Suburban real estate, greed, and murder: welcome to the Last Land. The Last Land is the only undeveloped real estate left in elite Bestham, a trendy suburb of Boston. When the forested acreage is finally sold for development over a holiday weekend, it seems unconnected to the tragedy that follows: a dead teenager drowned in a creek on the newly sold property. Lt. Davey O'Tease's investigation soon reveals that the pristine land is polluted. As he traces the victim's steps, he soon learns that his friend, Attorney Craig Kimbrel, has become a suspect in the murder. Nothing is as it first appears as we follow O'Tease and Kimbrel through an evolving web of conspiracy, failed lives and laws, and multiple murders. The cast includes two mysterious developers, two conniving lawyers, a crooked mayor, teenagers falling in love, and the desperate lives of a family in need.
"In these pages participants on both sides, from enlisted men to generals and prime ministers to monarchs, vividly recount the battles, sensational events, and behind-the-scenes strategies that shaped the climactic, terrifying year. It's all here - the horrific futility of going over the top into a hail of bullets in no man's land; the enigmatic death of the legendary German ace, the Red Baron; Operation Michael, a punishing German attack in the spring; the Americans' long-awaited arrival in June; the murder of Russian Czar Nicholas II and his family, the growing fear of a communist menace in the east; and the armistice on November 11.
Mergler has scoured Alaska's literary tradition for the best writing the state has to offer. "The Last New Land" gathers a rich and comprehensive sampling of fiction, nonfiction and poetry about the Northland.
' Powerful' Financial Times ' More twists and turns than a Hollywood spy thriller' Spectator ' A story we all need to hear' New Statesman ' Gripping... Araujo's accretion of detail has a powerful effect' New York Times ' Excellent' Kirkus Reviews Deep in the heart of the Amazon, an entire region has lived under the control of one notorious land baron: Josélio de Barros. Josélio cut a grisly path to success: having arrived in the jungle with a shady past, he quickly made a name for himself as an invincible thug who grabbed massive tracts of public land, burned down the jungle and executed or enslaved anyone trying to stop him. Enter Dezinho, the leader of a small but robust farm workers' union fighting against land grabs, ecological destruction, and blatant human rights abuses. When Dezinho was killed in a shocking assassination, the local community held its breath. Would Josélio, whom everyone knew had ordered the hit, finally be brought to account? Or would authorities look the other way, as they had hundreds of times before? Dezinho's widow, Dona Joelma, was not about to let that happen. After his murder, she stepped into the spotlight, orchestrating a huge push to bring national media attention to the injustices in the Amazon. Set against the backdrop of Bolsonaro's devastating cuts to environmental protections, Brazil's rapidly changing place in the geopolitical spectrum, and the Amazon's crucial role in climate change, Masters of the Lost Land is both a gripping epic into one of the last wild places on Earth and an urgent illustration of how people are fighting for - and winning - justice for their futures and the environment.
A historically accurate study that takes no sides, this book is the first complete document of Treaties 8 and 11 between the Canadian government and the Native people at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Since time immemorial, indigenous communities in Kenya have been victims of land rights abuses. With the advent of colonization, these communities were dispossessed of their lands which were given to British settlers. Subsequent post-colonial governments did nothing to remedy these historical land injustices, instead, this history of arbitrary dispossession continues under the guise of conservation. The Ogiek of the Mau Forest in Kenya are among Africa’s last remaining forest dwellers and have lived there since time immemorial. To them, the Mau Forest is a home, school, cultural identity and way of life that provides the community with an essential sense of pride and destiny. In fact, the term ‘Ogiek’ literally means ‘caretaker of all plants and wild animals’.For decades, Ogiek have been routinely subjected to arbitrary forced evictions from their ancestral land without consultation or compensation, first by colonial authorities and subsequently by the Kenyan government. Ogiek rights over their traditionally owned lands have been systematically denied and ignored, while the government has allocated land to third parties, including political allies, and permitted substantial commercial logging to take place without sharing any of the benefits with the Ogiek. The culmination of all these actions has resulted in the Ogiek being prevented from practising their traditional hunter-gatherer way of life, thus threatening their very existence. After numerous unsuccessful attempts to have their grievances addressed by the government, in 2009, the Ogiek, represented by Minority Rights Group International (MRG), the Ogiek People Development Program (OPDP) and the Centre for Minority Rights Development (CEMIRIDE) approached the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the Commission) with their grievances. In 2012, the African Commission referred the matter to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the African Court). In 2017, the African Court delivered a landmark judgment on the merits of the case in favour of the Ogiek, holding that the Kenyan Government has breached the community’s rights to their ancestral lands together with numerous other related human rights. Five years later, in June 2022, the Court delivered a reparations judgment which set out remedies for the breaches found in the 2017 judgment. The reparations judgment represents a hard-won and long-awaited victory for the Ogiek after decades of dispossession, non-recognition and marginalization. This judgement is significant because it clarifies the scope and content of state obligations to uphold indigenous peoples’ land rights, and emphasizes the importance of protecting indigenous people’s property rights as integral to the fulfilment of other rights including social and cultural rights. It also emphasizes the importance of an effective consultation process concerning indigenous people. The Court’s Merit and Reparation judgments are novel and represent a beacon of hope for other indigenous peoples across Africa. The African Court’s twin judgments also represent a new paradigm on the protection of the rights of indigenous peoples and on conservation in Africa. ‘This briefing summarizes the Ogiek reparations judgement of 23 June 2022, giving an overview of the years-long struggle of the Ogiek community for the tenure of our ancestral land, the Mau Forest. The landmark judgement of the African Court gives our community access to and ownership of our natural resources in the Mau Forest, considered by us Ogiek to be our supermarket for all and sundry: we get our food, medicine, materials for shelter, and special spiritual nourishment among myriads of things from the forest’, says Daniel Kobei, Founder and Executive Director of OPDP. This brief explains the reparations judgement by the African Court. It gives a brief historical background to the case before the African Court and thereafter describes the considerations of the African Court and the decisions made. Finally, it also discusses the implications that the reparations judgement has, not only for the Ogiek community but also for other indigenous communities in Africa.
