tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/land-grab-10083/articlesLand grab – The Conversation2022-09-29T12:32:09Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1914822022-09-29T12:32:09Z2022-09-29T12:32:09ZRussia plans to annex parts of Eastern Ukraine – an Eastern European expert explains 3 key things to know about the regions at stake<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487158/original/file-20220928-22-wck8q5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman votes in the controversial referendum in Donetsk, Ukraine on Sept. 27, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/people-cast-their-votes-in-controversial-referendums-in-donetsk-on-picture-id1243546788">Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Russia is set to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/entire-villages-empty-out-ukrainians-flee-russian-annexation-refugees-say-2022-09-28/">formally annex</a> four occupied territories in eastern Ukraine, claiming the region as its own more than six months after it first invaded its neighboring country. </p>
<p>Russia announced on Sept. 27, 2022, that <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/moscows-proxies-occupied-ukraine-regions-report-big-votes-join-russia-2022-09-27/">more than 85%</a> of people in the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic and Donetsk People’s Republic, as well as parts of two other occupied regions in Ukraine – Kherson and Zaporizhshia – voted to become part of Russia.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/so-called-referenda-during-armed-conflict-ukraine-illegal-not-expression-popular-will-united-nations-political-affairs-chief-tells-security-council">the United Nations</a>, the United States and <a href="https://english.nv.ua/nation/population-drain-in-occupied-zaporizhzhia-oblast-renders-sham-vote-even-more-fraudulent-ukraine-wa-50272302.html">Ukrainian officials</a> have all decried the process as a <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/09/28/russia-ukraine-referendum-sham-results-putin-un">“sham”</a> and illegal. </p>
<p>The Group of Seven, an international political coalition with Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the U.S. as members, also <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-09-23/g7-condemns-russias-scam-ukraine-referendums">condemned Russia’s referendums</a> as “illegitimate.” The G7 leaders have promised to impose sanctions on Russia if it proceeds with the annexation.</p>
<p>There <a href="https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1573473284884115456">are reports</a> that Russian and Chechen soldiers <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63013356">have pressured</a> people at their homes and at voting sites to align with Russia. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.usf.edu/arts-sciences/departments/school-of-interdisciplinary-global-studies/people/tkulakevich.aspx">a researcher</a> of Eastern Europe, I think it’s important to understand that people in these four regions are not a single political bloc, even though most of the people in these territories do not want to join Russia.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487154/original/file-20220928-22-8h2bet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of older looking people sit on a train, looking distressed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487154/original/file-20220928-22-8h2bet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487154/original/file-20220928-22-8h2bet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487154/original/file-20220928-22-8h2bet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487154/original/file-20220928-22-8h2bet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487154/original/file-20220928-22-8h2bet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487154/original/file-20220928-22-8h2bet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487154/original/file-20220928-22-8h2bet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People board an evacuation train from the Donbas region heading to western Ukraine in August 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/people-board-on-an-evacuation-train-from-donbas-region-to-the-west-of-picture-id1242543446">Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The four Ukrainian regions have distinct relationships with Russia</h2>
<p>Russian forces first occupied parts of Kherson, a port city, and Zaporizhzhia, a city that’s home to the <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/why-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant-mattersfor-whole-world">largest nuclear facility</a> in Europe, earlier in 2022. </p>
<p>But even before Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it also controlled parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. The Kremlin has supported and armed two <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/21/donetsk-and-lugansk-heres-what-we-know-about-rebel-regions">puppet separatist governments</a> in this region, known as Donbas, since 2014.</p>
<p>In May 2014, breakaway Ukrainian politicians <a href="https://theprint.in/world/why-donetsk-luhansk-ukraines-rebel-territories-recognised-by-russia-matter/842664/">proclaimed</a> that Donetsk and Luhansk were not part of Ukraine, but actually were independent “republics.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487177/original/file-20220928-26-9x5ajp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map shows the region of Donbas in Ukraine." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487177/original/file-20220928-26-9x5ajp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487177/original/file-20220928-26-9x5ajp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487177/original/file-20220928-26-9x5ajp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487177/original/file-20220928-26-9x5ajp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487177/original/file-20220928-26-9x5ajp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487177/original/file-20220928-26-9x5ajp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487177/original/file-20220928-26-9x5ajp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The two self-proclaimed republics in the Donbas region, as well as the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, voted in controversial referendums to be annexed by Russia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Map_of_Donbas_region.svg/1214px-Map_of_Donbas_region.svg.png?20220313190341">Goran_tek-en/Creative Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Kremlin did not officially recognize these <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/05/12/311808832/separatists-vote-to-split-from-ukraine-russia-respects-decision">newly proclaimed republics</a> until February 2022, when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched its invasion of Ukraine days later.</p>
<p>As Russia turned to <a href="https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/02/27/stay-hidden-or-get-drafted">conscript fighters in these breakaway regions</a> to fill front lines, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson have been <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/6/ukraine-partisans-wont-win-war-but-can-wreak-havoc-analysts">fighting against</a> Russia since the start of the war.</p>
<p>In March 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded the honorary title of <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/uncategorized/zelensky-gives-the-honorary-title-hero-city-to-kharkiv-chernihiv-mariupol-kherson-hostomel-and-volnovakha">“Hero City” to Kherson</a> for its <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/ukraine-counteroffensive-battle-of-kherson/671364/">fierce defense</a> against Russian forces during the early days of the war. </p>
<p>Russia still does not fully control any of the four regions. <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-talks-referendums-zelensky/31977628.html">Zelensky vowed</a> in August 2022 to not hold any peace talks if the Kremlin proceeded with the referendums in the occupied areas.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487163/original/file-20220928-17-vmp8pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large mural on the side of a run-down looking building shows the side of a woman holding a baby to the sky, with both baby and woman wearing wreath garlands on their heads." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487163/original/file-20220928-17-vmp8pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487163/original/file-20220928-17-vmp8pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487163/original/file-20220928-17-vmp8pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487163/original/file-20220928-17-vmp8pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487163/original/file-20220928-17-vmp8pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487163/original/file-20220928-17-vmp8pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487163/original/file-20220928-17-vmp8pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A mural is shown on a residential building in Bakhmut, Donetsk, in September 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/this-picture-shows-a-mural-on-a-residential-building-in-bakhmut-on-picture-id1243505235">Juan Barreto/AFP via Getty images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Demographics in eastern Ukraine have shifted during the war</h2>
<p>Most Ukrainians who live in the Donbas region speak Russian. But before the full-scale war in 2022, many of these people still preferred to identify as having <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-people-in-separatist-held-areas-of-donbas-prefer-reintegration-with-ukraine-new-survey-124849">mixed Ukrainian and Russian identities</a> – or, otherwise, as a person from the Donbas or a Ukrainian citizen. </p>
<p>The Donbas region was home to about <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/country/eastern-donbas/freedom-world/2022">6.5 million</a> people before the 2022 invasion, out of a total <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ukraine-population/">43 million</a> in Ukraine. </p>
<p>The region was once known for its <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/why-is-the-donbas-so-important-for-russia/a-61547512">industrial output</a> and coal mines, <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2022/05/04/donbas-coal-mines-are-the-sinews-of-the-war-in-ukraine_5982385_4.html">some of which</a> Russia has seized control of during the war.</p>
<p>Today, all four of the occupied regions are active war zones that many residents have fled. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, <a href="https://data.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine">over 11 million Ukrainians</a> have left the country since February 2022. </p>
<p>There are also up to 7 million Ukrainians who have been uprooted from their homes but still live in Ukraine, making them internally displaced. More than <a href="https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/95314">60% of the internally displaced Ukrainians</a> are from the eastern regions. </p>
<p>As a result, the Russian referendum votes were conducted without accounting for the opinion of half – or even the majority – of the population in these territories.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487161/original/file-20220928-22-qdwtw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The back of a solider carrying a gun is shown, while a woman in the background appears to vote in a plain room with blue and white walls." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487161/original/file-20220928-22-qdwtw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487161/original/file-20220928-22-qdwtw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487161/original/file-20220928-22-qdwtw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487161/original/file-20220928-22-qdwtw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487161/original/file-20220928-22-qdwtw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487161/original/file-20220928-22-qdwtw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487161/original/file-20220928-22-qdwtw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Residents cast their votes in the referendum to join Russia in Donetsk, Ukraine, on Sept. 23, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/residents-cast-their-votes-in-controversial-referendums-in-donetsk-picture-id1243452349">Stringer/Andalou Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Most Ukrainians in the occupied territories don’t want to be part of Russia</h2>
<p>In 2014, when Luhansk and Donetsk first proclaimed their independence, the majority of the people there said they preferred to be part of their own republic, rather than becoming a part of Russia. Approximately <a href="https://kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=reports&id=1138&page=1">52% of people in these regions</a> at the time said they were against joining Russia, while 28% in Donetsk and 30% in Luhansk supported it, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, a private research group in Ukraine that conducts sociological and marketing research. </p>
<p>At the same time, both Kherson and Zaporizhzhia were overwhelmingly against joining Russia. Approximately <a href="https://kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=reports&id=1138&page=1">85% of people in Kherson</a> and 82% in Zaporizhzhia said they wanted to remain separate, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.</p>
<p>After eight years of fighting, which has led to destruction of houses and infrastructure, as well as <a href="https://tass.com/world/1289095">thousands of civilian deaths</a> in eastern Ukraine, the number of Russian sympathizers in the Donbas decreased. </p>
<p>The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology <a href="https://kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=reports&id=1138&page=1">reported that</a> in late 2021 and early 2022, less than 22% of people in the Donbas region and less than 12% in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia wanted to become part of Russia. </p>
<p>Over 52% of Donbas residents, meanwhile, said in separate surveys conducted by American polling experts in early 2022 that they <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/17/russia-wants-recognize-independence-two-eastern-ukraine-republics-what-do-people-there-think/">were apathetic</a> about where to live, whether in Russia or in Ukraine. What most people cared about was their financial stability and family’s overall well-being. </p>
