Land grabs: a global epidemic

[polly7]

Published Jun 21 2012 by nef, Archived Jun 21 2012

by Fred Pearce

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-06-21/land-grabs-global-epidemic

I have spent the past two years investigating the global epidemic of land grabs for a book. Saudi sheikhs, private equity whizz-kids, Indian entrepreneurs and Chinese billionaires all believe, with financier George Soros, that "farmland is going to be one of the best investments of our time."

They are satisfying their new-found land lust from Mali to Mozambique, Cambodia to Kazakhstan, and Paraguay to Papua New Guinea, usually seeking out unfenced “customary” land to grow grains, sugar, vegetable oils and biofuel for sale on the world’s booming commodity markets.

It is a rerun of the enclosure of common lands in Europe centuries ago – but taking place at breakneck speed and with the fences being erected mostly by foreign investors. At the heart of it is an arc of land through the grasslands of Africa, a region the size of western Europe that geographers call the Guinea Savannah Zone and the World Bank has dubbed “the world’s last large reserve of underused land”.

This unprecedented corporate privatisation and enclosure of the world’s common lands – its pastures, fields and forests – is being done in the name of development. But much of it will destroy development and impoverish the poorest. Peasants are being replaced with tractors.