"This to be Love, that your spirit to live in a natural holiness with the Beloved, and your bodies to be a sweet and natural delight that shall be never lost of a lovely mystery.... And shame to be unborn, and all things to go wholesome and proper, out of an utter greatness of understanding; and the Man to be an Hero and a Child before the Woman; and the Woman to be an Holy Light of the Spirit and an Utter Companion and in the same time a glad Possession unto the Man.... And this doth be Human Love...." "...for this to be the especial glory of Love, that it doth make unto all Sweetness and Greatness, and doth be a fire burning all Littleness; so that did all in this world to have met The Beloved, then did Wantonness be dead, and there to grow Gladness and Charity, dancing in the years."
It was when David Mas Masumoto's father had a stroke on the sprawling fields of their farm that the son looked with new eyes on the land where he and generations of his family have toiled for decades. Masumoto -- an organic farmer working the land in California's Central Valley -- farms stories as he farms peaches. In Wisdom of the Last Farmer, an impassioned memoir of revitalization and redemption, he finds the natural connections between generation and succession, fathers and children, booms and declines as he tells the story of his family and their farm. He brings us to the rich earth of America's Fruit Basket, under the vine trellises and canes where grapes are grown, and to the fruit orchards flush with green before harvest, where he uncovers and preserves the age-old wisdom that is fast disappearing in our modern, information-driven world -- and that is urgently needed in this time of food crises and social disruption. Masumoto sees the price the family has paid to grow complex heirloom peaches -- when the market rewards tasteless, big, and red fruits -- and the challenges of maintaining traditions and integrity while working in the modern, high-pressure agricultural marketplace. As his father's health declines along with the profitability of the family farm, Masumoto has the further hard work of nursing his father back to health -- becoming master to the teacher who once schooled him -- and is driven beyond economic concerns to even larger questions of life, death, and renewal. In his gorgeous, lyrical prose, Masumoto conjures the realities of farming life while weaving in the history of American agriculture over the past century, encapsulating universal themes of work along with wisdom that could be gleaned only from the earth. By the end of the workday, he understands the feeling of accomplishment when you've done your best...and discovers that it's when he lets go -- of both his father and control of nature -- that wisdom manifests itself. And, when Masumoto's daughter intends to return to the family farm, hope is found in the generations. In the quiet eloquence of Wisdom of the Last Farmer, you will see how your own destiny is involved in the future of your food, the land, and the farm.
The first book in Chris Colfer's #1 New York Times bestselling series The Land of Stories about two siblings who fall into a fairy-tale world! Alex and Conner Bailey's world is about to change forever, in this fast-paced adventure that uniquely combines our modern day world with the enchanting realm of classic fairy tales. The Land of Stories tells the tale of twins Alex and Conner. Through the mysterious powers of a cherished book of stories, they leave their world behind and find themselves in a foreign land full of wonder and magic where they come face-to-face with fairy tale characters they grew up reading about. But after a series of encounters with witches, wolves, goblins, and trolls alike, getting back home is going to be harder than they thought.
Israel has one of the most extensive and highly developed hiking trail systems of any country in the world. Millions of hikers use the trails every year during holiday breaks, on mandatory school trips, and for recreational hikes. Walking the Land offers the first scholarly exploration of this unique trail system. Featuring more than ten thousand kilometers of trails, marked with hundreds of thousands of colored blazes, the trail system crisscrosses Israeli-controlled territory, from the country's farthest borders to its densest metropolitan areas. The thousand-kilometer Israel National Trail crosses the country from north to south. Hiking, trails, and the ubiquitous three-striped trail blazes appear everywhere in Israeli popular culture; they are the subjects of news articles, radio programs, television shows, best-selling novels, government debates, and even national security speeches. Yet the trail system is almost completely unknown to the millions of foreign tourists who visit every year and has been largely unstudied by scholars of Israel. Walking the Land explores the many ways that Israel's hiking trails are significant to its history, national identity, and conservation efforts.