<p>Since the 2022 invasion, <a href="https://kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=reports&id=1133&page=2">92% of polled residents in the Donbas</a> said that there should be no territorial concessions for the earliest possible end of the war, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. </p>
<p>These figures contradict Putin’s justification to launch the so-called “special military operation” to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/2/23/22948534/russia-ukraine-war-putin-explosions-invasion-explained">defend a Russian-speaking population</a> that Ukraine is allegedly persecuting.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191482/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tatsiana Kulakevich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While some parts of eastern Ukraine have been under partial Russian control since 2014, other sections continue to fight back. Most residents overall have said they don’t want to be part of Russia.Tatsiana Kulakevich, Assistant Professor of Instruction at School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies, Affiliate Professor at the Institute on Russia, University of South FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1734162022-02-02T13:08:50Z2022-02-02T13:08:50ZThe great Amazon land grab – how Brazil’s government is clearing the way for deforestation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442638/original/file-20220125-23-sjc83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C14%2C1590%2C1123&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A satellite captured large and small deforestation patches in Amazonas State in 2015. The forest loss has escalated since then.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/natural-satellite-image-of-deforestation-on-the-banks-of-news-photo/627792180">USGS/NASA Landsat data/Orbital Horizon/Gallo Images/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine that a group of politicians decide that Yellowstone National Park is too big, so they downsize the park by a million acres, then sell that land in a private auction.</p>
<p>Outrageous? Yes. Unheard of? No. <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab1e24">It’s happening</a> with increasing frequency in the Brazilian Amazon. </p>
<p>The most widely publicized threat to the Amazonian rainforest is deforestation. A new study by European scientists released March 7, 2022, finds that tree clearing and less rainfall over the past 20 years have left <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01287-8">over 75% of the region increasingly less resilient to disturbances</a>, suggesting the rainforest may be nearing a tipping point for dieback. Fewer trees mean less moisture evaporating into the atmosphere to fall again as rain. </p>
<p>We have studied the Amazon’s changing hydroclimate, the role of deforestation and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00139157.2021.1842711">evidence that the Amazon is being pushed toward a tipping point</a> – as well as what that means for different regions, biodiversity and climate change.</p>
<p>While the rise in deforestation is clear, less well understood are the sources driving it – particularly the way public lands are being converted to private holdings in a land grab <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gabriel-Cardoso-Carrero">we’ve</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=qcS5yogAAAAJ&hl=en">been</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=PTEKYYoAAAAJ&hl=en">studying</a>
for the past decade. </p>
<p>Much of this land is cleared for cattle ranches and soybean farms, <a href="https://interactive.pri.org/2018/10/amazon-carbon/science.html">threatening biodiversity and the Earth’s climate</a>. Prior research has quantified how much public land has been grabbed, but only for one type of public land called “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104863">undesignated public forests</a>.” Our research provides a complete account across all classes of public land. </p>
<p>We looked at Amazonia’s most active deforestation frontier, southern Amazonas State, starting in 2012 as rates of deforestation began to increase <a href="https://www.cell.com/one-earth/pdfExtended/S2590-3322(19)30081-8">because of loosened regulatory oversight</a>. Our research shows how land grabs are tied to accelerating deforestation spearheaded by wealthy interests, and how Brazil’s National Congress, by changing laws, is <a href="http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2015-2018/2017/lei/l13465.htm">legitimizing these land grabs</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442639/original/file-20220125-17-6i1s1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A section of forest showing different stages of deforestation." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442639/original/file-20220125-17-6i1s1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442639/original/file-20220125-17-6i1s1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442639/original/file-20220125-17-6i1s1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442639/original/file-20220125-17-6i1s1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442639/original/file-20220125-17-6i1s1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442639/original/file-20220125-17-6i1s1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442639/original/file-20220125-17-6i1s1l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Three stages of deforestation: cleared land where the forest has recently been burned to create pasture; pastureland; and forest being burned.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/aerial-view-of-amazon-rainforest-deforestation-and-farm-news-photo/462437532">Ricardo Funari/Brazil Photos/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How the Amazon land grab began</h2>
<p>Brazil’s modern land grab started in the 1970s, when the military government began offering free land to encourage mining industries and farmers to move in, <a href="https://origins.osu.edu/article/amazon-rainforest-under-threat-Bolsonaro-fires-agrobusiness-indigenous-Brazil?language_content_entity=en">arguing that national security</a> depended on developing the region. It took lands that had been under state jurisdictions since colonial times and allocated them to rural settlement, granting 150- to 250-acre holdings to poor farmers. </p>
<p>Federal and state governments ultimately designated over 65% of Amazonia to several public interests, including rural settlement. For biodiversity, they created conservation units, some allowing traditional resource use and subsistence agriculture. Leftover government lands are generally referred to as <a href="http://www.bibliotecaflorestal.ufv.br/handle/123456789/4031">“vacant or undesignated public lands.”</a> </p>
<h2>Tracking the land grab</h2>
<p>Studies have estimated that by 2020, <a href="https://ipam.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Amazo%CC%82nia-em-Chamas-7-Florestas-pu%CC%81blicas-na%CC%83o-destinadas.pdf">32% of “undesignated public forests”</a> had been grabbed for private use. But this is only part of the story, because land grabbing is now affecting many types of public land.</p>
<p>Importantly, land grabs now impact conservation areas and indigenous territories, where private holdings are forbidden. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A herd of cattle on grass with thick forest behind them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442640/original/file-20220125-15-wy06rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442640/original/file-20220125-15-wy06rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442640/original/file-20220125-15-wy06rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442640/original/file-20220125-15-wy06rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442640/original/file-20220125-15-wy06rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442640/original/file-20220125-15-wy06rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442640/original/file-20220125-15-wy06rh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cattle on land cleared in the Jamanxim National Forest in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/land-grabbing-cattle-raising-and-deforestation-illegal-news-photo/1228648531">Marco Antonio Rezende/Brazil Photos/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We compared the boundaries of self-declared private holdings in the government’s Rural Environmental Registry database, known as CAR, with the boundaries of all public lands in southern Amazonas State. The region has 50,309 square miles in conservation units. Of these, we found that <a href="https://www.datawrapper.de/_/JbEql/">10,425 square miles, 21%</a>, have been “grabbed,” or declared in the CAR register as private between 2014 and 2020. </p>
<p>In the United States, this would be like having 21% of the national parks disappear into private property.</p>
<p>Our measurement is probably an underestimate, given that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2014.06.026">not all grabbed lands are registered</a>. Some land grabbers now use CAR <a href="https://www.socioambiental.org/en/noticias-socioambientais/even-before-approval-a-land-grab-draft-law-is-already-destroying-the-amazon">to establish claims that could become legal</a> with changes in the law.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440680/original/file-20220113-25-10q4hm4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440680/original/file-20220113-25-10q4hm4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440680/original/file-20220113-25-10q4hm4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440680/original/file-20220113-25-10q4hm4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440680/original/file-20220113-25-10q4hm4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440680/original/file-20220113-25-10q4hm4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440680/original/file-20220113-25-10q4hm4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A map of the region showing deforestation and public lands.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gabriel Cardoso Carrero</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Land grabs put the rainforest at risk by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab1e24">increasing deforestation</a>. In southern Amazonas, <a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440680/original/file-20220113-25-10q4hm4.png">our research reveals that twice as much deforestation occurred on illegal as opposed to legal CAR holdings between 2008 and 2021</a>, a relative magnitude that is growing. </p>
<h2>Large deforestation patches point to wealth</h2>
<p>So who are these land grabbers? </p>
<p>In Pará State, Amazonas State’s neighbor, deforestation in the 1990s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8306.9302008">was dominated by poor family farms in rural settlements</a>. On average, these households accumulated 120 acres of farmland after several decades by opening 4-6 acres of forest every few years in clearings visible on satellite images as deforestation patches. </p>
<p>Since then, <a href="https://www.datawrapper.de/_/JbEql/">patch sizes have grown dramatically</a> in the region, with most deforestation occurring on illicit holdings whose patches are much larger than on legal holdings. </p>
<p><iframe id="JbEql" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/JbEql/12/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Large deforestation patches <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-020-01354-w">indicate the presence of wealthy grabbers</a>, given the cost of clearing land.</p>
<p>Land grabbers benefit by selling the on-site timber and by subdividing what they’ve grabbed for sale in small parcels. Arrest records and research by groups such as Transparency International Brasil show that <a href="https://comunidade.transparenciainternacional.org.br/grilagem-de-terras">many of them are involved in criminal enterprises</a> that use the land for money laundering, tax evasion and illegal mining and logging.</p>
<p>In the 10-year period before President Jair Bolsonaro took office, <a href="http://terrabrasilis.dpi.inpe.br/app/map/deforestation?hl=en">satellite data</a> showed two deforestation patches exceeding 3,707 acres in Southern Amazonas. Since his election in 2019, we can identify nine massive clearings with an average size of 5,105 acres. The clearance and preparation cost for each Bolsonaro-era deforestation patch, legal or illicit, would be about US$353,000. </p>
<h2>Legitimizing land grabbing</h2>
<p>Brazil’s National Congress has been making it easier to grab public land. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2015-2018/2017/lei/l13465.htm">A 2017 change in the law</a> expanded the legally allowed size of private holdings in undesignated public lands and in rural settlements. This has reclassified over 1,000 square miles of land that had been considered illegal in 2014 as legal in southern Amazonas. Of all illegal <a href="https://www.car.gov.br/#/baixar">CAR claims</a> in undesignated public lands and rural settlements in 2014, <a href="http://atlasagropecuario.imaflora.org/mapa">we found that 94% became legal in 2017</a>.</p>
<p>Congress is now considering two additional pieces of legislation. One <a href="https://legis.senado.leg.br/sdleg-getter/documento?dm=9050818&ts=1639516395952&disposition=inline">would legitimize land grabs up to 6,180 acres, about 9.5 square miles</a>, in all undesignated public forests – an amount <a href="http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2015-2018/2017/lei/l13465.htm">already allowed by law</a> in other types of undesignated public lands. The second would legitimize large holdings on about <a href="https://www.camara.leg.br/proposicoesWeb/prop_mostrarintegra;jsessionid=node0ncik9mq5phv818u4p592bgsuc3415152.node0?codteor=2066398&filename=Tramitacao-PL+4348/2019">80,000 square miles of land once meant for the poor</a>. </p>
