Conservationists and environmental advocacy groups have warned that the nature, pace and scale of Chinese-funded infrastructure projects in the developing world may lead to unintended environmental consequences, especially in so-called “ecological hotspots.” Until now, there has been no systematic, large-scale evidence that confronts the causal claim that Chinese-funded development projects ha
Despite the fact that land is intrinsically fixed in space, a new transnational market for land is born. Indeed, data from the Land Matrix suggests that in the last 16 years 77.5 million hectares of land – a surface slightly smaller than the entire Mozambique – have been transferred to international investors or are currently under negotiation. More than 140 countries are involved in this international market for land either as investor country, or as target country, or both.
The Rethinking Expropriation Law initiative hosted a Conference on Compensation for Expropriation in Cape Town, South Africa on December 7-9, 2016. The final session of the Conference took place on December 9 and aimed at discussing the development of a protocol on fair compensation.
For the final session in Cape Town, scholars, judges, activists, and government officials from around the world sat together to provide input on what guidance and principles should be included in the protocol on fair compensation.
By Ian Scoones, Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, and the Director of the ESRC STEPS Centre at Sussex
Any discussion on climate change and sustainable investment in natural resources must grapple with land—a complicated yet crucial component of the search for equitable climate change solutions. In the context of resource investments, land is deeply entwined with both climate change impacts and climate change actions. At the risk of oversimplifying a complex and nuanced topic, here are three key takeaways on the interactions between resource investments, land use, land rights, and climate change.
By Oumar Sylla, Director of the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN)
On behalf of UN-Habitat, particularly the Land and the Global Land Tool Network Unit, which also serves as the GLTN Secretariat, I was pleased to present some key messages at the third Preparatory Committee Meeting of Habitat III.
This blog was written as a contribution to the Mekong Regional Land Forum that took place from June 21-23 in Hanoi, Vietnam. Duncan Pruett was a keynote speaker at this event.
By Duncan Pruett, Program Policy Advisor for Oxfam in Myanmar
By Lorenzo Cotula, Principal Researcher for the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
The commodity slump has cooled the global land rush. But land rights are still under pressure, requiring action at local to global levels.
By Ruth Hall, Associate Professor, Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, and Ian Scoones, Professorial Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex
