The Land Grabbers: The New Fight over Who Owns the Earth

by Fred Pearce

  See “The Financing of the Riau Pulp Producers” by Jan Willem van Gelder, http://www.jikalahari.or.id (2005), and William Sunderlin’s “Between Danger and Opportunity: Indonesia’s Forests in an Era of Economic Crisis and Political Change,” (1999). Christopher Barr’s “Bob Hasan, the Rise of Apkindo, and the Shifting Dynamics of Control in Indonesia’s Timber Sector,” is at Indonesia 65 (1998), http://www.jstor.org/.

  WWF summarized forest loss in “Sumatra’s Forests, Their Wildlife and Climate,” http://wwfid.panda.org (2010). The corruption story surfaced in Tempo magazine’s “Road to Ruin,” http://www.tempointeractive.com (September 17, 2007), and in “How a $115b Illegal Logging Probe Was Felled,” http://www.thejakartaglobe.com (2011).

  Kampar draining is in “EoF Calls on SMG/APP and APRIL to Keep Their Promises,” http://eyesontheforest.or.id (2010). APRIL’s unpublished consultants’ report was by UK-based ProForest. See also “Indonesia: Communities Reject APRIL’s REDD Plans on the Kampar Peninsula,” http://www.redd-monitor.org (2009), and Forest Peoples Programme’s October 2011 newsletter and briefing “Sumatra: Update on RAPP’s Activities in the Kampar Peninsula, Riau,” http://www.forestpeoples.org. I reported on APP’s greenwash in “The Deflowering of the EU’s Green Logo,” http://www.guardian.co.uk. See also “Officeworks Paper Found to Contain Almost Pure Indonesian Rainforest,” http://www.marketsforchange.org (2011). Verchot is discussed in “Ban on New Forest Concessions in Indonesia Is Good News for Climate Change, but Many Challenges Remain,” http://www.cifor.org (2011).

  Chapter 16: Papua New Guinea

  For deforestation in PNG, see “Logging, Legality and Livelihoods in Papua New Guinea,” http://www.forest-trends.org (2006); “Bulldozing Progress: Human Rights Abuses and Corruption in Papua New Guinea’s Large-Scale Logging Industry” http://www.acfid.asn.au; and “PNG: Farewell to the Forests,” http://www.theage.com.au (2004). Rimbunan Hijau was attacked in “The Untouchables,” http://www.greenpeace.org (2004). See also http://www.rhpng.com.pg.

  “The Political Construction of a Land Grab in Papua New Guinea” was presented at the Brighton conference by Filer, who also published “The New Land Grab in Papua New Guinea: A Case Study from New Ireland Province,” http://ips.cap.anu.edu.au (2011). See also “Lands Department Accused of Corruption, Negligence in Western Province,” http://malumnalu.blogspot.com (2010); “Controversy in Land Sales Cited,” http://www.postcourier.com.pg (2011); and “Papua New Guinea Suspects Controversial Grants,” http://news.mongabay.com (2011).

  Chapter 17: Cambodia

  I visited Cambodia in March 2011, with assistance from David Pred at Bridges Across Borders Cambodia. His research on Ly Yong Phat appears in “Bittersweet: A Briefing Paper on Industrial Sugar Production, Trade and Human Rights in Cambodia,” http://babcambodia.org (2010). LYP is at http://www.lypgroup.com; see “Who Is Ly Yong Phat?,” at http://australianetworknews.com (2010); also see “Eviction and Land Grabbing Surges across Cambodia” (2010) and “Land Grabbing and Poverty in Cambodia: The Myth of Development” (2009), both at http://www.licadho-cambodia.org.

  For more information see “Economic Land Concessions in Cambodia: A Human Rights Perspective,” http://cambodia.ohchr.org (2007); and “World Bank Land Alert,” http://farmlandgrab.org/15387 (2010). HLH is at http://www.hlh.com.sg; and see “The End of the Suy People?” in “The Rights of Indigenous People in Cambodia,” http://www.iwgia.org (2010). “Chinese Firm Continues with Evictions of Koh Kong Villagers” and “K Speu Villager Opposing Land Sale to Stand Trial,” both appeared in the Cambodia Daily on March 25, 2011.

