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Cadastre disaster

Published

3 years ago

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Brazil’s Cerrado region, the most biodiverse savannah in the world, is home to the geraizeiros, a native population of mixed Afro-Indigenous and European descent. Since their arrival in western Bahia over 200 years ago, the geraizeiros have lived in small villages in the savannah lowlands (baixões) and the plateaus (chapadas), cultivating the land with care and respect.

However, because many geraizeiros lack official deeds to the lands they live and work on, companies have recently been able to expand into the region and kick them off of the land they have occupied for decades. These companies laid claim to vast swaths of uncultivated land in the Cerrado before converting the native vegetation to soy, corn, and cotton monocultures.

The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America alone has acquired at least 800,000 acres of farmland in Brazil, primarily in the Cerrado region. These aggressive business practices have severely impacted the geraizeiros, leaving most of them displaced and disconnected from their ancestral lands.

“Sadly, the story of the geraizeiros is not unique: Native communities across South America have faced similar fates.”

In recent years, many countries in South America have been digitizing their land registries and establishing online databases that serve as birth certificates for rural properties.

While land registries are not inherently harmful, mega-agribusiness corporations such as Cargill and Archer-Daniels-Midland use these registries as well as georeferencing technologies to deceitfully obtain property deeds that deprive Indigenous communities of their ancestral lands. But by working with non-governmental organizations and increasing oversight, South American governments can curb this continued land theft.

Although digital registries are relatively new, the ethos underlying their exploitative use is not. During the colonial period, debates over land registration and ownership in South America were often at the forefront of violent conflicts between European colonizers and the Indigenous groups they displaced.

Since then, land-grabbers have capitalized on the general lack of centralized land registration systems and regulatory policies to claim ownership of community-owned lands without legal deeds.

In 2020, GRAIN, a small international non-profit organization supporting small farmers and community-controlled food systems, launched an investigation into how these new digital systems function. In its report, GRAIN argues that in several areas of rapid agribusiness expansion in South America, the digital system is “validating the historic process of land grabs.” Rather than recognizing the long-standing land claims of traditional communities, the report alleges, the system is expelling native communities from ancestral lands that they have occupied for decades or even centuries. Affected communities live in regions including the Llanos Orientales of Colombia, four states in the Brazilian Cerrado ecoregion, and three areas along the Paraná River.

Within each of these regions, landowners are required to register their land in what is formally known as a georeferenced cadastre—a supposedly exhaustive record of a given country’s property—if they wish to acquire the legal land deed, bank credits, and loans. Since the World Bank partially funds the cadastre process in many South American countries, georeferencing tools allow the international financial sector to play a decisive and expanding role in converting community-held rainforests and savannahs into agribusiness land.

In Brazil, for example, the World Bank shelled out $45.5 million for the digital registration of private rural properties in the country’s rural environmental cadastre, allowing it to generate income from investments in agroforestry systems.

Unsurprisingly, this outsourcing of power and authority has had dire consequences for many indigenous communities. The cadastre system inherently caters to the needs of large companies and private actors who want to register individually owned allotments of land.

The bureaucracy of cadastral documentation, coupled with the rigidity of the cadastral system’s definition of land ownership, makes it difficult for some native communities—who collectively occupy their land—to register their plots.

Cadastres’ early iterations fail to record land occupation by these communities, making them “illegal trespassers” on the property they work and live on. The new landowners can then use the official cadastre and georeferencing records to go to court and evict traditional communal owners. Condoned by the rampant corruption in rural municipalities and courts, this sequence is disturbingly common.

Although much of this problem stems from misuse of georeferencing technology, the issue calls for a political solution. Local and national governments must put agrarian reform and collective land ownership issues on their political agendas.

Governmental land use groups and agencies—the South American equivalents to the United States Bureau of Land Management—should allocate public lands to rural peoples in order to guarantee their collective territorial rights.

Digital georeferencing techniques for land demarcation can and must be backed up by traditional ground truthing surveys. And rather than taking prospective landowners’ claims at face value, governments must independently verify them via a centralized land registration system organized to resolve conflicts.

Even if the government does not act, there are still a number of ways to guarantee land rights for Indigenous communities and other rural peoples. In 2019, the International Land Coalition (ILC) published “ILC Toolkit #9: Effective Actions Against Land Grabbing,” describing several strategies that landowners and activists alike can use to combat the global land-grabbing phenomenon.

