July 26th, 2012
Via China Dialogue, a look at Cambodia as a microcosm of a violent struggle playing out across the globe for control of a shrinking – and therefore increasingly valuable – pool of natural resources: On 26 April, Cambodian military police shot the environmental campaigner Chut Wutty as he sat at the wheel of his blood-red […]
Read more »Green Grabbing
July 13th, 2012
Via China Dialogue, an article on green grabbing — the process through which organizations, by putting a value on nature, have fostered a wave of land grabbing: Transnational Institute (TNI): What is green grabbing? Melissa Leach (ML): I think The Guardian journalist John Vidal might have first coined the word, but it encompasses all the […]
Read more »July 10th, 2012
Via IPP Media, an article on the politics of investment in large scale agricultural ventures: Tanzania has always been a country on the spotlight over cases of land grabbing for various uses. Over the recent past there has been a lot of information in both print and electronic media of land being taken for various […]
Read more »Wall Street Goes Farming…Or How African Politicians Gave Away $100bn Of Land
July 3rd, 2012
Via The Africa Report, an article on how – with minimal consultation – governments and local authorities are signing away huge tracts of land for lease on the cheap. As the report notes: The Nguruman Escarpment is one of global tourism’s secrets. Rising from the arid and salty wastes of Lake Magadi as the Rift […]
Read more »July 3rd, 2012
Via The Times of India, a report detailing India’s hunger for arable land overseas. As the article notes: India is among the top 10 nations to acquire land in both domestic and transnational deals, according to a report released this month by the Washington-based World Watch Institute (WWI). It lists India as a big investor […]
Read more »Beijing: A Boon For Africa?
June 30th, 2012
Via The New York Times, an interesting op-ed on China’s investment interest in Africa: IN June 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a speech in Zambia warning of a “new colonialism” threatening the African continent. “We saw that during colonial times, it is easy to come in, take out natural resources, pay off […]
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