  Mitr Phol is at http://www.mitrphol.com; Khon Kaen Sugar is at http://www.kslsugar.com/en. “Everything but Arms” may be found at http://ec.europa.eu/; and Cecilia Wikstrom is discussed in “Cambodian Blood Sugar Condemned by EU Parliament Member,” http://www.dw-world.de (2011).

  Chapter 18: Southeast Asia

  Gray’s article, “China Appropriates Foreign and Domestic Land to Build Its Rubber Empire,” is online at http://farmlandgrab.org/ (2009). IUCN reports on the rubber invasion in “Rubber Investments and Market Linkages in Lao PDR,” http://cmsdata.iucn.org (2009). See also “Territorial Affairs: Turning Battlefields into Marketplaces in Postwar Laos,” http://erg.berkeley.edu/ (2010). Ziegler’s account, “The Rubber Juggernaut,” is available at http://www.sciencemag.org (2009). Also see “China Rubber Demand Stretches Laos,” http://www.atimes.com (2007), and “Rubber: Costs or Benefits to the Lao PDR,” http://www.sumernet.org (2009). Doan Nguyen Duc is profiled in “Condo Boss,” at http://www.forbes.com (2009).

  “Farmland Grabs by Urban Sprawl and Their Impacts on Peasants’ Livelihood in China” is from the Brighton conference. Complant’s Jamaica deal is described in “Gov’t Seals Sugar Deal with Complant,” http://www.jamaicaobserver.com (2011). Beidahuang’s grabs are detailed in “China Ups Argentine Farmland Purchases,” http://www.lab.org.uk (2011) and “China Land Deal Causes Unease in Argentina,” http://www.guardian.co.uk (2011). See also “New Agricultural Agreement in Argentina: A Land Grabbers’ Instruction Manual,” http://www.grain.org (2011), and “Goldman Sachs Buys Chinese Poultry Farms,” at http://www.thepoultrysite.com (2008).

  China State Farms is assessed at “China, Africa Forge Farming Ties,” http://www.chinadaily.com.cn (2010). For Sino Cam Iko, see “Chinese in Cameroon: An Agricultural Misunderstanding,” http://www.afronline.org (2009). Buckley’s paper, “Eating Bitter to Taste Sweet,” was presented at the Brighton conference. See also http://www.chinaafricarealstory.com/.

  Korea’s Daewoo plan is outlined in “Daewoo’s African Dream,” http://www.koreatimes.co.kr (2009) and its demise reported in “Madagascar Scraps Daewoo Farm Deal,” http://www.ft.com (2009). Hyundai’s Russian venture is covered in “Hyundai Heavy Ind Tests Russian Investment,” at http://www.oilandgaseurasia.com (2009). Also see “South Korea Food Security Alarm,” at http://www.asiasentinel.com (2011). For more on Lee Woo-chang, see “Corn on the Cambodian Cob Suits Korean Farmer,” at http://cambodia-business.blogspot.com (2011).

  Chapter 19: Maasailand, Tanzania

  “Solitude in the Serengeti,” on Grumeti, is at http://www.telegraph.co.uk (2007); see also http://www.grumeti.com/. Grumeti and Loliondo are both discussed in “In the Shadow of the Serengeti” at http://www.theinvestigativefund.org. Also see “The Brigadier’s Shooting Party,” http://www.nytimes.com (1993). Anaya’s report, “United Republic of Tanzania: Alleged Forced Removal of Pastoralists,” is available at http://unsr.jamesanaya.org (2010). Brittingham’s website is at http://www.tanzaniaquest.com; also see “Catherine Blampied’s “Tanzanian Pastoralists Struggle for Their Rights” at http://www.global-politics.co.uk.

  “Tourism Is a Curse to Us,” www.guardian.co.uk (2009), describes Loliondo and also Thomson’s Enashiva refuge. Mara Goldman’s “Strangers in Their Own Land: Maasai and Wildlife Conservation in Northern Tanzania,” is at http://www.conservationandsociety.org (2011). See also the Manyara Ranch Conservancy website at http://www.manyararanch.com.