One of the primary ways the ILC encourages local groups to resist land-grabbing is through the development of community land registries, which allow landowners to register their customary land rights into a government cadastre and obtain formal land titles or certificates. This process helps integrate many indigenous peoples’ customary rights into the legal system and establishes proper land rights that help communities protect their lands.

The Higaonon, an indigenous tribe in the Mindanao region of the Philippines, has successfully implemented this practice and holds much of its land under customary tenure systems.

Still, the lack of clear boundaries between neighboring groups has led to many disputes. In response, the Higaonon applied for a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT), a formal land ownership title. However, despite their efforts, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples has only formally registered 50 CADTs, limiting their effectiveness in protecting indigenous land.

Traditional knowledge and production systems—existing sustainably on communally held land—protect natural resources and are vital for human survival. But the longevity and viability of these systems are being put at risk by the “digital land grab.” We must do everything in our power to stop it.

Source: Farmlandgrab

 

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The Great “Green” Heist: When Artificial Intelligence and Arms Dealers Seize the Minerals of the South

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1 day ago

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August 4, 2026

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By Franck Zongwe Lukama, Congolese journalist and researcher, leads the independent media KilaloPress in DRC.

We were sold a simple equation: to save the planet, we must dig. Dig faster, deeper, extracting from the earth the cobalt, lithium, or copper needed for solar panels and electric vehicles. Yet, this climate rescue rhetoric conceals a staggering statistical deception. Today, 70% of global demand for critical minerals does absolutely nothing to support the energy transition. These resources end up in aerospace, communication technologies, and, above all, weaponry. Sectors that, ironically, exacerbate the global ecological crisis. The green revolution has become the perfect smokescreen, the moral veneer for a very different kind of war.

Far from the promises of sustainable development touted by the World Bank, the current scramble is driven by a strict logic of geopolitical power. A damning report from the California-based Oakland Institute exposes this global scheme. The report reveals an unprecedented and formidable convergence of interests between the American military-industrial complex and the giants of Silicon Valley. With the Pentagon openly pivoting toward a combat strategy focused on artificial intelligence (AI), securing supply chains is no longer a matter of ecology, but a question of survival in the face of Chinese influence. The United States is not seeking to reduce carbon emissions; it is seeking to guarantee its technological and military supremacy.

Artisanal Coltan - manganese - cobalt mining in Mudere mine under control of Nyatura militia, town of Rubaya, North Kivu region (Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa). Photo: Erberto Zani.

The real winners of this frantic race wear suits far removed from environmental activism. Trillions of dollars are flowing into new alliances that intertwine AI-driven mining companies, like KoBold Metals—backed by billionaires such as Bill Gates—and companies specializing in cutting-edge defense technologies, like Palantir and Anduril, not to mention the networks of influence close to the Trump family. For these players, the discourse of climate emergency acts as a powerful public relations tool. It justifies massive and accelerated extraction that would otherwise provoke international outrage.

Local communities and Indigenous populations find themselves on the frontlines, forced to resist an extraction machine that has the audacity to justify their suffering by claiming it is necessary to save the world.

And the price of this hypocrisy is being paid in full throughout the Global South. In the Rubaya hills, in the Kolwezi copper belt, as in the Indigenous territories of Latin America and Asia, the promise of “prosperity” translates into a terrifyingly familiar tragedy. Land grabbing, forced displacement, devastating groundwater pollution: the plundering of ecosystems and human lives is accelerating. Local communities and Indigenous populations find themselves on the frontlines, forced to resist an extraction machine that has the audacity to justify their suffering by claiming it is necessary to save the world. Today, opposing the destruction of one’s village by a multinational mining company risks being accused of hindering the fight against climate change. The rhetorical trap is devastatingly effective.

Artisanal Coltan - manganese - cobalt mining in Mudere mine under control of Nyatura militia, town of Rubaya, North Kivu region (Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa). Photo: Erberto Zani.

The long-term consequences of this diversion are alarming. The exponential surge in demand generated by future AI data centers, mass surveillance, and global rearmament will mathematically deplete available reserves. Every ton of copper, nickel, or cobalt consumed by combat drones or algorithmic data processing servers is a ton diverted from the production of renewable energy infrastructure. We are not equipping the energy transition; we are cannibalizing it to militarize our future.

We are not equipping the energy transition; we are cannibalizing it to militarize our future.

If no strict regulations are put in place to curb this rampant mining frenzy, hundreds of new mines will spring up in the coming years, causing irreversible damage on an unprecedented scale. The question facing citizens today, from Kinshasa to Washington, is no longer whether we will have enough minerals to save our atmosphere. It is why we are willing to sacrifice millions of lives and destroy our lands to fuel next-generation algorithms and weapons. In ten years, when the Global South is nothing more than a vast crater serving a militarized hyper-technology, it will be too late to realize that the planet was never the priority.

