to non-tribals in Schedule V areas: an issue which has huge implications for industries in tribal pockets. Sources said the Centre was likely to insist on implementation of the judgment in “letter and spirit”.

The council was formed in October 2008 in the wake of a “jal, jungle, zameen” march to the Capital by tribals and others protesting against the usurpation of their land and other resources by outsiders. That the body which comprises 10 chief ministers has finally been activated has to do with the recognition of land as the source of problems plaguing the hinterland and alienation of tribal land due to usurpation by powerful individuals and industrialists, all contributing to the growing menace of naxalism.

The sudden interest in land may be academic, it being a state subject and an intractable political and social issue. However, the council may help renew the focus on land management, especially among tribals. The coming meeting may look to bring about convergence between Centre and states to ensure that policy guidelines do not fall prey to jurisdictional issues.

The Centre will also launch central schemes for homestead rights for homeless rural poor, survey of bhoodan lands, reconciliation of forest and revenue land records, establishment of land tribunals for fast disposal of appeals, survey of common property resources in villages and survey and settlement operations in tribal sub-plan areas.

It will also seek recognition of gram sabhas as competent authority for transfer of tribal land by sale or lease, and for restoration of alienated tribunal lands and for maintenance of land records. Another demand for withdrawal of encroachment cases and minor forest offences may be raised.

Along with the council, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, eager to buy peace with protestors in the run-up to Lok Sabha polls, had also formed a committee to go into the issues of “state agrarian relations and unfinished task in land reforms”.

Coming on the back of the urgency across political spectrum to amend the 1894 Land Acquisition Act, the initiative of the rural development ministry is interesting. While the new bill, now with Parliament’s standing committee, seeks to ensure better price for farm land, it has drawn criticism from activists who see it as facilitating the sale of land when it should have discouraged it. The focus on land management and tribal land through the brainstorming in the national council will seek to right the perspective.

According to data compiled by the International Land Partnership (composed of Oxfam, GIZ, Land Coalition and others), 227 million hectares of land have been leased or sold worldwide since 2001, putting on the line the lives and livelihood of poor people across the globe.

To get an overview or download the paper, please click on the link below:

http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/policy/land-and-power

To view a short video on the report:

English http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le06FhmuHlI (SHORT URL: http://bit.ly/landgrabs)

The paper and video can be freely shared/posted.

Madhya Pradesh, India — After eight years of struggle, 41 out of 94 small land owners from Lahroni village of Karahal Block, Sheopur District managed to get their land demarcated this February 2011. Demarcation is going on for the other lands.

The case goes back to 2003, when 94 families (74 tribals and 20 dalits beneficiaries) of Lahroni village were given pattas( land entitlements) by the Madhya Pradesh government. These families were given only the entitlement papers but not the physical possession of the land. It was also not yet demarcated.

The total area of land is 130 hectares. There were also six beneficiaries of Bhoodan Land (donated land collected by Eminent leader Vinoba Bhave), who have entitlement papers since 1990, but not land possession. The people had land documents in their hands but did not know where their lands were. After lobbying the local Patwari (revenue employee) showed them the land but it was still not demarcated. They found that their land was already occupied by non-tribal peoples from outside Madhya Pradesh.

It should be known that Karahal is a block belonging to the 5^th schedule area, where tribal land cannot be transferred to non-tribals according to law. There are several non-tribals outside Madhya Pradesh that had developed farms of 100 to 200 hectares illegally with the help of corrupt government officials.

Following is the story to ensure the physical possession over their allotted land:

1.      Beneficiaries approached different government departments on their own initiative until 2005, requesting demarcation of their lands with no response.

2.      In 2005, the people of Lahroni came in contact with Ekta Parishad. Shri. Chironji Lal Adivasi, an activist of Ekta Paris contacted the village as part of his mobilization efforts for Janadesh 2007. The people explained their problem to Chironji Lal and he assured them of Ekta Parishad’s support.

3.      Seven women and eight men from the community joined the Janadesh 2007 foot-march expecting their grievance to be resolved. 25,000 satyagrahis walked from Gwalior to New Delhi, a distance of approximately 350 kilometers, over a one month since October 2, 2007. The application for demarcation of land assigned to the 94 families of Lahroni village was submitted to the Central Government along with other applications as part of Janadesh 2007. But this did not lead to any progress towards the resolution of their problems.

4.      In 2009, the community met Shri. Ran Singh Parmar, the National Convenor of Ekta Parishad with their unresolved grievance. He advised them to form a community based organization (CBO) and start organized struggle to access the land rights. Accordingly they formed a CBO and submitted a common application on behalf of the entire group to the Tehsildhar, the SDM and the District Collector of Sheopur. The local administration did not take any action.