  Read about the Laikipians in “The Aristocratic Class That Owns Huge Tracts of Land in Kenya,” http://www.africafiles.org (2004), and “The Genesis of Land Deals in Kenya and Its Implication on Pastoralist Livelihoods” presented at the Brighton conference. Also see http://www.olpejetaconservancy.org; http://www.sosian.com; Wildenstein’s obituary at http://www.telegraph.co.uk; and the interview with Cholmondeley in “Curse of Happy Valley,” http://www.timesonline.co.uk (2007). The Lewa Wildlife Conservancy is at http://www.lewa.org. Fascinating too is “Sustainable Inequalities: The Case of Il Ngwesi Group Ranch,” Ameyali Ramos Castillo’s 2004 master of science thesis at the School of Geography at the University of Oxford.

  Chapter 20: South Africa

  I wrote a brief official history of WWF, Treading Lightly, in 2004. This chapter draws on some of that material. “Conservation Philanthropists, Royalty and Business Elites in Nature Conservation in Southern Africa” (201
0) (Antipode 42, pp. 647–70) explores the Rupert/Bernhard relationship. Huxley’s biography is Peter Scott: Painter and Naturalist (Faber, 1994). I wrote about Garamba in “Rumble in the Jungle,” http://www.newscientist.com (1998). Dublin is quoted from my feature “Inventing Africa,” http://www.newscientist.com (2000). Also see “Batwa Land Rights in Rwanda,” http://www.minorityrights.org (2003). The Rights & Resources Initiative is discussed in “From Needs to Rights,” http://www.care.dk (2009).

  I interviewed Vlissingen for my article “Laird of Africa,” at http://www.newscientist.com (2005). The Africa Parks Foundation (now Network) is at http://african-parks.org. A study of the Peace Parks Foundation appears at http://www.geographie.hu-berlin.de. See also “Breaking Down the Barricades,” http://www.dur.ac.uk/ (1999).

  Schmidt-Soltau’s “Evictions from DRC’s Protected Areas” is at http://www.fmreview.org/DRCongo/23.pdf. He and Curran debate in “Are Central Africa’s Protected Areas Displacing Hundreds of Thousands of Rural Poor?” and in “Is the Displacement of People from Parks Only Purported, or Is It Real?,” http://www.conservationandsociety.org (2009). See also Nature Unbound: Conservation, Capitalism and the Future of Protected Areas by Dan Brickington et al. (Earthscan, 2008).

  MacDonald’s Green Inc. is from Lyons Press, 2008. Kaimovitz’s remarks appear in “Conserving What and for Whom? Why Conservation Should Help Meet Basic Human Needs in the Tropics,” Biotropica, http://www.cifor.org (2007). Sandbrook’s analysis is in “Linking Conservation and Poverty Alleviation: The Case of Great Apes,” http://www.povertyandconservation.info (2010). For more on the private game reserves, see http://www.phinda.com; http://www.tswalu.com; and http://www.mantiscollection.com.

  Chapter 21: Africa

  Ruth Hall presented “The Next Great Trek? South African Commercial Farmers Move North,” at the Brighton conference. It covers much of the content of this chapter. See also http://www.agrisa.co.za and Joemat-Pettersson’s discussion in “Government Drive to Set Up White SA Farmers in Africa,” http://www.businessday.co.za (2009).

  “Congo-Brazzaville: The South Africa-Congo Concession—Exploitation or Salvation?” is at http://allafrica.com (2010); see the Mozambique plan at http://www.agriallafrica.com/agrisamoz.html. “Georgia—and Congo—on South African Farmers’ Minds,” is at http://mg.co.za (2011). Also see http://boers.ge.