<p>Our research also shows that the federal government increased the amount of public land up for grabs in southern Amazonas by shrinking rural settlements by 16%, just over 2,000 square miles, between <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00267-016-0783-2.pdf">2015</a> and <a href="https://certificacao.incra.gov.br/csv_shp/export_shp.py">2020</a>. <a href="https://governancadeterras.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Andre%CC%81-Segura-Tomasi-PAF-Curuquete%CC%82-Grilagem-de-Terras-e-Viole%CC%82ncia-Agra%CC%81ria-SulAM-1.pdf">Large ranches are now absorbing that land</a>. Similar downsizing of public land has affected <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/627431/pdf?casa_token=w5cmTxINMOYAAAAA:SwlFEGwJj4BsjBSYggfqbr57fsSgCyOw9AcykDICyjSIzl05hFLFhRADSEJENKFDyqyf4Z5_lQ">Amazonia’s national parks</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c4-KpR1HrNs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Satellite images over time show how deforestation spread in the Amazon.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What can turn this around?</h2>
<p>Because of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1248525">policy interventions and the greening of agricultural supply chains</a>, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell after 2005, reaching a low point in 2012, when it began trending up again <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.105072">because of weakening environmental governance and reduced surveillance</a>.</p>
<p>Other countries <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-amazon-norway/norway-to-complete-1-billion-payment-to-brazil-for-protecting-amazon-idUSKCN0RF1P520150915">have helped Brazil with billions of dollars</a> to protect the Amazon for the good of the climate, but in the end, the land belongs to Brazil. Outsiders have limited power to influence its use.</p>
<p>At the U.N. climate summit in 2021, 141 countries – including Brazil – signed a <a href="https://ukcop26.org/glasgow-leaders-declaration-on-forests-and-land-use/">pledge to end deforestation by 2030</a>. This pledge holds potential because, unlike past ones, the private sector has committed <a href="https://cnr.ncsu.edu/news/2021/11/cop26-deforestation-pledge-a-promising-solution-with-an-uncertain-future/">$7.2 billion to reduce agriculture’s impact on the forest</a>. In our view, the global community can help by insisting that supply chains for Amazonian beef and soybean products originate on lands deforested long ago and whose legality is long-standing.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated March 7, 2022, with new research suggesting the Amazon is nearing a tipping point.</em></p>
<p>[<em>Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173416/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gabriel Cardoso Carrero received funding from the Tropical Conservation and Development Program at the University of Florida to conduct fieldwork related to this research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cynthia S. Simmons and Robert T. Walker do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Land grabs spearheaded by wealthy interests are accelerating deforestation, and Brazil’s National Congress is working to legitimize them.Gabriel Cardoso Carrero, Graduate Student Fellow and PhD Candidate in Geography, University of FloridaCynthia S. Simmons, Professor of Geography, University of FloridaRobert T. Walker, Professor of Latin American Studies and Geography, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1650162021-08-03T15:23:03Z2021-08-03T15:23:03ZWhy Accra’s property boom hasn’t produced affordable housing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414148/original/file-20210802-15-1ngnrvy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ghana's real estate boom has focused on luxury housing</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luxury_Villa_House_(South_Ghana).jpg">Remy Mboku/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>African cities are among the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2018/10/05/figure-of-the-week-africa-is-home-to-fastest-growing-cities-in-the-world/">fastest growing</a> in the world, leading to rising demand for urban housing. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17502977.2012.655560">Housing policies</a> promoted by international organisations such as the World Bank since the 1980s have stimulated housing markets in order to address this demand. As a result, many of Africa’s major cities are being transformed by investment in urban real estate. But many also face a shortage of affordable housing for low-income residents. </p>
<p>In Ghana’s capital Accra, for example, there is an <a href="https://ama.gov.gh/documents/Accra-Resilience-Strategy.pdf">estimated deficit</a> of 300,000 housing units. This is despite a construction boom in the city centre. Over 300 acres (about 120 hectares) of state-owned land have been privatised and redeveloped since the 1990s. </p>
<p>The explanation lies in the mismatch between costs in the formal housing market and incomes in the informal economy. In <a href="https://www.african-cities.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/ACRC_Accra-City-Scoping-Study.pdf">Accra</a>, an estimated 74% of the workforce works in the informal economy. Informal workers typically have very low and unstable incomes and can’t access housing finance. Most of the city’s residents are locked out from formal housing markets: 58% live in informally-built housing, with 65% of households occupying a single room. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/the-real-estate-frontier(38ee1af4-b787-4012-963f-79839f884a76).html">research</a> on urban redevelopment in Accra shows that policies intended to encourage a real estate boom by selling off state-owned land have failed to provide affordable housing. Instead, profit-seeking by developers and the use of land as a patronage resource have resulted in a glut of under-occupied luxury real estate. </p>
<h2>Urban redevelopment in Accra</h2>
<p>Prior to the 1980s, state-owned enterprises and informal self-builders dominated housing production in Accra. After Ghana adopted neoliberal <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1541-0064.2001.tb01500.x">structural adjustment policies</a> in the 1980s, the government pursued a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02673030902719763">market-based approach</a> to housing. It privatised public housing and redefined the role of the state as “enabling” private sector investment. It did this through incentives such as tax breaks for developers. </p>
<p>This policy shift increased the role of commercial real estate developers in housing production. Suburban <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2747/0272-3638.26.8.661">gated estates</a> proliferated in Accra. But the expansion of the real estate sector was limited by conflicts over ownership of land. Customary land tenure, where land is communal property that is controlled by traditional leaders and family heads, is widespread in Ghana. Disputes are common, and this has deterred real estate investment. </p>
<p>The answer seemed to lie in providing state-owned land for private development. Since the 1990s, hundreds of acres of state-owned land in the central neighbourhoods of Airport Residential, Cantonments and Ridge have been allocated to developers. This land was previously occupied by colonial-era bungalows on large plots and planners saw it as underutilised. The proposed solution was for the private sector to redevelop these plots to achieve greater density and increase the supply of housing. </p>
<p>According to official policy, plots would be openly advertised and allocated on the basis of competitive bids to ensure value for money for the public. In reality, however, there was a ‘land grab’. The public bidding process was disregarded and valuable plots were <a href="https://www.modernghana.com/news/299686/statement-on-the-allocations-a-of-government-lands.html">allocated</a> to powerful government supporters at below-market prices. Due to fierce <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/115/458/44/2195222">electoral competition</a> between political parties in Ghana, governments often use resources to secure short-term political support rather than for long-term development. Land grabbing demonstrates that state-owned land is an important patronage resource in this context. </p>
<p>The privatisation of state-owned land had the desired effect of unleashing a construction boom in central Accra. Bungalows were demolished and replaced with gated estates of townhouses and blocks of luxury apartments. But it also worsened housing inequalities in the city. The new properties are typically marketed from upwards of US$80,000 and are far beyond the means of the majority of Ghanaians. Wealthy individuals often buy these properties as rental investments and lease them to the employees of global corporations. </p>
<p>Developers argue that the high cost of construction leads them to focus on the upper end of the market where the greatest profits can be made. As a result, these developers are all competing for the same small market segment. The outcome is an overproduction of luxury real estate, with many properties unoccupied. </p>
<p>Despite this, capital continues to be attracted to real estate. It offers the opportunity to speculate on rising land values. And there are few alternative investment opportunities in productive sectors such as manufacturing. In addition, as government and industry are increasingly <a href="https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/business/Criminals-concealing-money-laundering-activities-in-the-real-estate-market-GIABA-1221757">recognising</a>, high-end real estate plays a central role in laundering illicit money. </p>
<h2>The affordable housing challenge</h2>
<p>What are the possible solutions to the problem of empty properties in a city needing 300,000 housing units? Government, civil society and international organisations have experimented with <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10511482.2017.1324892">participatory initiatives</a> where community groups take a leading role in improving the housing conditions in Accra’s informal settlements. But it is difficult to achieve this on a large scale (although current efforts in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09562478211011088">Nairobi</a> are encouraging). </p>
<p>In the formal real estate industry, there is an emerging <a href="https://knightfrank.digital-hub.global/knight-frank-the-africa-report-2020/p/7">narrative</a> that affordable housing deficits in African cities represent a vast untapped market. Governments have encouraged this shift in focus, initiating public-private partnerships to build large-scale ‘affordable’ housing projects on relatively cheap land in peri-urban areas such as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13563475.2019.1664896">Ningo-Prampram</a> in Greater Accra. </p>
<p>Many of these projects focus on subsidised home ownership, rather than social rents. This means they are unlikely to be affordable to low-income groups. For the urban poor, therefore, informality is likely to remain the norm for the foreseeable future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165016/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Gillespie receives funding from the British Academy with Leverhulme (SG163008). </span></em></p>In the formal real estate industry, there is an emerging narrative that affordable housing deficits in African cities represent a vast untapped marketTom Gillespie, Hallsworth Research Fellow, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1022042018-09-05T11:56:02Z2018-09-05T11:56:02ZWhy Abiy won’t succeed unless he listens to Ethiopia’s majority – its rural people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234765/original/file-20180904-45181-1f8liah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An Ethiopian farmer in the Amhara highlands outside the historic village of Lalibela.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Stephen Morrison</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Abiy Ahmed has made a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/08/abiy-ahmed-upending-ethiopian-politics">raft of radical steps</a> since taking over as Ethiopia’s prime minister in April 2018. He has redressed some of the wrongs committed by his own party, brokered peace with Eritrea and released political prisoners. Abiy has also invited opposition political groups back into the country and <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/News/ethiopias-torn-orthodox-church-reunites-after-27-years-20180727">overseen the reunification</a> of a splintered Orthodox church. </p>
<p>Abiy’s approach is summed up by his philosophy of <a href="http://africanarguments.org/2018/04/18/ethiopia-a-nation-in-need-of-a-new-story-abiy-ahmed-ethiopiawinet/">medemer</a>, or inclusivity and unity. His reforms have led millions to believe that positive revolutionary change is on its way. But there’s one significant group he has yet to address: the rural majority. </p>
<p>More than 80% of Ethiopians <a href="https://www.indexmundi.com/about.html">live in rural villages</a> beyond the reach of mass media. So far, they have not been included in the ongoing national conversation. Yet, they contribute significantly to the economy by providing <a href="http://www.fao.org/ethiopia/fao-in-ethiopia/ethiopia-at-a-glance/en/">85% of all employment and 95% of agriculture outputs</a>.</p>
<p>Past governments exacted revenue from rural people but <a href="http://ethiopianbusinessreview.net/index.php/commentary/item/164-the-peasant-the-state-a-comprehensive-rural-policy-analysis">ignored their voices</a> in policy making. During Haile Sellasie’s rule, rural people had to pay a share of their produce to their chiefs in order to keep their land. Mengistu Haile Mariam’s <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2017/12/07/why-ethiopians-are-nostalgic-for-a-murderous-marxist-regime">marxist regime </a> introduced land reform based on its communist ideology but required rural people to fund and fight its wars. </p>
<p>The current government came to power with the promise of ensuring food security but it <a href="https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com.au/&httpsredir=1&article=1043&context=africancenter_icad_archive">politicised ethnic identity</a> and is currently focusing on rapid economic growth through the commercialisation of agriculture. </p>
<p>Consistently, Ethiopian governments created their own policies without listening to rural people first. But there can never truly be any hope for the country’s future if the forgotten majority continue to be ignored. </p>
<h2>The reality for rural people</h2>
<p>Since the 2000s, Ethiopia has been praised for <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/east-africa/2015/09/15/ethiopia-fastest-growing-country/">fast economic growth</a>. The government celebrates small holding farmers as the <a href="https://news.ilri.org/2015/10/30/whats-driving-ethiopias-fast-development-millions-of-smallholder-farmers-of-course/">drivers of its success</a>. But, so far, economic growth has not translated into a better life for the rural poor.</p>
