Ny rapport hævder, at land grabbing forårsaget af biobrændstofprojekter til EU-markedet er langt mindre end ofte præsenteret. Men meget er undladt i rapporten, skriver den internationale miljøorganisation IIED.
A new report by Dutch consultancy firm Ecofys claims that European demand for biofuels is not to blame for “land grabbing” in poorer countries.
The report — commissioned by an organisation that “represents the European renewable ethanol industry” — comes as EU law-makers discuss new biofuel legislation that could curb support to the sector.
The report reviews deals accounting for 67 per cent of total area included in the Land Matrix dabatase, which is one of the most ambitious attempts to monitor trends in land acquisitions.
Ecofys concludes that only 35 per cent of the land area in the deals it reviewed could be “confirmed”, as the remainder was from deals that never came to fruition or that have been cancelled.
The report also estimates that biofuels account for far less land acquisition than previously thought.
The report implies that “land grabbing” has been exaggerated, and concludes that demand for biofuels has not been not a major driver of land acquisition.
This may sound reassuring. But the report’s findings require closer scrutiny.
And while I have argued in my book The Great African Land Grab? that media reports are likely to have overestimated the scale of the land rush, there is no ground for complacency.
Figures are only a part of the story
Before getting into a discussion about figures, it is worth reminding ourselves about their limitations. It is virtually impossible to come up with an accurate aggregate figure of scale. There are many reasons for this.
Access to data remains limited. Also, the global land rush is unfolding very rapidly: deals are signed, cancelled, restructured or transferred. This makes it difficult for anybody to keep track of trends.
And whether a deal makes it into international datasets ultimately depends on whether it catches the attention of journalists or NGOs.
For these reasons, we should not assume that the Land Matrix includes all land deals.
In fact, it probably significantly underestimates land acquisitions by local nationals, which have been found to account for much land acquisition in several countries.
So a report that merely seeks to debunk existing entries in the Land Matrix says little about the overall scale of land acquisition.
Unconfirmed deals can still spark conflict
Another problem is that it is difficult to define what a “confirmed” deal is in the first place: an memorandum of understanding or establishment convention may be signed, but not followed by an actual land lease – or the land lease may be for a smaller area, at least initially.
The gap between announced deals and actual contracts, let alone implementation on the ground, was a well-known phenomenon before this report.
But even if an establishment convention is not followed by an actual land allocation, or if a lease is not implemented, or it is implemented on a smaller scale than initially planned, the deal can still exacerbate competition for land.
If the land cannot be allocated to other uses, the host country bears significant opportunity costs.
And villagers may lose access to that land even if the leasing company does not develop it and media attention moves on – as people affected by a failed Dutch biofuel venture in Tanzania know all too well.
Confining attention to “confirmed” and ongoing land deals, as the Ecofys report does, ignores these important dimensions.
Context matters
In addition, in some countries the deals are geographically concentrated. In Ghana, for example, most biofuel projects are in a central belt that runs through the Ashanti, Brong Ahafo and Northern Regions.
Land deals for agriculture may compound pressures from other sources, such as conservation or mining. Even a smaller aggregate scale of land acquisition can increase pressures on land in such settings.
Other features of local contexts will also influence the extent to which a given scale of land acquisition will exacerbates a squeeze on resource use.
Because of different demographics, an acquisition of 1,000 hectares would have very different implications in Rwanda than it would in Mozambique.
So aggregate figures of scale, whether generous or conservative, are unlikely to be the final word on how the deals are increasing pressures on land.
What about the figures?
Læs videre her: http://www.iied.org/land-grabbing-africa-biofuels-are-not-hook
