This section focuses on land as a space, a piece of the Earth’s crust. SOILS are dealt with in the section Soils, plants and animals

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 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 (...)

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
Preserving (...)

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 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 (...)

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 of (...)

The main documents drafted during the World Forum on Agrarian Reform (WFAR) Pascual Carrion, which was held in Valencia (Spain) from December 4-8, 2004, are presented herein.
Please consult the WFAR’s official site for more information about this event. Documentary videos filmed during the Forum and interviews with some of the participants from around the world are available on their site.
The Acts of the Forum
The Acts of the Forum were drafted and published in Spanish by CERAI, the NGO (...)

Presenting a few key texts by Joseph Comby.
The concept of “land ownership” is not universal. It came about very late in the history of mankind, and even today, it does not necessarily make sense in many cultures. Prior to the French Revolution, the plural term, “droits de propriété”, which corresponds to “property rights” in English, was used.
Being aware of this is crucial as new ways to ensure land rights are being elaborated.
Josephy Comby, founder of ADEF (Association for the Development (...)

Land use and hence land policies are intimately linked to the greatest challenges of this century: the global warming cause, feeding 9 billion inhabitants by 2050, meeting energy needs, maintaining biodiversity, assuring the quality of natural resources such as water, and fulfilling infrastructure and housing needs.
Even now, before the 2050 levels cited by the Kyoto Protocol are reached (450 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere), the risk presented by global warming is considerable: the greater (...)

Many conflicts occurring today all over the world are still related to land issues. These land tenure related conflicts can be classified in three main categories according to their origin:
A very unequal distribution of land. This is a situation that calls for the implementation of agrarian reforms.
An insecure access to land or to resources: non-recognition of customary rights, access to land not secured for the farmers renting land or for the sharecroppers, precarious rights for those (...)

Twenty-seven years after the last conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (1979) and the writing of the Peasants’ Charter, the FAO, in partnership with the Brazilian government, organized in 2006 a new world conference on this theme.
In order to prepare the discussion, the FAO asked some experts on land issues and rural development to write the issue documents of the conference. Two members of AGTER, Michel MERLET and Vicent GARCES, and a partner, Samuel THIRION, have been (...)