The government of (post)socialist Laos has conceded more than 1 million hectares of land—5 percent of the national territory—to resource investors, threatening rural community access to customary lands and forests. However, investors have not been able to use all of the land granted to them, and their projects have generated geographically uneven dispossession due to local resistance.

Poverty reduction has become a worldwide promise, yet the term itself has been commonly abused to legitimize development policies and projects with truly questionable impacts on the poor. This article critically reflects on how claims of poverty reduction through agricultural development have been turned into tactics of land capture in Cambodia.

ABSTRACTED FROM CHAPTER INTRODUCTION: The preceding chapters of this book give a central place to the Powers of Exclusion framework for understanding transformations in land relations, as developed in our 2011 book on Southeast Asia. A couple of the main aspects of the two books make for an interesting comparison. The first is that each employs a regional frame of reference to explore themes in changing land relations. The second is their respective development and application of a common conceptual framework.

WEBSITE INTRODUCTION: In the Mekong region, conflicts between local communities and large scale land concessions are widespread. They are often difficult to solve. In Cambodia, an innovative approach to conflict resolution was tested in a case involving a private company, Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL), and several indigenous communities who lost some of their customary lands and forests when the company obtained a concession to grow rubber in the Province of Ratanakiri.

ABSTRACTED FROM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Land rights systems in Southeast Asia are in constant flux; they respond to various socioeconomic and political pressures and to changes in statutory and customary law. Over the last decade, Southeast Asia has become one of the hotspots of the global land grab phenomenon, accounting for about 30 percent of transnational land grabs globally. Land grabs by domestic urban elites, the military or government actors are also common in many Southeast Asian countries.

China's presence in Africa has gained growing attention at an international level in the last two

decades, especially since the 2007 food crisis, however China's presence in Africa is far from new.

China can not been perceived as a new international actor, still its reemergence as a world's leading

economic power needs to be reconsidered. China's presence in Africa has been generating a

growing misunderstanding at a different level that Debora Brautigam clearly describes in her paper

China's presence in Africa has gained growing attention at an international level in the last two

decades, especially since the 2007 food crisis, however China's presence in Africa is far from new.

China can not been perceived as a new international actor, still its reemergence as a world's leading

economic power needs to be reconsidered. China's presence in Africa has been generating a

growing misunderstanding at a different level that Debora Brautigam clearly describes in her paper

A video showing how Lutheran World Federation is working with rural communities, village chiefs, local and national administration to raise awareness and to support people in claiming their legal rights in a context in which a land law was passed to protect small-scale farmers and rural communities but often the legal procedure is not respected and farmers lose the land on which their livelihood depends.

Report shows that Dutch-based banks continue to finance deforestation and land grabbing in Liberia. Thousands have lost their homes, local communities have been intimidated or imprisoned, and large swathes of forest have been cleared or burnt down. Milieudefensie argues that it is time for the banks to fulfil their sustainable banking promises, and to withdraw their investments in the industrial palm oil sector as soon as possible.

Includes fracking and the global land grab; how does unconventional gas work against a green future?; what are the ecological risks of fracking?; where is the global boom of fracking happening?; who are the main actors involved in fracking today?; where is the resistance to fracking?.

Includes the rise of land deals in sub-Saharan Africa; land grabbing and risks for small scale farmers; land grabs: another yoke over women’s land rights?; is land grabbing threatening pastoralism?; opportunity for groups at risk: the African Union’s continental standards on the land question.

Includes background – the global land grab; FPIC in response to land grabbing today; whose consent is required or desired?; the key challenge is political, not technical. Concludes that as long as there is a significant gap between what is promised and what is delivered by the state, there will always be cause for poor people to engage in rightful resistance. The current global rush to cloak land grabbing in FPIC may ultimately end up sparking such resistance.