This paper argues that research into dynamics of land control in the contemporary land grab‘ can benefit from engagement with the literature on booms in the production of crops like cocoa, coffee, fast-growing trees, oil palm, and shrimp in Southeast Asia.
As governments in the global North look to diversify their economies away from fossil fuel and mitigate climate change, plans for biomass energy are growing fast. These are fuelling a sharp rise in the demand for wood, which, for some countries, could outstrip domestic supply capacity by as much as 600 per cent. It is becoming clear that although these countries will initially look to tap the temperate woodlands of developed countries, there are significant growth rate advantages that may lead them to turn to the tropics and sub-tropics to fill their biomass gap in the near future.
[From IRIN - Humanitarian news and analysis] JUBA, 12 December 2011 (IRIN) - Land deals done in newly-independent South Sudan “threaten to undermine the land rights of rural communities, increase food insecurity, entrench poverty, and skew development patterns” in the resource-rich but poor nation, a new report says.
I am sharing this extremely important report from Margaret Sekaggya, the Special Rapporteur of the situation of human rights defenders (2011). In 2007 the former Special Rapporteur, Hina Jilani, affirmed that “the second most vulnerable group when it comes to danger of being killed because of their activities in the defence of human rights, are defenders working on land rights and natural resources” (Hina Jilani, 2007, Report submitted to the Human Rights Council, A/HRC/4/37).
This brief produced for the Dialogue Initiative on Large-Scale Land Acquisitions and their Alternatives provides an overview of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land and Other Natural Resources.
This brief produced for the Dialogue Initiative on Large-Scale Land Acquisitions and their Alternatives provides an overview of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), the most inclusive international and intergovernmental platform to facilitate and coordinate work to ensure food security and nutrition for all.
You can get involved in the CFS through the Civil Society Mechanism. Check out http://cso4cfs.org/ to connect with your constituency and sub-regional focal points.
This lesson brief looks at the government's control of private land use in Kenya. It is part of the Focus on Africa: Land Tenure and Property Rights online educational tool. Like other governments around the world, Kenya’s government has the authority to extinguish or restrict property rights over land and natural resources, including the authority to restrict the use of privately-held land for national and public interest purposes. Private land use restrictions have been used for environmental management and are increasingly being considered for biodiversity conservation purposes.
Shalmali Guttal looks at shifts in agriculture policy in Cambodia and Laos as governments aim to transform the structures of their agriculture towards greater commercialization and markets. She argues this has far reaching impacts on rural social structures, and rural peoples’ access to land and security of tenure.
from the Land Research Action Network
Estados, transnacionales, inversionistas locales, capitales mixtos, cada vez es mayor el número de actores interesados en comprar tierras. La carrera por la adquisición de este recurso tiene para cada uno de ellos un doble atractivo, por un lado acumular un bien escaso y por otro comenzar a capitalizar el crecimiento económico e institucional de los países. Como la cantidad de tierra de un país es limitada, por cada uno de ellos que adquiere este recurso hay otro que la pierde.
ABSTRACT: In recent years the government of Laos has provided many foreign investors with large-scale economic land concessions to develop plantations. These concessions have resulted in significant alterations of landscapes and ecological processes, greatly reduced local access to resources through enclosing common areas, and have ultimately led to massive changes in the livelihoods of large numbers of mainly indigenous peoples living near these concessions.
The report considers the causes, processes and impacts of rangeland fragmentation on pastoralists in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. Causes and processes include privatisation of resources, commercial investment, invasion of land by non-native plants, commercialisation including growth in individual enclosures, and conservation/National Parks. The impacts include increasing wealth divides and a growing inability to overcome and vulnerability to drought.
