Communication dans le cadre du 5e Forum Mondial des Droits de l'Homme et de l’atelier du programme Lascaux "Le droit et l’accaparement des terres dans les pays du Sud", à Nantes le 23 mai 2013 In Papua New Guinea, 97 % of the grounds are subjected to the common law, and belong to the thousands of clans and tribes which constitute the population of this country. This remarkable situation has known major changes since 2009. In three years, 5.5 million hectares, which is more than 10 % of the terrestrial mass of the country, were yielded via concessions to (mainly foreign) companies.

We examine collaborations between the state and civil society in the context of land grabbing in Argentina. Land grabbing provokes many governance challenges, which generate new social arrangements. The incentives for, limitations to, and contradictions inherent in these collaborations are examined. We particularly explore how the collaborations between the provincial government of Santiago del Estero and non-government organizations (NGOs) played out. This province has experienced many land grabs, especially for agriculture and livestock production.

This paper argues that pastoral commons are under increasing pressure not just from overuse by pastoralists themselves, but from land management policies. Since colonial times, these have been based on a persistent misconception of the nature of pastoral economies and combined with increasing land alienation and fragmentation through government policies and covert privatisation of pastures.

Agricultural large-scale land acquisition (LSLA) is a process that is currently not captured by land change models. We present a novel land change modeling approach that includes processes governing LSLAs and simulates their interactions with other land systems. LSLAs differ from other land change processes in two ways: (1) their changes affect hundreds to thousands of contiguous hectares at a time, far surpassing other land change processes, e.g., smallholder agriculture, and (2) as policymakers value LSLA as desirable or undesirable, their agency significantly affects LSLA occurrence.

This paper investigates how large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) can be governed to avoid underuse and thereby spare room for other land claims, specifically nature conservation. LSLA underuse occurs when land in LSLAs is not converted to its intended use. Taking Cambodia as a case, we map converted and unconverted areas within LSLAs using remote sensing. We develop three scenarios of alternative LSLA policies until 2040, and use a land system change model to evaluate how governing the underuse of LSLAs affects overall land use.

The upward land grabbing trend in Eastern Europe has remained understudied, as well as its strong interlinkages with political narratives - more specifically with the ones proposed by Euroskepticism and populism. The current paper looks at how land grabbing has emerged as a topic that fits the Euroskeptic populist discourse in Romania, despite the high levels of trust in the European Union that has characterized the country ever since its EU accession in 2007.

Land acquisition often involves power and displacement and can be carried out on a large scale. There are many forms of land acquisition, including for environmental and conservation purposes as well as for production activities. While green grabbing has joined land grabbing as an environmental justice issue of concern, it is not necessarily the case that all green land acquisition is large scale, done by powerful outsiders, or leads to displacement and exclusion.

This article aims to contribute to current discussions about ‘making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’ (SDG 11) by linking debates that are currently taking place in separate containers: debates on the ‘global land rush’ and the ‘new urban agenda’. It highlights some important processes that are overlooked in these debates and advances a new, socially inclusive urbanization agenda that addresses emerging urban land grabs.

Large scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) impact women: loss of rights and access to land, water resources, fuel wood, adequate shelter, compensation and livelihood. The study looks at three sub-Saharan African countries (Cameroon, Ghana and Uganda) each having different land tenure regimes. Since land is vital for the survival of rural dwellers especially women, the study recommends that laws and policies governing the process of LSLA stress a mandatory participatory approach that includes women. There is urgent need to revalorize national laws to mainstream women’s land rights.

This policy brief outlines recommendations resulting from a three-year action research programme undertaken by civil society organizations in collaboration with threatened communities of smallholder farmers and fishers.

This project brings the international soft law instrument, the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of the Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests (Tenure Guidelines or TGs) to rural communities and, together with them, uses the Guidelines to strengthen their tenure of land, fisheries and forests. As well, it provides policy-relevant knowledge on how to promote legitimacy and accountability of public authorities involved in land grabs. The goal of the Toolkit is to help users to produce outputs which are politically relevant and useful.