  Illovo is at http://www.illovo.co.za. Ben Richardson examines sugarcane production in “Sugar Cane in Southern Africa: Is It a Sweet Deal for the Rural Poor?” http://www.sucre-ethique.org (2010). For Mimran versus Dangote, see “Expansion of Sugar Production in Africa,” http://www.afriqueavenir.org (2011). Addax is at http://www.addax-oryx.com. For Kenana, see “Beltone to Launch $1bln Sudan Agriculture Fund,” http://www.reuters.com (2010), and “Sudan: Securing Its Future in Sugar,” http://www.new-ag.info (2005). For Swaziland, see http://www.rssc.co.sz.

  Chapter 22: Mozambique

  The Sun Biofuels website is now shut. “Mozambique Sells Its First Biofuel Export to Lufthansa” is available at http://www.defenceweb.co.za. Oxfam discusses Kisarawe in “Another Inconvenient Truth,” http://www.oxfam.org.uk (2008). See also “Kisarawe Villagers Regret after Leasing Land to Sun Biofuels,” http://allafrica.com (2010), and “Jatropha: Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees,” http://www.foei.org (2010). Sun Biofuel’s demise is report in “UK Firm’s Failed Biofuel Dream Wrecks Lives of Tanzanian Villagers,” http://www.guardian.co.uk (2011).

  “Biofuels, Land Access and Rural Livelihoods in Tanzania,” http://pubs.iied.org (2009), covers both Sun Biofuels and Procana, whose problems are also detailed in “Biofuels and Land Rights in Mozambique—the Procana case,” http://pubs.iied.org/ (2009), and “Mozambique: Investors Decided to Pull Out of Procana Months Ago,” http://allafrica.com (2009). Agriterra is at http://www.agriterra-ltd.com. For Energem, see “Energem Goes into Bankruptcy Without Telling Shareholders,” at http://www.telegraph.co.uk (2011). The demise of Flora Ecopower is reported at “Ethiopia: German Biofuel Company Fails As Employees Abscond with Assets,” http://www.afrik-news.com. Its revival is noted at “Flora EcoPower Resumes Biofuel Farm Activities,” http://www.capitalethiopia.com (2010), and its name change at “Flora EcoPower vollzieht Kapitalzusammenlegung und Umbenennung in Acazis AG,” http://www.acazis.com (2010).

  Bedford Biofuels is at http://www.bedfordbiofuels.com. Environmentalists’ objections to its activities are reported in “Tana River Delta” (http://www.rspb.org.uk). Also see “Biofuel Land Grabbing in Northern Ghana,” at http://biofuelwatch.org.uk. The NGO Spire attacked ScanFuel (now ScanFarm) in Norwegian Land Grabbers in Ghana—the Case of ScanFuel (Spire, 2009). Nukator and German’s “Towards Sustainable Biofuel Development: Assessing the Local Impacts of Large-Scale Foreign Land Acquisitions in Ghana” is available at http://siteresources.worldbank.org. Searchinger summarized his case in “Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error,” http://www.sciencemag.org (2009).

  Chapter 23: Zimbabwe

  This chapter draws on Zimbabwe’s Land Reform: Myths and Realities by Ian Scoones et al. (James Currey, 2011) and conversations with Scoones. His book is regularly updated at http://www.zimbabweland.net. See also “Don’t Condemn Zimbabwe,” at http://www.guardian.co.uk (2011).

  For the Development Trust of Zimbabwe, see http://www.zwnews.com/. For Nuanetsi and Rautenbach, see “Party Bigwigs Locked in Naunetsi Ranch Turf War,” http://allafrica.com (2009); “Zimbabwe Bio Energy Sets the Record Straight Regarding Nuanetsi Ranch,” http://www.newstimeafrica.com (2010); and “Large-scale Investment Projects and Land Grabs in Zimbabwe: The Case of Nuanetsi Ranch Bio-Diesel Project” from the Brighton conference. I interviewed Raoul du Toit in London in 2011. See also http://goldmanprize.org/2011/africa and http://savevalleyconservancy.org.

  The Maluleke grabs are exposed in “Safari Operators Enraged as Zanu-PF Rewards the Faithful,” http://www.independent.co.uk (2009); “Zanu Mafia in Lowveld Land Grab,” http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk (2009); “New Land Reforms—the Death of Wildlife Tourism in Zimbabwe?” http://wildlifenews.co.uk (2011); and “New Zanu PF Land-Grab Exposed,” http://www.thestandard.co.zw (2011). The German diplomatic protest is described in “Zim, Germany Argue over Conservancy,” http://www.financialgazette.co.zw (2011). The 2011 U.S. cable is at http://dazzlepod.com/cable/04HARARE2051.

