Community Filmmaking Workshops Held Alongside Borneo Eco Film Festival

From 25-29 September, Holly Jonas (Natural Justice) joined the SUARA community film-making programme in Sabah, Malaysia, which was held alongside the third annual Borneo Eco Film Festival. SUARA (which means 'voice' in Bahasa Malaysia) is all about celebrating the natural and cultural heritage of Borneo through the voices and perspectives of people from the island. The flagship programme was SUARA KOMUNITI, a year-long capacity building programme...

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Natural Justice Attends Events at World Bank Headquarters Addressing Independent Accountability Mechanisms of International Financial Institutions

On 27 September 2013, the World Bank hosted the Tenth Annual Meeting of Independent Accountability Mechanisms (IAMs) at its headquarters in Washington, DC. The World Bank created the first IAM twenty years ago when it established the World Bank Inspection Panel to handle the grievances of people affected by its projects. Today, nearly every international financial institution (IFI) has an IAM to provide: 1) a forum for dispute resolution between...

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Indigenous Pollinators: Honey and Harmony

From the 25-26th of September one of Natural Justice’s partner organizations in Kenya, Kivulini Trust co-hosted an Indigenous Pollinators Network Workshop in Nairobi, together with the FAO and Indigenous Partnership for Agrobiodiversity and Food Sovereignty. The objective of the workshop was to establish a network of indigenous communities knowledgeable of and supportive towards pollinators. A similar workshop was held last month in India, where...

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Strategies to Secure Community Land Rights and Resources

A meeting on securing community land rights and resources on the 19th and 20th of September ended with a pledge from stakeholders to work together to address this growing global crisis. Representatives of community groups, civil society, business and government met over the two days in the hope to form the initial strategies on the relevant topics within securing community lands and resources, including: the mapping and documentation of community...

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SDI and Namati Release New Guide to Assist Liberian Communities Obtain Title to Their Lands

The government of Liberia is currently drafting new land laws that give communities ownership rights over their lands. To help communities take advantage of these new laws, the Sustainable Development Institute and Namati released a guide for Liberian communities entitled Community Guide: Protecting Community Lands and Resources. The Community Guide teaches communities how to go through the process of obtaining deeds for their land. It sets forth an overview of the process and informs communities of their rights to land and natural resources....

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Learning about intellectual property, community protocols and ABS

A training for indigenous peoples and local communities in Africa on intellectual property, biocultural community protocols (BCPs) and access and benefit sharing (ABS) is taking place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from the 23rd to the 27th of September. The meeting is organized by the ABS Initiative, in collaboration with Natural Justice, the Indigenous Information Network, the Indigenous Peoples Coordination Committee of Africa and hosted by the African...

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Global Capital, Local Concessions: A Data-Driven Examination of Land Tenure Risk and Industrial Concessions in Emerging Market Economies

Using geospatial data from 12 emerging market economies (EMEs), this analysis by The Munden Project attempts to guide investors in emerging markets by shedding light on a difficult problem: overlapping land claims that diminish the value and viability of industrial concessions. The report refers to this as "land tenure risk."From these datasets and an examination of research and financial information, the report concludes that land tenure risk is...

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Scaling-up Strategies to Secure Community Land and Resource Rights

From the 19th to the 20th of September, Gino Cocchiaro (Natural Justice) is attending the International Conference on Scaling-up Strategies to Secure Community Land and Resource Rights in Interlaken, Switzerland.There is growing acknowledgement that lack of community land and resource rights has become a global crisis that undermines our progress for social, spiritual and economic well-being. Natural Justice continues to work with its community partners,...

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James Anaya on the "resource curse" in the global south

Professor James Anaya (United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) has written an opinion article for Al Jazeera entitled "Is natural resource development a blessing, a 'quick-fix,' or a curse?" Drawing on his experiences as a UN investigator, he argues that the resource curse is alive and well in the global south, with profits from natural resource extraction failing to reach the people and communities who bear the...

