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.

Includes summary; global land resources and projections for the future; soils and soil policies; ecosystems’ services; biofuels and impacts on land use; biofuel production and land use in Brazil; land and national self-sufficiency; land use and increasing production; overseas land investments (often called ‘land grabbing’); land rights and ownership – the Rwandan example; international voluntary guidelines for land investment; conclusion.

Examines the impact of the recent farm invasions in Zimbabwe. The independence compromises forced on Zimbabwe (and Namibia and South Africa) implied the legitimation of a century and more of past white land grabbing which could only be changed with the consent of the beneficiaries of this past expropriation. But Mugabe has now torn up the old rules of the game and let the genie of redistribution out of the bottle, earning himself much popular support elsewhere in Africa and causing alarm to many governments and a hasty revision of existing plans for land reform.

Covers land grabbing, land titling, land reform, indigenous tenure systems, and NGO responses.

Whatever the prevailing terminology and ideologies, there is now ample evidence that large swathes of African farmland are being allocated to investors, usually on long-term leases, at a rate not seen for decades – indeed, not since the colonial period. The fact that much of this land is being acquired to provide for the future food and fuel needs of foreign nations has, not surprisingly, led to allegations that a neo-colonial push by more wealthy and powerful nations is underway to annex the continent’s key natural resources.

A 78-page list, much of it pretty grim reading. Divided into reports and press cuttings, in alphabetical order. The reports section comprises a ‘1stXI’ of Future Agricultures Consortium, GRAIN, IIED, IISD, Mokoro, Oakland Institute, Oxfam, Pambazuka News, PLAAS, RRI and TNI, followed by a further 36 from Action Aid to the World Resources Institute. The press cuttings cover Global, Africa, 31 African countries or regions from Angola to Zimbabwe, followed by Middle East, Asia and China. Countries with greatest coverage are Ethiopia, Liberia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and Tanzania.

Includes land grabbing in early colonial Zimbabwe and Mozambique, contemporary land grabbing, biofuels (citing IIED and Houtart), a ‘race to the bottom’ to attract investors? (citing the new World Bank report), the literature (citing Zoomers, Borras and Franco), conclusion.

An updated (and final) select bibliography of reports on biofuels, land rights in Africa and global land grabbing. 153 organizations are cited, including the ‘top 10’ of FAO, GRAIN, IIED, the International Land Coalition, the Oakland Institute, OHCHR, Pambazuka News, SciDev.Net, TNI and the World Bank and 143 others, from ActionAid to WWF.

Lists titles and authors of papers from World Bank conference most relevant to current concerns about land grabbing in Africa. Also cites the relevant URLs and gives summaries of the papers.

An updated (and final) select bibliography of press cuttings on biofuels, land rights in Africa and global land grabbing. It is organised geographically: global, Africa general, 37 African countries and regions, Middle East, Asia, 10 Asian countries, Latin America, 5 Latin American countries with the focus always on land rights in Africa. It now runs to 157 pages.

A review of Fred Pearce’s book

Brief summary of 4 presentations at the Mokoro land seminar by Martin Adams (Mokoro) on FAO’s support for tenure, rights and access to land and natural resources: lessons from Mozambique; by Joseph Hanlon (LSE) on The Mozambique land grab myth; by Elizabeth Daley (Mokoro) on Current issues around gender and land; and by Joss Saunders (Oxfam) on Engaging in strategic litigation and working with lawyers on land, gender and access to justice.