<p>In 2015, some 18 million (20% of the total population) were affected by drought, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/23/ethiopia-struggles-with-worst-drought-for-50-years-leaving-18-mi/">the worst in 50 years</a>. This year alone, 7.4 million, <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/ethiopia/humanitarian-action-children-2018-ethiopia">mostly children and women, are in need of help</a>.</p>
<p>In addition to natural disasters, rural people are victims of an ill-conceived land policy. Land is controlled by the government. Farmers don’t own their land. They’re simply granted the right to use it. Land scarcity is a major problem. More than 60% of rural households survive on <a href="https://www.thereporterethiopia.com/content/experts-claim-rural-landlessness-exacerbating-poverty-food-insecurity">less than one hectare of land</a>. A lack of access has led to young people being <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X14001727">uprooted from rural areas</a>. </p>
<p>Yet, the government leases large tracts of land to private investors to spur economic growth. From late 1990s to 2008, almost 3.5 million hectares of land was rented to investors at <a href="https://theredddesk.org/sites/default/files/resources/pdf/Ethiopia_Rahmato_FSS_2011.pdf">very low prices for a period of up to 99 years</a>. The government <a href="http://images.mofcom.gov.cn/et/201509/20150922215452876.pdf">advertises</a> that 11.5 million hectares of land is currently prepared for private investment. Investors mainly focus on producing flowers, biofuel, and other export products. These in turn <a href="https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1029&context=wh2ojournal">cause water shortages and environmental problems</a>. </p>
<p>In a country of 103 million, where the survival of 80% of the people depend on <a href="http://media.accademiaxl.it/memorie/S5-VXXXIX-P2-2015/GedamuGebre273-289.pdf">subsistence agriculture</a>, the priority given to private investors raises significant concerns.</p>
<p>Urban Ethiopians view foreign investors as a sign of progress. They see this land-grabbing as a sign of development. Yet the commercialisation of agriculture is being used to <a href="https://ig.ft.com/sites/land-rush-investment/ethiopia/">concentrate wealth</a> in the hands of a small ruling class. It has increased <a href="https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/292412/rr-life-time-food-price-volatility-ethiopia-year-1-140414-en.pdf?sequence=25&isAllowed=y">food prices</a> for the poor. </p>
<p>In Gambella, 70,000 people have been <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2012/01/16/ethiopia-forced-relocations-bring-hunger-hardship">moved to new areas</a>. Many more are believed to have been moved off their ancestral lands to make way for the country’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/14/ethiopia-villagisation-violence-land-grab">vision of becoming the world’s leading sugar producer</a>. </p>
<p>Abiy has yet to address any of these issues. So far, he has shown no signs that he intends to change the government’s land policy. </p>
<h2>Colonial mindset</h2>
<p>One of the major hurdles facing the forgotten rural majority is the colonial mindset of many urbanites and people in power. The exclusion of rural people from the affairs of the state is not new. But it has intensified since 1974. </p>
<p>Traditionally, rural Ethiopians had institutions that influenced the power of their leaders. Leaders needed to fulfil and be accountable to tradition. They were respected more than feared. </p>
<p>But since the beginning of 20th Century, Ethiopian leaders sought to gain global legitimacy by bringing western institutions and knowledge to the country, excluding traditional knowledge and Ethiopian languages from higher education. Students learnt western history, culture and philosophy in English, and started to internalise the western gaze that <a href="http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001473/147348E.pdf">saw Ethiopian traditional knowledge and institutions as primitive</a>.</p>
<p>This colonial mindset, that has internalised western knowledge as progressive and Ethiopian knowledge as backward, is one of the major factors excluding rural people from reform and political debate. Rural people are seen as antithetical to progress, or simply ignorant of how things can be done better. For example, ten years ago the World Bank blamed Ethiopia’s <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-food-ethiopia/world-bank-urges-ethiopia-to-update-farming-systems-idUSL1868602920080618">“backward farming system”</a> for acute food shortages.</p>
<p>Across the country, rural people understand land not as a natural resource that can be converted into cash, but as a source of life, spirituality, culture, and identity. Any cursory study of land-grabbing in Ethiopia shows that government policy has resulted in ongoing violence against the livelihood and culture of rural people. Rural people still feed the majority of the population; protecting them protects the rest. </p>
<p>Everything Ethiopians are proud of today, from their ancient culture to their independence from colonialism, came from the culture of rural life. It is this rich cultural knowledge that should be drawn upon, rather than continually looking out to the west. </p>
<p>Despite all of Abiy’s inspirational reforms, there can be no true progress for Ethiopia without listening to the rural majority.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102204/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Despite all Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed’s inspirational reforms, there can be no progress without the rural majority.Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes, Lecturer of Human Rights, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/955382018-05-31T13:46:13Z2018-05-31T13:46:13Z‘Land grab’ on hurricane-hit Barbuda could leave the island almost entirely owned by banks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220018/original/file-20180522-51130-gt391p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hurricane_Irma_Barbuda_20171006_Bennylin_01.jpg">Bennylin / wiki</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hurricane Irma passed directly over the tiny Caribbean island of Barbuda in September 2017. Irma was the fifth strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic, and it reached peak intensity just before landfall, when <a href="https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL112017_Irma.pdf">180mph winds</a> damaged almost every structure on the island, flattening many of them.</p>
<p>Just days later, a mere “normal” hurricane, Jose, also passed over Barbuda. By that point, almost all of the island’s 1,600 or so inhabitants and tourists had been <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/barbuda-hurricane-irma-300-years-no-one-living-ronald-sanders-gaston-browne-a7949421.html">evacuated to nearby Antigua</a>.</p>
<p>Yet the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda (the two islands jointly form a sovereign state), Gaston Browne, had an unusual reaction to the catastrophe. His first legislative response was not to set out a reconstruction plan or to provide funds for housing and essential services. Instead, he focused on <a href="https://antiguanewsroom.com/news/government-moving-to-give-barbudans-ownership-titles-to-land/">land reform</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220019/original/file-20180522-51135-1s7ho7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220019/original/file-20180522-51135-1s7ho7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220019/original/file-20180522-51135-1s7ho7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220019/original/file-20180522-51135-1s7ho7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220019/original/file-20180522-51135-1s7ho7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220019/original/file-20180522-51135-1s7ho7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220019/original/file-20180522-51135-1s7ho7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220019/original/file-20180522-51135-1s7ho7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">September 8, 2017: Hurricane Irma (centre) has just passed over Cuba while Jose is approaching Barbuda from the east.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/127906254@N06/36989100461">US Navy</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The proposed <a href="http://legalaffairs.gov.ag/pdf/bills/BARBUDA_LAND_AMENDMENT_ACT_2017_REVISED.pdf">Barbudan Land Management (Amendment) Act</a>, announced by the prime minister right after the hurricanes and still <a href="https://antiguaobserver.com/dialogue-before-changing-the-law-says-opposition-leader/">being debated</a> in parliament, aims to introduce individual property rights on the island for the first time since its colonisation by the English in the 17th century. </p>
<p>Barbuda’s system of communal land ownership has been in place since slavery was abolished in 1834. Citizens do not own the land <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/usufruct">but have the right to use it</a> after applying to a locally-elected council. As one council member <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/global-development/la-fg-barbuda-land-dispute-20171009-story.html">put it</a>: “A cleaner can apply for beachfront property and get it, and so can a doctor. So there’s no great inequality in Barbuda.” Leases are possible with the approval of the cabinet and the consent of the majority of the people, but what matters most is that each Barbudan has a right to a plot for a house, a plot to farm, and a plot for commercial enterprise.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"905920082060161025"}"></div></p>
<p>This scenario has not avoided tensions, but has been described by many as <a href="https://landportal.org/blog-post/2017/10/land-rights-storm-brewing-barbuda">egalitarian and just</a>. However, the government sees it as an obstacle to foreign investment or loans. The prime minister appears to have swallowed the idea, linked to the influential Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, that <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-global-landrights-desoto/property-rights-for-worlds-poor-could-unlock-trillions-in-dead-capital-economist-idUKKCN10C1C1">property rights and foreign investment</a> are the key drivers of growth in developing economies. In this worldview, the island’s reconstruction and development can only be achieved with the intervention of the market, but banks and investors won’t be interested without the guarantee of a clearly identified property title. </p>
<p>The government therefore wants to impose a standardised and uniform property regime. It sees land rights, individual ownership and foreign investments as untriggered opportunities that must be offered to residents and foreigners in order to transform Barbudan land into an asset of the global financial market. Forget public money for reconstruction, forget <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-should-pay-for-damage-associated-with-climate-change-and-who-should-be-compensated-84028">polluting countries’ responsibilities for climate change</a> and forget the people’s right to be compensated for ecological and historical debts. In this view, the future of the island depends on individual debts and wealthy tourists. </p>
<h2>Taking advantage of a crisis</h2>
<p>All over the world, the idea of awakening sleepy capital through land reform and privatisation has entrenched inequality and concentrated land in fewer and fewer hands – even in places not affected by catastrophes and climate change. So its adoption in a situation like Barbuda <a href="https://rightsandresources.org/en/blog/land-rights-storm-brewing-barbuda/#.WtdZby7wZaQ">raises further concerns</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"934046652121407488"}"></div></p>
<p>For example, some on the island have accused the government of <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/global-development/la-fg-barbuda-land-dispute-20171009-story.html">taking advantage of the hurricanes</a> to implement a shock doctrine that will favour local and international elites. The current system is egalitarian, they claim, while a market for property would inevitably gentrify and separate the community. To pick one high profile example, the backers of a proposed luxury resort – including Hollywood actor Robert De Niro – have been accused of exploiting the post-hurricane chaos to carry out a “<a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/01/23/robert-de-niro-barbuda-hotel-hurricane-irma/">land grab</a>”.</p>
<p>Other locals have raised the issue of <a href="https://antiguaobserver.com/amendments-of-barbuda-land-act-silence-locals/">legitimacy</a>: reform is being implemented without proper consultation and while most people are not even living on the island. This may make it harder for them to claim land or even a mere economic reimbursement. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220275/original/file-20180524-117628-1g2flg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220275/original/file-20180524-117628-1g2flg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220275/original/file-20180524-117628-1g2flg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220275/original/file-20180524-117628-1g2flg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220275/original/file-20180524-117628-1g2flg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220275/original/file-20180524-117628-1g2flg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220275/original/file-20180524-117628-1g2flg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220275/original/file-20180524-117628-1g2flg7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Barbuda, two months after the hurricanes with blue tarps covering many roofs. Time for some land reform?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chris Jackson/PA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So who is set to benefit? The banks, for a start. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436590701637334?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=ctwq20">Empirical studies</a> from many different countries have demonstrated that land titling does not guarantee access to credit – people may end up “owning” land only to find it is soon repossessed by a bank or public authorities.</p>
