Ny rapport fra Forest Peoples Programme fremviser en lang række udfordringer i forlængelse af den internationale interesse for landbrug i Sydøstasien. Rapporten peger på problemer som: bevarelse af national suverænitet, sikring af fødevaresikkerhed, negative virkninger på miljøet mv.
1. Introduction
Large-scale land acquisitions facilitated to promote export-oriented agriculture and land development have become a matter of international concern. Whereas, on the one hand, they are encouraged by national governments to accelerate development, generate revenue and foreign exchange and create jobs, they are also designed to generate profits for (often foreign) investors, provide commodities and food security for other countries and bring wealth to local elites. Reconciling these different interests is itself challenging.
However, the rapid imposition of such schemes also pose multiple challenges to host countries in terms of: preserving national sovereignty; ensuring national and local food security; having adequate institutional capacity and legal frameworks to regulate rapid changes in land ownership and use; providing tenurial security to both citizens and investors; ensuring that land acquisition from local communities and indigenous peoples is done fairly; guaranteeing respect for human rights; providing for rule of law and access to justice; preventing negative impacts on the environment and; avoiding negative impacts on the political economy and the undermining of sound land governance.
These same issues have been a matter for detailed debate at the United Nations, in particular in the context of the Commission on Food Security under the Food and Agriculture Organisation. This work led in May 2012 to 194 countries adopting the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security.
In Southeast Asia, the national human rights institutions of the region have already engaged in a three-year-long process of collaboration to address these same challenges from a rights-based perspective. The first year of work culminated in the promulgation of the Bali Declaration on Human Rights and Agribusiness in Southeast Asia, in which the human rights commissions of the region and a supportive network of NGOs emphasised the importance of securing the rights of local communities and indigenous peoples in the face of this unprecedented pressure on their lands.
The Declaration, and the wider conference of which it was the outcome, emphasised the duty of States to protect internationally recognised human rights and the responsibility of businesses to respect them, even where national standards and laws are deficient.
Læs hele rapporten her:
http://www.forestpeoples.org/sites/fpp/files/publication/2013/08/lsla-briefings.pdf
