AGTER

Restart of the Lyon to Saint-Etienne highway project: an agricultural, environmental and economic scandal

Coline Sauzion — 2016-12-13T11:08:10Z

Since Laurent Wauquiez became president of the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region by end of 2015, the A45 highway project is back on the political agenda as a priority. This project aims at doubling the free existing highway between Lyon and St Etienne by connecting Brignais (South suburb of Lyon) and La Fouillouse (North suburb of St Etienne) and would destroy at least 500 ha (hectares) of agricultural land.
After many years of investigation, this project, initially launched in 1993, is (…)

- The land / Article du mois

The environmental permit granted to the company Jiuxing Mines S.A.R.L for its mining project in Soamahanina is not acceptable

Collectif TANY — 2016-06-28T09:11:38Z

Soamahamanina is a municipality located in Miarinarivo District in the Itasy Region, 70 kms from Antananarivo, the Madagascar capital. Most of the inhabitants have demonstrated since several months along the National Road 1 against a gold extraction project by a Chinese company. But the environmental permit - the last step before the operating permit according to the law - has been granted and the company came with his numerous Chinese employees, vans and heavy equipments. On the 20th of (…)

- Madagascar

Rio Tinto's biodiversity offset in Madagascar Double landgrab in the name of biodiversity?

2016-04-18T15:30:06Z

In recent years mining companies have become actively engaged in promoting ‘biodiversity offsetting' as a way of ‘greening' the mining sector. Biodiversity offsets are effectively a promise to make up for destroying biodiversity in one location by protecting biodiversity said to be at risk of being said to be at risk elsewhere. In practice, this gives companies a licence to continue with environmentally destructive operations. (...)
The Rio Tinto QMM biodiversity offset project in the (…)

- Madagascar

Launch of the website "Access to land"

2015-10-27T13:16:58Z

The french association Terre de Liens and its european partners launch a website on access to land in Europe !
To consult the website and get informations and practical resources on land access issues in Europe click on the following link : http://www.accesstoland.eu/
"Preserving land for local, agroecological farming is a growing issue in many parts of Europe. The amount of agricultural land is declining, as a result of urban and infrastructure development. Competition for land use is (…)

- The land

Petition to the European Parliament : Preserving and managing European farmland as our common wealth

2015-09-30T08:57:00Z

Terre de Liens, a member of AGTER, is a promoter of this petition, with the European Confederation Via Campesina, AIAB, and Regionalwert AG . Of course, AGTER signed. We invite all the organizations which follow our activities to join the list of signatories. To support this petition, please send your signature to:
Veronique Rioufol, Terre de liens: v.rioufol[at]terredeliens.org
et Marta Di Pierro, AIAB: marta.dipierro[at]gmail.com
Petition to the European Parliament (…)

- The land

INDIA. Jan Satyagraha : Indian Landless take the road again

Samuel L'Orphelin — 2013-01-14T16:21:00Z

The citizens' movement raised by the Ekta Parishad network get, in october 2012, serious guarantees that the agrarian reform, whom it get the programmation in 2007, will be concretised.
In 2007, 25000 Indian landless coordinated by Ekta Parishad walked to reclaim a new agrarian reform in India (see this article). The success of this march permitted to change the law about land distribution but was not enough to answer the needs of the poorest of the country (see this article). Seeing no (…)

- The land

Investment: magic word or trap ?

Michel Merlet — 2012-08-02T07:50:25Z

Everyone seems to agree on the need for “investment” in agriculture to fight hunger and support rural development, but the focus is exclusively on investment funds and big business, and nothing about farmers. Is the term part of a disinformation campaign to serve the interests of only a few?
It was only around 1920 that the meaning of the word investment, as we know it today, arose: providing capital to a company so that it may acquire equipment and other means of production. This (…)

- Appropriation, Concentration of Land and land grabbing Worldwide.

Endorsement of the « Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure ... »

2012-05-24T05:41:20Z

After a long process of consultation and negotiation that started in 2009 and involved government institutions, the civil society, the private sector, the academic world of about 130 countries and the UN agencies, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) ratified the « Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security. ».
The presentation of FAO's website that we reproduce below underlines in a very clear (…)

- Appropriation, Concentration of Land and land grabbing Worldwide. / Article du mois

Pedagogic factsheet on Land tenure Issues in West Africa

Michel Merlet — 2011-07-26T15:11:36Z

The leaders of peasants and women's organizations, NGOs, technicians, civil servants, decision-makers and donors who work on rural development issues in Africa need resources to guide their actions in the realm of land policy. The project to produce educational resources proposes a series of short texts, written in accessible and easy to understand language. The goal is to share information and knowledge on a large scale, but also to clarify discussions between a variety of users and to (…)

- The land

Legal Pluralism as New Perspective to Study Land Rights in Nicaragua. A different look at the Sandinista Agrarian Reform.

2011-01-13T09:57:38Z

Several members of AGTER participated in the Conference on Land Refoms and Management of Natural Resources in Africa and Latin America, which was organised in Lleida (Spain) in November 2010.
Pierre Merlet presented the paper that can be downloaded below, underlining the interest of legal pluralism approach to have a new look at the Sandinista Agrarian Reform.
Abstract Before the 1980's state-led agrarian reform in Nicaragua, the country was characterized by a very unequal distribution (…)

- The land