  I interviewed Mortimore at the Brighton conference, where he presented “Land Deals and Commercial Agriculture in Nigeria.” Also see “Zimbabwean Farmers Working Nigerian Land,” http://www.bbc.co.uk (2011).

  Chapter 24: Central Africa

  Much of the material on European loggers comes from unpublished WWF research. For Zimbabwe’s logging of the DRC see “Branching Out,” http://www.globalwitness.org (2002); for coverage of Blattner see “The Fight to Save Congo’s Forests,” http://www.thenation.com (2007), and “Sold Down the River,” http://www.guardian.co.uk (2007).

  “Chinese Trade and Investment and the Forests of the Congo Basin” can be found at http://www.cifor.org (2011). Also see “From Exclusion to Ownership,” http://www.rightsandresources.org (2008), and “Large Acquisitions of Rights on Forest Lands for Tropical Timber Concessions,” http://www.landcoalition.org (2011).

  Oxfam’s reporting on the eviction of villagers in Uganda can be found in “The New Forests Company and Its Uganda Plantations” at http://www.oxfam.org (2011); see also “In Scramble for Land, Group Says, Company Pushed Ugandans Out,” http://www.nytimes.com (2011), and the company’s website at http://www.newforests.net/. I reported on REDD in “Save the Climate by Saving the Forests,” at http://www.newscientist.com (2008). Chhatres’s “Trade-offs and Synergies between Carbon Storage and Livelihood Benefits from Forest Commons” can be found at http://www.pnas.org.

  The Carbon Planet scandal is described in “Australian Firm Linked to PNG’s $100 Million Carbon Trading Scandal,” http://www.smh.com (2009). I interviewed Seymour in London in 2011.

  Chapter 25: Inner Niger Delta, Mali


  I visited Mali in January 2011 with Wetlands International’s Jane Madgwick and Bakary Kone. Modibo Keita is discussed in “Don’t Touch My Land! Peasant Resistance to Land Grabs in Mali,” http://www.foodfirst.org (2011). For more on land grabs in Mali, see “Assessing the Contractual Arrangements of Large-Scale Land Acquisitions in Mali with Special Attention to Water Rights,” at http://www.oicrf.org (2011); Illovo’s Markala project is profiled in “Markala Sugar Project: Appraisal Report,” http://www.afdb.org (2010). On the MCC, see “Turning African Farmland Over to Big Business,” http://www.grain.org (2010), and “Mali – Agriculture Development Systems Activity,” http://www.acdivoca.org/. For more details about the Malibya project see “Libyan Land Grab of Mali’s Rice-Producing Land,” http://www.viacampesina.org (2009); “Au Mali, des paysans réclament leurs terres vendues à Kadhafi,” http://farmlandgrab.org; http://media.oaklandinstitute.org; and http://www.maliweb.net/.

  Zwarts’s hydrology is discussed in more detail in “The Niger, a Lifeline,” http://www.altwym.nl (2005), and “Will the Inner Niger Delta Shrivel Up Due to Climate Change and Water Use Downstream?” http://www.wetlands.org (2009).

  Chapter 26: Badia, Jordan

  I visited the Jordanian Badia in 1995 and wrote about the journey in “Shepherds Wise Men,” http://www.newscientist.com. Garrett Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons,” is at http://www.sciencemag.org (1968). IUCN reports are discussed in “Global Review of the Economics of Pastoralism,” cmsdata.iucn.org (2006).

  Further details about Oromia are provided in “Putting Pastoralists on the Policy Agenda: Land Alienation in Southern Ethiopia,” http://pubs.iied.org (2010); “Pastoralists in Southern Ethiopia,” http://www.drylands-group.org (2008); and “Indian Company Given Oromia Land Twice the Size of Singapore,” http://www.jimmatimes.com (2011).