<p>It seems likely that Barbudans themselves will get squeezed by a growing appetite for their land and deprived of real control. At best, reform will still mean a very unequal distribution of properties, with elites concentrated along the best beaches and “quasi-slums” arising elsewhere. At worst, Barbudan land reform could lead to an island almost entirely owned by banks.</p>
<h2>Commons to commodity</h2>
<p>The situation is typical of what happens when land is transformed from a common good into private property. Once Barbudan land becomes a global commodity, enjoyed by tourists but mainly by the investors behind the resorts, those investors will demand unconstrained, cheap and formalised access to their land. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220279/original/file-20180524-51130-n8jshf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220279/original/file-20180524-51130-n8jshf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220279/original/file-20180524-51130-n8jshf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220279/original/file-20180524-51130-n8jshf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220279/original/file-20180524-51130-n8jshf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220279/original/file-20180524-51130-n8jshf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220279/original/file-20180524-51130-n8jshf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220279/original/file-20180524-51130-n8jshf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Now up for grabs?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BlueOrange Studio / shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And what of informal rights, traditions, mandatory consultations and the link between a people and the island? Some will see them as obstacles to maximising a return on their investments. Unfortunately, these same obstacles are exactly what allowed Barbudans to construct a unique society where access to land for housing and agriculture is a right not a privilege.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95538/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tomaso Ferrando does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The whole island has been in common ownership for centuries, but foreign investors want individual property rights.Tomaso Ferrando, Lecturer in Law, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/882782017-11-29T13:25:33Z2017-11-29T13:25:33ZOld-world diction, flawed punditry and the fight for Zimbabwe’s future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196931/original/file-20171129-29123-10rfpxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Words and phrases aren’t empty vessels – they carry the weight of human experience, and the hopes they generate help to set actual agendas.</p>
<p>I was reminded of this as I listened to Robert Mugabe’s now infamous “address to the nation” recorded in State House the previous Sunday evening, <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/resignation-robert-mugabe-addresses-nation-171119192306427.html">November 19, 2017</a>, delivered at the midpoint of the six-day <a href="http://ewn.co.za/2017/11/15/soldiers-seize-zimbabwe-state-broadcaster-anti-mugabe-coup-talk-intensifies">transitional drama</a> in Zimbabwe. He commented on the developments swirling around him, and gave his reasons for refusing to step down.</p>
<p>Drawing on a vocabulary from the early 20th century, and delivered in his trademark old-world diction, his remarks could well have been directed at the arch-imperialist <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/cecil-john-rhodes">Cecil John Rhodes</a> – one of the few people in history to have a country named after him during his own lifetime – rather than the <a href="http://dailypost.ng/2017/11/20/zimbabwe-full-text-mugabes-address-nation/">people of Zimbabwe</a>.</p>
<p>At one point <a href="http://time.com/5031128/zimbabwe-robert-mugabe-does-not-resign/">he said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The congress is due in a few weeks from now. I will preside over its processes, which must not be prepossessed by any acts calculated to undermine it or compromise the outcomes in the eyes of the public.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In one reading, the speech seems quaint, even preposterous. In another, Mugabe’s return to the language of the past makes perfect sense. </p>
<h2>British colony</h2>
<p>The British colony known as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Southern-Rhodesia">“Southern Rhodesia”</a> was founded during a period of intense political ferment. In the 1920s and 1930s, when its formal borders were being finalised, increasingly self-assertive Anglophone colonies – Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa – were seeking a new relationship with Britain.</p>
<p>They emerged from this period as <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Dominions+of+the+British+Crown&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjVqdSZsOPXAhWMVRQKHbQLAyQQsAQIhgE">“Dominions of the British Crown”</a>, to use the long-hand phrase. This meant a nominal weakening of Whitehall’s hold over their domestic affairs. But their foreign policy and their capacity to make war remained closely tied to Britain’s imperial ambitions.</p>
<p>The 200 000-odd whites of largely British descent who occupied Southern Rhodesia at the time were less ambitious (and less powerful) than their settler counterparts in neighbouring South Africa. But, seizing the spirit of the times, and using its language, the British government granted them “self-government” in 1923. This sealed the exclusion of the majority from governing their own country. And, it gave the white minority the right to set the rules on two crucial issues: <a href="http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0001/000161/016163eo.pdf">race discrimination</a>, as well as <a href="http://www.raceandhistory.com/Zimbabwe/factsheet.html">access to land</a>.</p>
<p>After the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/world-war-ii-history">Second World War</a>, in the face of calls for liberation from white domination, the settlers’ struggle to retain this decision-making power, together with the country’s contested constitutional link to London, provided the platform for <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/robert-mugabe">Robert Mugabe’s own career</a>, as school teacher, then as freedom fighter, and finally as president.</p>
<p>Seen against this background, the legalisms and concordances of the “address to the nation” are understandable because they reflect the language in which the struggle for Zimbabwe was conducted.</p>
<h2>The trap of key words</h2>
<p>Did Mugabe intend to show that the hallmarks of imperial government had not been eroded after almost 40 years of majority rule? Or is there a more obvious explanation: that Mugabe (or his speech writers) had failed to appreciate how political language had changed during the 37 years of his presidency?</p>
<p>It seems difficult to believe the first, so the second explanation seems plausible. This is because the language that has linked the power of neoliberal economics to democratic transformation was entirely absent from Mugabe’s remarks. Keywords – terms like “governance”, “accountability”, “deliverables” and “transparency” were notably absent.</p>
<p>But over the past week, as the events have unfolded, these (and similar terms) have crept ever deeper into conversations about Zimbabwe. As punditry grows over the country’s future, it is fair to believe that their hold on the discourse around its future, both within and outside the country, will tighten further.</p>
<p>The core problem is that these words, and the diction in which they are used, offer a one-size-fits-all approach to solving complex sociopolitical situations. As a result, the single greatest failure of contemporary punditry is the refusal to recognise that context matters.</p>
<p>For the think-tank community these words, and the concordances in which they are embedded, promise a road map towards a bright new future. This is because the language appears to be freed from the strictures of ideology. </p>
<p>It isn’t, of course. Like all ideologies, it is nothing more than a set of ideas and beliefs that relies on commmon-sensical explanations of social reality. It is certainly not value-free. </p>
<p>Events over the past two decades – civil wars, Brexit, Trumpism – have tarnished the claims to the truth of neoliberalism.</p>
<p>This brings us back to the conversation about the future of Zimbabwe. The notion that <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-11-27-op-ed-mnangagwas-zimbabwe-breakout-nation/#.Wh6cWGMQgUU">“economic liberalisation”</a> will offer the country a quick and easy pathway to a prosperous future is simplistic and misleading.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88278/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Vale receives funding from the University of Johannesburg, Nanyang Technological University, and the National Research Foundation
. </span></em></p>The single greatest failure of current punditry is the refusal to recognise that context matters. A one-size-fits-all approach to solving Zimbabwe’s complex set of problems simply won’t help.Peter Vale, Professor of Humanities and the Director of the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS), University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/757122017-05-08T15:49:14Z2017-05-08T15:49:14ZWhy the African Union must press ahead with a business and human rights policy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167695/original/file-20170503-21627-2pvfi2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A fisherman shows an oil slick close to the Niger Delta following a large spill in 2013.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">REUTERS/Stringer </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The African Union (AU) is developing a policy designed to hold companies to account by setting down guidelines on how they should conduct business on the continent. </p>
<p>The aim of the policy is to implement a set of <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Business/A-HRC-17-31_AEV.pdf">guiding principles</a> drawn up by the United Nations. It will provide a roadmap for states, regional economic communities and regional institutions to regulate the impact of business activities on people. The policy also seeks to advance guidance for firms conducting activities in Africa.</p>
<p>The policy has been in the making since 2016 and still has to be adopted by an AU technical committee. Because it’s not a treaty it won’t be subject to ratification by all AU member states. </p>
<p>This “soft law” approach raises questions about whether the policy will ever be implemented. But the fact that the AU has developed one is a major step forward and could help African countries deal with some major rights issues including: land grabs and environmental pollution.</p>
<h2>Land grabs</h2>
<p>Africa’s agricultural sector has attracted significant investment. This has resulted in massive land acquisitions by local and foreign firms which has enabled them to engage in large scale production. But local agrarian populations have been dispossessed of their land with little to no consultation or adequate compensation.</p>
<p>Chinese businesses have become the face of the growing concern over land grabs on the continent. A 2014 report estimated that about <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/how-much-agricultural-land-is-china-actually-grabbing-in-africa-83447">10 million hectares</a> of agricultural land in Africa belonged to Chinese businesses. But the Chinese aren’t the only ones acquiring massive tracts of land on the continent. </p>
<p>In Tanzania for instance, <a href="https://renewablesnow.com/news/agro-ecoenergy-in-usd-550m-ethanol-project-in-tanzania-419886/">Sweden-based</a> Agro EcoEnergy acquired 20,000 hectares of land to establish a sugarcane plantation <a href="http://news.trust.org/item/20130718134927-q50zx">and</a> an ethanol-production site. Local people in the <a href="https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/expo_stu2016578007_en.pdf">Bagamoyo district</a> in Dar es Salaam were <a href="http://www.actionaid.org/sites/files/actionaid/stopecoenergy.pdf">deeply distressed by the acquisition</a>.</p>
<p>Although local communities were consulted, they weren’t presented with any <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/oct/21/tanzania-sugar-project-small-farmers-land-disputes-agro-ecoenergy-sida">alternatives</a>, particularly around the issue of compensation. Nor was the community given adequate information about the impact of the project.</p>
<h2>Environmental pollution</h2>
<p>Another major business and human rights challenge has been environmental pollution, particularly in the extractive industries. In many cases foreign-owned companies have been involved. </p>
<p>One of the biggest concerns involve oil spillages and gas flaring from business-related activities in Nigeria. For example, over 100 million barrels of oil was <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=J8nFBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT395&lpg=PT395&dq=Over+100+million+barrels+of+oil+spilled+in+Niger+Delta&source=bl&ots=5rBG3ZCZU_&sig=xCPx2evWGHwIi_0L-7HY9O7o0pM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi3kdeGzaDTAhXn24MKHfaaCfIQ6AEITTAH#v=onepage&q=Over%20100%20million%20barrels%20of%20oil%20spilled%20in%20Niger%20Delta&f=false">spilled</a> in the Niger-Delta between the 1960s and 1997. In 2014 alone, Shell and ENI <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/03/hundreds-of-oil-spills-continue-to-blight-niger-delta/">admitted</a> to over 550 oil spills in the region.</p>
<p>The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that a cleanup process in the Niger Delta will take between <a href="http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/OEA/UNEP_OEA.pdf">25 to 30 years</a>. </p>
<p>And some estimates suggest that the impact of gas flaring has significantly reduced life expectancy in the region, from <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/10979890">70 years to about 45 years</a>.</p>
<h2>Key aspects of the policy framework</h2>
<p>All this suggests that Africa needs to regulate business activities with human rights impacts.</p>
<p>The policy framework builds on the three key pillars of the United Nations guiding principles. These are the state’s duty to protect human rights, businesses’ responsibility to respect human rights, and access to remedies.</p>