Photos: Artisanal Coltan – manganese – cobalt mining in Mudere mine under control of Nyatura militia, town of Rubaya, North Kivu region (Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa). Erberto Zani – stock.adobe.com

Source: oaklandinstitute.org/

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EU: IPI welcomes action against 14 states over Anti-SLAPP Directive delays

Published

1 week ago

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July 27, 2026

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EU states must introduce robust measures to protect journalists and media from vexatious litigation

The International Press Institute (IPI) today welcomes the infringement proceedings initiated by the European Commission against 14 EU Member States over their inaction or delays in transposing the Anti-SLAPP Directive.

The countries included are Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Spain.

The EU infringement proceedings were initiated on 15 July, with letters of formal notice sent to these Member States for failing to notify about progress made in implementing the Directive. States now have two months to respond and update about measures taken or could eventually face legal action at the European Court of Justice.

The Anti-SLAPP Directive introduced EU-wide rules which protect journalists and civil society actors from manifestly unfounded or abusive civil proceedings with cross-border implications, including early dismissal tools and remedies for targets of SLAPPs. It was adopted in April 2024 and the transposition deadline was 7 May 2026.

Monitoring by IPI shows that while in some of the countries identified, such as Greece and Spain, steps have been taken to prepare for the transposition and bills are actively in development and reportedly close to being presented to or adopted by parliament.

In others such as Bulgaria and Portugal, initial work done to develop legislation has been delayed by institutional changes, changes in governments or political instability, though transposition work remains ongoing.

In other states, such as Italy and Hungary, little to no measurable progress has yet been made on transposition. However, with the new Tisza government in Hungary driving forward media freedom reforms, there is hope the new administration will introduce initial anti-SLAPP measures in the next legislative package identified for the autumn.

While Ireland has been actively working to tackle SLAPPs through legal reforms, and passed the Defamation Bill in 2024, further legislation is required to fully transpose the Anti-SLAPP Directive during its Presidency of the Council of the EU.

Although these 14 countries have been identified in the EU action, monitoring and analyses show that the overall picture for implementation of the Directive across the EU remains fragmented and uneven.

According to the European Anti-SLAPP Monitor, almost all EU Member States missed the May 2026 transposition deadline, with only a handful fully implementing on time.

IPI notes that even in those Member States where the Directive was implemented, such as Malta, these reforms only included minimum standards protecting against cross-border cases, and failed to include measures to safeguard against domestic SLAPPs.

In the wake of the EU’s opening of initial infringement action, IPI renews our call – made previously with Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) partners – for Member States to demonstrate their commitment to media freedom by accelerating their legislative processes in protecting against SLAPPs. This includes the 14 countries identified by the EU Commission and those in which reforms have been presented but not yet adopted.

Crucially, legislative reforms should both fully reflect both the letter and the spirit of the Anti-SLAPP Directive and introduce the substantive and procedural safeguards set out in the EU and Council of Europe Recommendation on SLAPPs.

A model here should be Poland, where last month the President approved a law which covers both domestic and cross-border SLAPPs, ensuring implementation of both EU Directive and Council of Europe Recommendation.

Member States which continue to delay or fail to transpose the directive should face legal action from the Commission, which must use all tools at its disposal to help safeguard media freedom across the bloc.

IPI, which has advocated at the EU and national level for measures to protect journalists and media from SLAPPs, will continue to monitor implementation in collaboration with European partners, including through MFRR media freedom missions.

Source: ipi.media/

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No Heritage Without its People: Why Ngorongoro Cannot be a World Heritage Site and an Eviction Zone

Published

2 weeks ago

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July 20, 2026

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The Tanzanian government, under the guise of “conservation,” restricts Maasai livelihoods and denies access to essential services forcing Indigenous residents away from their ancestral lands and turning their heritage into a playground for safari tourists.

As the 48th Session of the World Heritage Committee begins July 19, UNESCO continues to legitimize the continued forced displacement of the Maasai from Ngorongoro. If UNESCO cannot ensure that the World Heritage designation protects the rights of its Indigenous custodians, then the Committee must remove the Ngorongoro Conservation Area from the World Heritage List.

Increased international pressure is imperative to hold UNESCO accountable and protect the lives and rights of the Maasai!

Read our Open Letter to the World Heritage Committee.

Source: oaklandinstitute.org

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