Residents of Apaa Village, in Pabbo Sub-county in Amuru District are demanding audience with President Museveni following escalating land wrangles between them and the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA). UWA has in the recent past evicted 6,000 residents from a disputed piece of land in Apaa that the Authority says belongs to East Madi Game Reserve. However, residents claim the 825 square kilometers of land is their ancestral property.

Sudan and South Sudan have reached a deal on border security and oil production that will allow oil exports from South Sudan through Sudan to resume, say spokesmen for both sides. The leaders of the two neighbouring countries made the partial breakthrough after four days of talks in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. But a number of key issues remain unresolved, including disputed regions.

All around the globe, peasants, pastoralists, fishers’ communities, rural women and indigenous peoples are losing their once effective control over significant areas of the world’s land, water, wetlands, pasturelands, fisheries and forests – including their right to decide how these natural resources will be used, when and by whom, at what scale and for what purposes, for generations to come. This Fact Sheet examines the involvement of The Netherlands in global land and water grabbing.

The dates for the Second All Stakeholders Conference have once again been moved back, with the select committee blaming a lack of resources for the delay. It had been announced earlier this week that the Conference would be held from 4-6 October. But this has now been delayed until sometime before the end of October.

Many world regions face 'water bankruptcy' due to mismanagement of water resources, with implications for food and energy security, experts have warned. This mismanagement of water and aquatic systems has 'led to situations where both social and ecological systems are in jeopardy and have even collapsed,' said the report, 'Science-Policy Bridges over Troubled Waters' - a study of almost 200 major international water-related projects over the past 20 years.

Migration linked with climate change is more likely to involve a steady step-up in existing patterns of movement around the world than the sudden surges of desperate refugees many governments fear, climate and migration experts say. Many argue, in fact, that migration - if prepared for and managed – could prove one of the most effective means of adapting to climate change and building resilience to its impacts, particularly if migrants send remittances home.

Large-scale water-related projects are a model global environmental issue. From dams controlling and rerouting water flow to providing access to clean drinking water and monitoring the nutrient quality of water resources, local, national, and international players often have to work together to manage these water resources. A new study of nearly 200 major international water-related projects over the past 20 years has identified existing and emerging challenges and how science can offer solutions. The report claims that 'insufficient and disjointed management of human demands on water and aquatic systems has led to situations where both social and ecological systems are in jeopardy and have even collapsed.'

Corruption in the water sector can mean that money intended to improve water infrastructure and increase people’s access to clean water is misused. When money gets diverted, people continue to rely on insecure and polluted water sources for hygiene, drinking and food preparation purposes. There are initiatives to address the problems associated with the lack of access to information. In Africa, for example, water journalists across the continent are taking action to increase water users’ knowledge about water, to improve participation, and to increase access to information by forming networks.

The massive hydropower dams built on the Zambezi River, the largest river system in Southern Africa, not only supply power to major economies in the region but also help mitigate annual floods. But as electricity demands grow and rising global temperatures affect rainfall patterns, the dams will be unable to meet energy needs or control floods, warns a new study. The study, 'A Risky Trip for Southern African Hydro', was conducted for the NGO, International Rivers by Richard Beilfuss, a hydrologist and environmentalist who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering in the US and the University of Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique.

A decision by COPAC to exclude civil society organizations from the second all stakeholders’ conference has sparked a firestorm of controversy, with accusations that the move is not only retrogressive, but dangerous. Following meetings of COPAC’s secretariat and the select committee this week it was decided, allegedly because of budgetary constraints, to reduce the number of participants from 2,400 to 2,000. They also decided that each of the three parties will send 600 delegates, with the remaining 200 slots being allocated to Members of Parliament.

A group of smallholder farmers in Mali have turned to the courts to try to recover land they say they have lost to big private investors. The legal action comes as foreign investors are losing interest in Mali due to political instability and an armed rebellion in the north. 'We have laid a complaint against the agricultural land grabs that have hit so many smallholders,' said Lamine Coulibaly, a member of the National Coordination of Peasant Organisations, which is resisting the large-scale acquisition of agricultural land by foreign investors.

Two years after oil began flowing in Ghana, ordinary Ghanaians are wondering where the oil money is going. The government says there has not been much oil revenue coming in thus far, and analysts say the money that is coming in is not reaching the poor. Vast reserves of oil were discovered in Ghana in 2007, and production began almost two years ago in the Jubilee Oil Field off Ghana’s western coast. In 2011, its first year of production, Ghana brought in about $444 million - which was half of expected revenue.

Despite a Wikileaks report that claimed Egypt was looking to attack Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam project along the Nile River, with Sudan approval, there is still hope that the two countries can rebuild a relationship based on compromise on Nile water issues. With the Nile comes a new set of issues, and with Egypt holding onto a lion’s share of water from the world’s largest river, upstream countries such as Ethiopia have taken it on their own to begin building dams and other water related endeavors, much to the anger of Cairo.

Kyapaloni village is deserted. The crowds in the once bustling marketplace are no more. Some homes are shut up, bushes have besieged others, and the gardens are empty of the crops they once boasted. “The government has told us to begin packing our property and not to grow crops that take more than three months to mature. They said we shall be re-located from this place anytime soon to pave way for the refinery,” says Geoffrey Kiwedde, a Local Councillor II for Kabaale Parish in Buseruka sub-county of Hoima District. Kiwedde still doesn’t know when he will have to move or when he will receive compensation for the 18 acres of land that he will give up.

Zambia has rejected a proposal by Australia's Zambezi Resources Ltd to develop a $494 million open cast copper mine in a game reserve, citing environmental concerns, a government agency said. Zambezi Resources' Zambian subsidiary Mwembeshi Resources said in March it planned to start copper production at the Kangaluwe project in the Lower Zambezi National Park by 2015. But a spokeswoman for Zambia's environmental management agency, which has to approve all huge infrastructure projects, told Reuters the project had been rejected.

'Shutting the Spigot on Private Water' is a landmark report that documents how the World Bank is driving global water privatization at a chilling human cost. With original financial analysis and powerful case studies, it demonstrates how the World Bank must divest from private water projects to align its actions with its stated mission of alleviating poverty and supporting sustainable development.

This is a revolutionary novel in several respects but what captures the reader’s attention from the onset is how the author turns the tables by portraying an African woman as the herald of civilization to the benighted West.

More research and better policies are needed to protect the world's most vulnerable seas, lying off the coast of West Africa and the Caribbean, local experts have told SciDev.Net. The two regions have some of the world's unhealthiest seas, according to a new index that assessed the health of seas and their benefits to livelihoods. Its methodology was published in Nature last month (15 August).

This study analyses the political, economic and social impacts of the land and ‘virtual water’ grab in Southern Sudan. The ‘virtual water’ concept, which explains the absence of water wars through water embedded in agricultural imports, has been a major breakthrough in the study of the Middle Eastern water question. This paper shows how agricultural commodities in the form of virtual water are at the heart of Middle Eastern investors’ interests.

An organisation known as the South Sudan Land Alliance has been formed to realise the land rights for all the people of South Sudan.