<p>States need to ensure that business activities don’t negatively affect the livelihoods of local communities. Governments must therefore ensure agreements are drawn up with home states of multinationals and also with businesses to protect human rights. </p>
<p>For their part, businesses have a responsibility to respect human rights. As such, they are required to desist from activities that will have an adverse impact on human rights. To give effect to this responsibility, businesses are expected to develop human rights policies and make a commitment to implement them.</p>
<p>An example is the Coca-Cola <a href="http://www.coca-colacompany.com/content/dam/journey/us/en/private/fileassets/pdf/2014/11/human-rights-policy-pdf-english.pdf">Human Rights Policy</a>. This sets out the company’s commitment to conduct due diligence and to address human rights failures if they occur.</p>
<p>Access to remedies talks to the issue of justice. This means that it has to be underpinned by judicial and nonjudicial, state-based and non-state-based measures to protect victims of business related human rights violations. </p>
<p>Businesses are also required to develop grievance procedures to ensure recourse for affected communities. A practical example of this is the <a href="https://www.tap-ag.com/grievance">grievance mechanism</a> developed around the <a href="https://www.tap-ag.com/about-us">Trans Adriatic Pipeline</a> which is being built to transport natural gas from the border of Greece and Turkey to southern Italy.</p>
<p>But it’s important that these procedures should not prejudice the rights of victims to seek justice from judicial systems.</p>
<h2>Deepening respect for human rights</h2>
<p>The AU’s policy is a right step towards ensuring business upholds human rights. But it’s only the start of a long journey towards deepening a culture of respect for human rights among businesses in Africa. </p>
<p>Only time will tell if the policy framework, once adopted, will in fact be used. But the mere fact that it’s being formulated shows resolve on the part of states to tackle key human rights issues related to business activities in Africa. </p>
<p>A number of key steps need to be taken if the policy is to become a reality. </p>
<p>First, sufficient resources must be made available to make sure its implemented by both states and regional bodies.</p>
<p>Secondly, states must drive policy implementation with the political will to regulate businesses within their territories. </p>
<p>And finally institutions must be strengthened at all levels of implementation including national, regional and continental levels.</p>
<p>But successful implementation won’t be achieved unless there’s cooperation between state institutions, businesses, local populations as well as civil society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75712/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>In the development process of the African Union Business and Human Rights Policy Framework, Romola Adeola served as a consultant for the African Union.</span></em></p>The move by the African Union to develop a policy to regulate the impact of firms on human rights puts it ahead of other regions as it seeks to guide companies conducting activities on the continent.Romola Adeola, Steinberg Postdoctoral Fellow in International Migration Law, Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, Faculty of Law, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/712942017-01-17T12:58:36Z2017-01-17T12:58:36ZThe new superpowers in the global land grab and how they operate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153037/original/image-20170117-23065-qx4pga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Site of a proposed palm oil plantation in Kalimantan, Indonesia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dr Ward Berenschot</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Much of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/global-south-22321">global south</a> – broadly comprising the continents of Asia, Africa, and Latin America – was shaped by colonialism. The so-called “great game” and the <a href="https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/library/library_exhibitions/schoolresources/exploration/scramble_for_africa/">scrambles between Britain, Portugal, Belgium, France</a> and other European states were for power, profit and – most visibly – for land. </p>
<p>Today, new scrambles are afoot from Brazil and Nigeria, to Ethiopia and Indonesia. Once again, land is the prize.</p>
<p>In the past decade, almost 50m hectares of land <a href="http://landmatrix.org/en/">have been leased or bought</a> from individuals, communities and governments in the global south for the large-scale production of biofuels, food, forest resources, industrial goods, infrastructure, tourism and livestock. A complex network of multinational companies, financial institutions and governments in the north are the key beneficiaries. </p>
<p>Take, for example, <a href="http://www.feronia.com/pages/view/about">Feronia Inc</a> – a company based in Canada and owned by the <a href="http://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/development-finance-institutions-private-sector-development.htm">development finance institutions</a> of various European governments, including the UK, France and Spain. Feronia <a href="https://www.grain.org/article/entries/5220-agro-colonialism-in-the-congo-european-and-us-development-finance-bankrolls-a-new-round-of-agro-colonialism-in-the-drc">controls 120,000 hectares of palm oil plantations</a> in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jun/05/uk-development-finance-arm-accused-bankrolling-agro-colonialism-in-congo">Democratic Republic of Congo</a>.</p>
<p>Some of the countries that were once colonised are now the colonisers: China and India have huge investments in Cambodia, Indonesia, Guyana, Ethiopia and Brazil among other countries.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://landmatrix.org/en/">Land Matrix database</a>, China controls 258,728 hectares in Cambodia. China’s Union Development Group (UDG) has a land concession of 45,100 hectares within <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-cambodia-forests-idUKTRE82607N20120307">Botum Sakor National Park</a> for the development of a tourist resort. With the blessings of the central politburo of the Communist Party of China, UDG has also invested US$3.8 billion in a new <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/15be8286-6f94-11e6-9ac1-1055824ca907">deepwater port</a> in the country, with access to 90km of coastline, on a 99-year lease. Similar investments have been made in maritime infrastructure in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia. As we know, China is keen to increase its strategic and commercial influence over the <a href="https://ig.ft.com/sites/china-ports/">South China Sea and Asian waters in general</a>.</p>
<h2>Sealing the deal</h2>
<p>Land deals are implemented – and often initiated – by sub-national states which are in competition with each other to win major investments. For example, since <a href="http://themarketmogul.com/an-overview-of-the-economic-liberalisation-in-india/">economic liberalisation in 1991</a>, Indian states have competed with each other – and with states in neighbouring countries such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia and China – to bag business opportunities. I interviewed several senior civil servants <a href="https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:bbd85621-4b2f-42f5-95b3-30256ecad1b4?">in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu</a>. On the understanding that certain details of our interviews were kept off the record, one told me: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Companies are like bridegrooms. If they are bringing an iconic brand into the state, they come with a huge list of demands, the primary one being land. In the case of [an automobile multinational], we had large, vacant plots, which we could transfer to them in a short period. In addition, they wanted road, rail and port access. They wanted to be near a metropolis. They wanted all sorts of social infrastructure, like land for an international school and sporting facilities for families of executives … Overall, there were 80-90 parameters related to land, tax concessions and clearances for water, electricity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>His colleague added:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[Companies] have played off states against each other. Take for example [a multinational]. We were trying to get them to [our state]. [They were to invest] US$2 billion … [But] the company wanted US$100m from us. [The Company’s] alternate sites were in Vietnam and Guangzhou in China. Finally Vietnam got [that] project.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The latter official hinted that governments in India and competitor countries are willing to entice companies with hard cash, tax concessions and other subsidies in order to bag their investment. </p>
<h2>Shadowy transactions</h2>
<p>These agreements <a href="https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:fefd2d82-29fa-4c06-bb58-b43e645f281e">tend to take place outside boardrooms</a>. Deals are struck in the breakout spaces, green rooms, bars and clubs and people’s homes – in other words, in the institutional shadows. In Zimbabwe, war veterans <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03057070.2013.862100">can act as intermediaries</a> who facilitate or block land deals at the local level, while in Cambodia and Vietnam, land investors may operate through middlemen – including moonlighting officials – in order to <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apv.12120/full">circumvent official rules</a>. In India, an elaborate network of brokers, aggregators and consultants <a href="https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:fefd2d82-29fa-4c06-bb58-b43e645f281e">mediate between firms and governments</a> in land acquisitions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152853/original/image-20170116-27931-3y7b0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152853/original/image-20170116-27931-3y7b0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152853/original/image-20170116-27931-3y7b0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152853/original/image-20170116-27931-3y7b0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152853/original/image-20170116-27931-3y7b0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152853/original/image-20170116-27931-3y7b0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152853/original/image-20170116-27931-3y7b0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Huge tracts of the beautiful coast Botum Sakor National Park have been earmarked for tourism development by a Chinese company.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rafal Cichawa</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During fieldwork in India, I found local government land offices with six or seven workers teaming up with an army of 50-plus middlemen who sat right outside and had easy access to the officials within. These middle men look into title deeds and ownership histories for a fee and work with bureaucrats to illegally fudge and clean up land records. Middle men also peddle information about who is facing hard times and will sell land easily and who will not. They may <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0263774X16655801">work with land aggregators employed by big companies</a> to put together large, commercially viable parcels of land. In a densely populated country with great pressure on natural resources this has serious social implications.</p>
<h2>Colonial and contemporary collaborators</h2>
<p>National and sub-national states are falling over each other to facilitate land deals in the name of attracting capital. The elites that control these states are also ensuring their longevity through the facilitation of prestigious land deals for private investors. Being pro-business is generally seen as a badge of honour and is projected as a plus point for politicians <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-10/modi-s-72-hour-tata-coup-shows-states-hold-key-to-india-revival">in election campaigns</a>.</p>
<p>Among the more humble collaborators in the global land grab, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2014.920329">middle men</a> – and the shadowy institutions through which they operate – must be understood in the context of <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.1524.ZS">high unemployment</a>, which make land work attractive. And, understandably, like anyone these are people with aspirations for consumption and social mobility. The flashy cell phone, the proximity to rich and powerful people, the ability to get things done, all these indications of rising status are more likely to flow on from having been involved in a successful land transaction than by sitting outside a job centre.</p>
<p>As we know from the history of European colonialism, the land grab would not have been possible without collaborators on the ground – local princelings and <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_alam_subramanyam_munshi.pdf">administrators were the linchpins of the colonial project</a>. In enabling the transfer of power, they were able to enhance their own influence. Colonial-era princelings and administators have now given way to accommodating politicians, bureaucrats, middlemen and mediators of various types. As such, today’s story of globally traded land plays out along similar lines to colonial times.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71294/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nikita Sud does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This is what neo-colonialism looks like in the 21st century.Nikita Sud, Associate Professor of Development Studies, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/663452016-10-11T06:50:01Z2016-10-11T06:50:01ZAfrica remains a target as Global South ‘land rush’ moves to production<p>In 2007, a spike in commodity prices triggered a sudden increase in <a href="http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DEC/Resources/Rising-Global-Interest-in-Farmland.pdf">demand for agricultural land</a> across the world. </p>
<p>It was believed that commercial investors in the Global North speculated on a rise in land and commodity prices. And governments aimed to ensure food security without dependence on the volatile world commodity market by buying up land, largely in the Global South. </p>