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Governance of Protected Areas - New IUCN Publication

“Governance of Protected Areas: From understanding to action” - a new publication produced by IUCN, the ICCA Consortium, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the CBD Secretariat, provides an important tool to help enhance governance diversity and quality of the world’s protected area systems.Addressing an issue that was barely recognised...

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Practical Approaches to Ensuring the Full and Effective Participation of Indigenous Peoples in REDD+: Assessing Experiences and Lessons to Date.

Cath Traynor (Natural Justice) attended the Joint Expert Workshop on Practical Approaches to Ensuring the Full and Effective Participation of Indigenous Peoples in REDD+: Assessing Experiences and Lessons to Date on 10-12 September at the Castle of Weilburg, Germany.The central workshop question was “how can we encourage and enable the full and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples in REDD+ decision making?”  Participants discussed local...

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Training at Jakarta!

SOMO, Cividep India and Business Watch Indonesia have jointly organized an advanced training programme on “Business and Human Rights & Grievance Mechanisms” in Jakarta from 9-12 September 2013. NGOs and trade unions from Asia region like Philippines, Cambodia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Indonesia, China, Nepal and India had participated in the programme. Sankar Pani of Natural Justice has participated and shared his experience of engaging with the OECD...

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Natural Justice and the Berne Declaration Submit New Letter to EU MEPs Regarding the Implementation of the Nagoya Protocol as the European Parliament considers its Implementation within the Union

On 6 September 13, Natural Justice and the Berne Declaration sent an letter to the Members of the European Parliament regarding the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (Nagoya Protocol) in the European Union. The original Draft Regulation on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization...

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The Rise of the South African Platinum Mining Industry and the Nature of the Post-Apartheid Order

On 11 and 12 September, Stephanie Booker of Natural Justice attended an international colloquium anchored by leading researchers, co-organised by the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP) and the Review of African Political Economy entitled “Meanings of Marikana Colloquium: The Rise of the South African Platinum Mining Industry and the Nature of the Post-Apartheid Order”.  Over one hundred diverse participants attended representing...

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Natural Justice attends the Zimbabwe Alternative Mining Indaba

Stephanie Booker of Natural Justice attended the 2nd Zimbabwe Alternative Mining Indaba (ZAMI) in Harare, Zimbabwe, from 10th -11th September 2013.Hosted by the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA), the Environmental Justice Network (EJN), the Zimbabwe Council of Churches (ZCC) and the Chiadzwa Community Development Trust (CCDT), the theme of the ZAMI was "Community Rights, the key to Empowerment". Held parallel to the annual Zimbabwe Mining...

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Self-evaluation workshop of civil society actors and indigenous peoples on REDD+ in DRC

From 2nd to 7th September 2013, Cath Traynor and Lassana Koné from Natural Justice attended as observers, a self evaluation workshop in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The objective of the workshop, sponsored by UNDP and Rainforest Foundation Norway and facilitated by Samuel Nnah Ndobe, consisted in developing a strategy for civil society actors and indigenous peoples in the REDD+ process in DRC. The REDD+ mechanism was launched...

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Block Level Training Programme on Community Forest Rights in Keounjhar District

A Series of workshops on community forest rights (CFR) was organized in Harichadanpur, Banspal & Telkoi Block of Keounjhar district on 22nd, 23rd and 24th August 2013 respectively. The programme was organized by Natural Justice's local partner organization KIRDTI with co-operation from the district administration and Block officials. Sankar Pani of Natural Justice facilitated the workshop.The workshops in Harichandanpurl and Telkoi Block were...

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Theatre and the Law with the Borana Community

Natural Justice has been working with its Kenyan partner, Kivulini Trust, to support the Borana Pastoralist community assert their traditional land and resource rights. Through this process the Borana have been developing a bio-cultural community protocol (BCP) to highlight their community vision, traditional land and resource use based on their customary laws. During the week of the 19th of August, members of the Borana community, including elders,...

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