5.      This issue was raised again during the ‘Bhumi Sudar Sankalp Yatra’ – a 10-day jeep yatra that passed through the entire Saheria belt starting from Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh to Baran district in Rajasthan. The Yatra passed through several Saheria adivasi community areas in Madhya Pradesh. An application was once again submitted to the local administration during the public meeting organized as part of the jeep-yatra. The local administration continued its inaction on this issue.

6.      During a meeting of village level mukhiyas of Sheopur district at Bardha Ashram from 21st to 23rd of January, the issue of Lahroni village was discussed. Reinvigorated by Rajaji’s speech during the jeep-yatra, the council of mukhiyas decided to give an ultimatum to the district administration.

7.      A 4-member team comprising the National convener of Ekta Parishad, Mr. Anil Kumar Gupta (National advocacy office), Mr. Raju Kumar (Free lance journalist) and Regioanl coordinator Mr. Dongar Sharma visited the village and decided to take immediate advocacy efforts.

8.      The district council of Ekta Parishad announced on January 25, 2011 that if the problem was not resolved then they will start an indefinite protest from February 14, 2011.

9.      The Zilla Panchayat (district local government) president Smt. Guddi Bai had also written a letter in support of the villagers to the District Collector of Sheopur, and the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh.

10.  Shri Ran Singh Parmar, Ekta Parishad National Convener,  had also sent a letter in support of people’s resolution to the Principal Secretary to Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, local MLA, and BJP’s National Secretary and the MP of Sheopur and Morena Shri. Narender Singh Tomar.

11.  Ekta Parishad activists in Sheopur started intense preparation for the dharna by carrying out meetings in different villages of Sheopur district.

12.  After receiving the people’s ultimatum, the district administration acted 3 days later and sent a team of Revenue Officers to Lahroni to carry out the demarcation on January 31, 2011.

13.  Shri. Dongar Sharma, the regional coordinator of Ekta Parishad for the Chambal region reached Lahroni upon learning about the latest development and spoke to the team of Revenue Officers on behalf of the villagers to ensure that the demarcation was carried out properly and people had a clear understanding of where their lands are located.

14.  As of February 4, 2011, 46 hectares of land belonging to 41 families has been demarcated.

Shri Ram Dutt Singh Tomar is overlooking the technical aspects of demarcation and overall coordination of advocacy with the local administration. Shri. Kuldeep Tiwari and Shri. Subhash Goswami supported the media documentation of the process. The entire team of Ekta Parishad activists, mukhiyas from neighbouring villages and members of the district level council are there at the site along with the 94 families to ensure smooth and proper demarcation process.

The administration has declared that the existing crop and the tube wells that have been dug on the lands will also come under the ownership of the Lahroni people. When the people of Lahroni had first come in contact with Ekta Parishad, their lands were occupied by powerful people from Punjab and Haryana. The revenue officials had not taken any action against the illegal occupiers for the last 6 years. These illegal occupiers are now resisting the legal hand-over of land to the people. Tribal land holdings are highly challenged in the present corrupt system of the government.

The villagers have decided to carry-out group farming for the next two years so that they can counter any resistance and harassment from the illegal occupiers. The Lahroni people now are focused on taking steps to improve their living conditions based on unity and non-violence. #

The said framework seeks to be CSO-led, relevant, doable, strategic and sustainable. During the workshop, participants shared their experiences in pilot testing the proposed indicators, and discussed indicators for monitoring based on relevance, feasibility and data availability and quality.

The group agreed on focusing efforts towards developing indicators at the national level, since these will more adequately reflect a country’s particular situation but at the same time should include common regional indicators for monitoring.

The framework is part of a broader monitoring initiative to enhance CSOs’ existing platforms and campaigns at various levels and strengthen CSOs capacity to monitor land reform implementation, especially at analyzing budgets, policies, land tenure and access to land.

The workshop is the last of a series of activities towards developing and finalizing the framework for CSOs. An electronic consultation, roundtable discussion, pilot studies, and an experts’ meeting have been conducted as inputs to the framework.

ANGOC’s CSO land reform monitoring project is also linked to the International Land Coalition (ILC)’s land reform initiative (LRI), which aims to ensure evidence is gathered on land access and tenure of the poor and vulnerable groups, and to make sure that this yields impact on policy and supports reforms.

The report of the proceedings is presently being prepared.

For more information on ANGOC’s CSO Land Reform Monitoring Initiative, please read the briefer at http://www.angoc.org/Pages/cso-land-monitoring.html . (Photo courtesy of PAFID)