<p>Now, almost ten years after the term “<a href="https://www.grain.org/article/entries/93-seized-the-2008-landgrab-for-food-and-financial-security">land grabbing</a>” first entered the popular imagination, large-scale land acquisitions remain shrouded in secrecy. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://landmatrix.org/en/">Land Matrix Initiative</a> aims to shine some light in the deals by providing open access to information on intended, concluded, and failed land acquisitions that have taken place since the year 2000. Over recent years, both the quality and the quantity of the data have improved considerably. </p>
<p>This led us to take a fresh look at the <a href="http://landmatrix.org/en/announcements/2016/10/04/analytical-report-land-matrix/">current trends</a> in international large-scale land acquisitions.</p>
<h2>The start of production</h2>
<p>The Land Matrix records more than 1,000 deals covering 26.7 million hectares of contracted land, equal to about 2% of the arable land on Earth.</p>
<p>Most of these deals cultivate pure food crops, and crops that have multiple uses, such as oil seeds. Palm oil is the single most important crop driving large-scale land acquisitions.</p>
<p>One of the most striking things we found about land deals is their increasing rate of implementation. While speculation was discussed as one of the main drivers of the “rush for land” in earlier years, our data indicates that about 70% of the deals have now started activities on the ground.</p>
<p>Compared to <a href="http://www.landcoalition.org/sites/default/files/documents/resources/Analytical%20Report%20Web.pdf">previous figures published in 2012</a>, the number of operational projects has almost doubled. For most deals, it takes less than three years to enter the production phase.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139902/original/image-20160930-9911-q3l34t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139902/original/image-20160930-9911-q3l34t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139902/original/image-20160930-9911-q3l34t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139902/original/image-20160930-9911-q3l34t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139902/original/image-20160930-9911-q3l34t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139902/original/image-20160930-9911-q3l34t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139902/original/image-20160930-9911-q3l34t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139902/original/image-20160930-9911-q3l34t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Development of size under contract and size under operation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Authors’ calculation based on the Land Matrix data, April 2016</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For a subset of deals – 330 out of 1000 – we are familiar with the area under production. This means we are able to look into the implementation of these deals over recent years. </p>
<p>The chart above shows that while the area under contract increased rapidly since 2004, (red bars), the area under production has only increased since 2011 (blue bars). Today, about 55% of the contracted area is under production. </p>
<h2>Africa remains a target</h2>
<p>Africa remains the most important target area of land acquisitions, with deals concluded in many countries across the continent.</p>
<p>Africa accounts for 42% of the deals, and 10 million hectares of land. Land acquisitions are concentrated along important rivers such as the Niger and the Senegal rivers, and in East Africa. </p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/8g7WE/1/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="224"></iframe>
<p>The second most important region is Eastern Europe, mostly due to the large average size of land per deal: 96 deals covering 5.1 million hectares of concluded deals. One single deal in Ukraine by the company <a href="http://www.ulf.com.ua/en/">UkrLandFarming</a> covers an area of 654,000 hectares alone.</p>
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<p>Another emerging trend is that investors from the Global South have gained in importance. Malaysia is now the leading investor country, with Singapore at number four (the USA and UK are second and third). Global South investors show a strong preference for investment in their own region. </p>
<p>Most investors are still based in Western Europe, and their interests in 315 concluded deals cover nearly 7.3 million hectares. Private sector investors account for more than 70% of the concluded deals. So we know that governments are not the main driver of large-scale land acquisitions.</p>
<p>But investors are part of complex chains, which often include state-owned entities. This means the indirect impact of governments through these entities, and also through policy and trade agreements, is likely bigger than what we can see in the data.</p>
<h2>Increased competition</h2>
<p>We find that land acquisitions take place in relatively highly populated areas, dominated by existing croplands. About one-third of the area acquired was formerly used for smallholder agriculture – implying an increasing competition over land use between investors and local communities. </p>
<p>We will only see the <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/a-i3900e.pdf">full impact</a> of the deals in years to come. Positive impacts of large-scale land acquisitions generally include more local jobs and better access to infrastructure. On the negative side, loss of access to land and natural resources, increased conflict over livelihoods and greater inequality are frequent issues. </p>
<p>Given their increasing rate of implementation, the topic of land acquisitions remains hugely important, with many deals entering the production stages for the first time. The fact that land deals often target areas that have been used before hints at considerable socioeconomic and environmental implications for the target regions. And the more we know about these deals, the better we can understand how they will affect local people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66345/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kerstin Nolte works in a project funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). She is part of the team at GIGA working on the database management and the analysis of Land Matrix data.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wytske Chamberlain is affiliated with the Land Matrix as Coordinator Regional Focal Point - Africa. </span></em></p>It’s been ten years since “land grabbing” hit the headlines. What has changed?Kerstin Nolte, Research fellow at the Institute of African Affairs, German Institute of Global and Area StudiesWytske Chamberlain, PhD Candidate in the Postgraduate School for Agriculture and Rural Development, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/589402016-05-11T07:19:18Z2016-05-11T07:19:18ZNext steps to strengthen global land governance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121706/original/image-20160509-20616-6ehhz7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Participatory community mapping and community land protection can yield tangible results for poor and vulnerable populations.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Four years ago <a href="http://www.fao.org/docrep/016/i2801e/i2801e.pdf">voluntary guidelines</a> on the governance of land and land tenure were agreed at the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome. This was a response to growing concerns about the impacts of “land grabbing” driven by the global rush for investment in the wake of the food, fuel and financial crises in the first decade of this century. Getting the guidelines agreed was a long slog, involving many people. In a <a href="https://landportal.info/library/resources/state-debate-report-2016/strengthening-land-governance-lessons-implementing">new report</a> we examine what has happened since – and what challenges lie ahead.</p>
<p>The voluntary guidelines represent a unique example of collaborative “soft law”. The UN Committee on World Food Security offered the opportunity for direct involvement of all stakeholders – including governments, industry and civil society. This was a first for this sort of international law-making process. There was both disagreement and compromise, and not a little fudging, but the final document emerged as a globally-agreed platform for action. Given the controversial topic, and the vested interests involved, this was an amazing feat.</p>
<p>In the past four years there has been an extraordinary amount of activity globally. There have been pilot projects and capacity building training, as well as manuals, guidelines and toolkits galore. There has been widespread buy-in. This has come from national governments, ranging from Sierra Leone to Myanmar, to private companies, including the sugar giant Illovo, to large international NGOs, such as Oxfam. It also included a range of civil society movements, such as the peasants’ movement, <a href="http://www.viacampesina.org/en/">La Via Campesina</a>. But, not surprisingly among such a diverse group, there are disagreements and controversies.</p>
<p>Making land governance work in practice is easier said than done. High-sounding principles do not translate easily in contexts where corruption is rife. Land deals are opaque and the capacity for regulation and oversight is minimal. What can you do when there is only one person in the land registry office, with inadequate records and no legal back-up? Not surprisingly, investors can ride rough-shod over any procedure in such settings.</p>
<h2>Beyond the status quo</h2>
<p>Many see the guidelines as an important opportunity to address wider issues of land inequality, historical dispossession and agrarian change, rather than simply as a route to “<a href="http://www.fao.org/3/a-ml291e.pdf">responsible investment</a>”. Just as the process of agreeing the guidelines was intensely political, the implementation is too. Ensuring that the debate between regularising the status quo and pushing for more progressive change remains alive is essential. For this reason, there is a need to balance the technocratic impulse to translate guidelines into multiple toolkits and methods against the importance of sustaining the debate about what the guidelines ultimately are for, and for whom.</p>
<h2>Holding investors to account</h2>
<p>Holding investors to account is an essential aim. With growing global awareness of land investment issues, accountability campaigns, such as “<a href="http://www.behindthebrands.org/en/about">Behind the Brands</a>”, are gathering strength. The guidelines are not intended to restrict business, but ensure it is responsible, transparent and effectively regulated. This requires capacity in governments that need well-equipped and expert land administration and legal systems. Facilitating private-sector investment needs to be balanced against building state and civil society capacity for holding businesses to account.</p>
<h2>Political contexts matter</h2>
<p>Agreements forged at the global level, and signed with great fanfare at a UN event, do not necessarily cascade downwards. Regional and national political contexts really do matter. In some contexts, there are adversarial relationships, while elsewhere there is more coherence and consensus. Where particular governments, such as Brazil, take a lead in a region, then things move; and where constitutions reflect broad human rights principles there are more opportunities for linking struggles. Building regional capacity – such as in Africa through the <a href="http://www.uneca.org/sites/default/files/PublicationFiles/fg_on_land_policy_eng.pdf">Land Policy Initiative</a> – is an important next step.</p>
<h2>Learning from success</h2>
<p>There are all sorts of successes in land governance across the world. For example, there have been efforts to document and secure customary and informal land rights through participatory community mapping and community land protection and registration <a href="https://namati.org/resources/community-land-protection-facilitators-guide/">initiatives</a> that can yield tangible results for poor and vulnerable populations. A key focus must be on <a href="http://www.iied.org/legal-social-accountability-tools-agricultural-investments-west-africa">legal empowerment and accountability</a>, building the capacity of local groups.</p>
<p>The guidelines provide an important, internationally-agreed framework for action. Learning from successes in land governance is a vital next step, combined with increased support for civil society and social movements to build bottom-up pressure for state and corporate accountability.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58940/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruth Hall is affiliated with the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. She receives funding from Department for International Development (UK) through the Land: Enhancing Governance for Economic Development programme. The content and opinions in this piece are however the authors' own.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Scoones directs the ESRC STEPS Centre, and has received funding from the LEGEND programme on land governance, supported by the UK Department for International Development. The content and opinions in this piece are however the authors' own.</span></em></p>Making land governance work in practice is easier said than done. The process of agreeing to international guidelines has been intensely political – as is their implementation.Ruth Hall, Associate Professor, Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western CapeIan Scoones, Professorial Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/520432016-01-08T04:19:11Z2016-01-08T04:19:11ZHow a project with good aims delivered bitter outcomes in Sierra Leone<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/106865/original/image-20151222-27854-1lddyro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An excavator clears land for a palm oil plantation in southern Sierra Leone for a Lichtenstein-based a company. Such projects are criticised by some as 'land grabs'.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Simon Akam </span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://africalandgrab.com/">Reports</a> about land-grabs in Africa often attack the corporations that stand to profit from such projects. But little is said of the international development banks that fund the projects.</p>
<p>Development banks are supposed to ensure adherence to <a href="http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTSITETOOLS/0,,contentMDK:20749693%7EpagePK:98400%7EpiPK:98424%7EtheSitePK:95474,00.html">human rights</a> in the projects they fund, because human rights protection is central to sustainable development. Instead, their practices provide fertile ground for <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16517&LangID=E">violations</a> by encouraging companies to cut costs and maximise profits, impoverishing local communities in the process. </p>
<p>Over the past three years I have been <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14754835.2015.1032219">studying</a> the local experiences of a large bioenergy project in rural Sierra Leone. </p>
<p>This project leased 40,000 hectares of land and relocated the farms of thousands of people to grow sugar cane and export ethanol to Europe. The project is primarily owned and managed by a private corporation, but is funded by a consortium of development banks and bilateral development organisations in Europe. The funding exceeds €250 million.</p>
<p>My findings indicate that the project has had a number of negative effects on local communities. These include restructuring of local power dynamics, the marginalisation of <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14754835.2015.1032219">women</a> and increased economic inequality.</p>
<h2>Negative outcomes</h2>
<p>Women in the surrounding communities have very little ability to accept or reject the project. They also have no direct access to economic benefits, such as land lease payments and employment opportunities.</p>
<p>The project has also disrupted traditional networks of authority between chiefs and local people, creating new forms of disempowerment and <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joac.12102/abstract">dependency</a>. </p>
<p>For example, it has promoted and enforced the use of new forms of knowledge based on formal legal procedures to which local people have little access. These privilege and protect the corporation and the few local elites with the resources to afford formal mechanisms of justice.</p>
<p>What’s more, the project has promoted <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01436597.2015.1044960">economic inequality</a>. This is in direct contradiction to the basic claims of its proponents. In the locally dominant patron-client system, senior men appropriate most of the economic benefits, and progressively smaller portions are allocated to those on lower levels of the local hierarchy. </p>
<p>As a result, all women, most young men, and families other than the direct descendants of the village elites receive minimal or no economic benefits. This is despite the fact that everyone in the surrounding communities has had their livelihoods significantly disrupted by the bioenergy project.</p>
<p>These problems are echoed in findings from dozens of <a href="https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=%22land+Grab%22+Africa+&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5">other studies</a> conducted around the world over the past five years.</p>
<p>Where does responsibility lie? </p>
<h2>Profit before people</h2>
<p>The usual response is to blame those most likely to benefit economically from such projects – the corporations. This seems like the obvious answer, but it is also too simplistic.</p>
<p>In the case I have been studying it became clear, for example, that those leading and working for the company generally had good intentions. They often believed that their project would have a positive influence on local communities and would help develop Sierra Leone. </p>
<p>They argued that the money they invested in employment and land lease payments would provide financial security for local communities. They were distressed by Western journalists, human rights advocates and researchers who argued otherwise.</p>
<p>But when the negative effects of the project were described to them, senior company officials on the ground regularly defended their policies and practices. They made the point that their primary responsibility was not to the communities, but to their funders: the international development banks.</p>
<p>The corporations argued that they were under enormous pressure to make the project profitable as soon as possible. They also wanted to start repaying the loans from the banks on schedule so that they could earn the reductions in interest rates they had been promised if the project met the targets.</p>
<p>To achieve the targets, concerns about women’s empowerment, restructuring of customary power relations, or economic inequality were de-prioritised. They were seen as something to be addressed only after the project was economically viable.</p>
<p>The staff required to meet the initial targets were engineers, agriculturalists and farmers. Gender specialists, anthropologists, sociologists, or human rights advocates were unnecessary. There was no incentive, in essence, to prioritise those concerns or to spend scarce resources on such skills.</p>
<p>For all their rhetoric about the positive impact the project would have on sustainable human development, the development banks and bilateral funders’ funding mechanisms did not incorporate incentives to achieve such outcomes. </p>
<p>As a result, the company was motivated to maximise profit and ensure financial viability. Companies, by their nature, will prioritise only what they are required to prioritise and pursue objectives that will reap them financial rewards.</p>
<p>We must, therefore, demand more of the development banks. Why do they prioritise only the profitability of the projects they fund? </p>
<p>Why not build in their funding mechanisms means to reward positive socioeconomic impacts, including women’s empowerment, economic equality, or political inclusion?</p>
<p>The banks have both the responsibility and the power to change the way the contemporary land rush affects communities. They have it in their power to avoid the negative socioeconomic effects and ensure projects are implemented in a way that respects people’s human rights. It is time we demanded it of them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52043/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gearoid Millar received funding for this study from Radboud University Nijmegen and the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. </span></em></p>International development banks are supposed to ensure adherence to human rights in the projects they fund. Instead, their practices provide fertile ground for human rights abuses.Gearoid Millar, Lecturer in the Institute of Conflict, Transition, and Peace Research, University of AberdeenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/258442014-04-25T05:17:48Z2014-04-25T05:17:48ZThe global land grab as modern day corporate colonialism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47015/original/d9x7vk2t-1398343401.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ok, let's find some land.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/biblicone/4437598500/in/photolist-7L8RqY-8qP7Af-8v5YU3-hBRPmG-bxEVoG-39MZrh-5YE126-dJcsUT-7wQEWw-fqLXBB-8xhbBS-8wr8Fp-bhNLZp-65Wj1r-5F6zHR-7ByySh-amgzYy-amgBrW-amgyud-amdDzk-amdF7e-amdGKc">mob mob</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The idea that there is a “land grab” taking place in developing nations began with the publication of a report, <a href="http://www.grain.org/article/entries/93-seized-the-2008-landgrab-for-food-and-financial-security">Seized!</a>, by the NGO Grain. This rang an alarm bell about large-scale land acquisitions – particularly by a number of Asian countries and Gulf States, which are <a href="http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/bp013all.pdf">acquiring millions of hectares</a> of fertile agricultural land, predominantly in Africa.</p>
<p>Corporations and states including the US, European nations, and the rising “BRIC” economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China are all involved in this <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03066151003595325">voracious purchasing of land</a>. And despite the huge differences in the countries and localities where the land is purchased, the outcome is surprisingly similar: millions of hectares of farmland, as well as forests and peatlands, have been rapidly converted into huge mono-cropped plantations of soy, oil palm, and other cash crops.</p>
<p>This process particularly hits pastoralists, smallholders and vulnerable landless groups. What is striking is that in most cases land grabbing takes place with full support of governments which are happy to swap land for foreign direct investment.</p>
<p>As a rule, insufficient consideration is given to the livelihoods, rights and needs of local people. Land sold to investors is often taken away from locals who are not even informed, and are often <a href="http://intercontinentalcry.org/ethiopias-land-grabs-stories-displaced-20830/">forcefully removed</a>. To the extent that investments generate benefits such as employment, those from the land are usually bypassed in favour of workers from elsewhere. </p>
<p>The global land grab is a phenomenon against which those whose land is being grabbed seem defenceless. It is an area in which multilateral organisations, such as the <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/region/afr/publication/securing-africas-land-for-shared-prosperity">World Bank</a>, as well as civil-society organisations and NGOs have become increasingly vocal, and which has attracted greater academic interest.</p>
<p>Most early research focused on explaining the land grab narrative in terms of hectares and numbers of people affected, in an effort to uncover global trends and examine case studies. In <a href="http://www.zedbooks.co.uk/paperback/the-global-land-grab">our research</a>, we have adopted instead an in-depth and comparative approach. </p>
<p>By examining Africa, Latin America and Asia country by country, a number of interesting themes emerge: urban land grabbing in Kenya, Ethiopia’s new agricultural investment policy, genetically modified soy cultivation in Argentina, <a href="http://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/257921">residential tourism</a> in Costa Rica, water grabbing in Peru and Ecuador, new land conversions in Vietnam, and the Gulf States’ investments in Indonesia and the Philippines. There are differences and similarities, local variations and more general trends. But it is clear that this global land grab really exists, and that it’s impact cannot be expressed in hectares and statistics alone.</p>
<h2>An all too-easy purchase</h2>
<p>What is striking is that it has not been merely the demand for <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15013396">food</a> or <a href="http://www.iied.org/land-grabbing-africa-biofuels-are-not-hook">biofuels</a> that has led to this land rush. In fact, a whole set of earlier policies has paved the way. Large-scale land acquisition started to take place as a number of conditions simultaneously fell into place.</p>
<p>Huge tracts of land, under-exploited due to poor agricultural policy or decades of neglect, was made available. Foreign state aid donors emphasised the need to attract foreign investment. Land laws were modernised to make buying, selling and leasing land easier in many countries. And in many cases, institutional weaknesses or outright corruption eased through deals.</p>
<p>National governments were supposed to decentralise, stepping back in favour of local governments and opening up to market forces. However, local governments have often not been strong enough to deal with foreign investors, while in other cases they are merely extensions or appointees of the same political elites that run national governments, rather than genuinely representing local interests. The global land grab is not the consequence of ad hoc crises; it is the <a href="http://www.whp-journals.co.uk/GE/10_Zoomers.pdf">logical outcome</a> from the policies and political environment laid down before it.</p>
<p>So while what is happening today is to a large extent a historical continuation, it is also very different from the events of the past. In countries such as Argentina or Costa Rica, land acquisition and “foreignisation” has taken place for decades, if not centuries. For example, the major <a href="http://business.illinois.edu/working_papers/papers/06-0115.pdf">US fruit growers’</a> acquisition of land throughout Central America during the early and mid-20th century. In Kenya, the current land grab echoes its clear precedent under <a href="http://www.kenyarep-jp.com/kenya/history_e.html">colonisation</a> by the British. Processes are rarely transparent – not in developing countries praised for “good governance”, and not even in cases of Western companies that boast of their “corporate social responsibility”.</p>
<h2>Restoring the balance</h2>
<p>The global land grab has implications for transnational connections and power relations: it reshapes the geopolitical order, yet is equally a manifestation of a world order that has changed as economic power swings toward China, India, and developing economies. Much attention is paid to improving rules or regulations through land titling programmes, implementing the <a href="http://www.fao.org/nr/tenure/voluntary-guidelines/en/">FAO voluntary guidelines</a>, codes of conduct and other institutional solutions. However, the problem is often not so much regulations as the failure to implement them or a lack of practical control.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.zedbooks.co.uk/paperback/the-global-land-grab">we have argued</a>, a framework of accountability for large-scale land acquisitions must not only be limited to private companies, nor to governments or public bodies. To be effective it must be constructed as an integrated system of checks and balances that stretches from international trading regulations through national laws to local enactments, to ensure that all the main players of the game are playing under the same rules. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25844/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annelies Zoomers receives funding from NWO (Netherlands).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mayke Kaag does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The idea that there is a “land grab” taking place in developing nations began with the publication of a report, Seized!, by the NGO Grain. This rang an alarm bell about large-scale land acquisitions…Annelies Zoomers, Professor of Human Geography and Planning, Utrecht UniversityMayke Kaag, Senior Researcher, African Studies Centre, Leiden UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.