Ecosystem services from southern African woodlands and their future under global change

Miombo and mopane woodlands are the dominant land cover in southern Africa. Ecosystem services from these woodlands support the livelihoods of 100 M rural people and 50 M urban dwellers, and others beyond the region. Provisioning services contribute $9 ± 2 billion yr −1 to rural livelihoods; 76% of energy used in the region is derived from woodlands; and traded woodfuels have an annual value of $780 M. Woodlands support much of the region's agriculture through transfers of nutrients to fields and shifting cultivation. Woodlands store 18–24 PgC carbon, and harbour a unique and diverse flora and fauna that provides spiritual succour and attracts tourists. Longstanding processes that will impact service provision are the expansion of croplands (0.1 M km 2 ; 2000–2014), harvesting of woodfuels (93 M tonnes yr −1 ) and changing access arrangements. Novel, exogenous changes include large-scale land acquisitions (0.07 M km 2 ; 2000–2015), climate change and rising CO 2 . The net ecological response to these changes is poorly constrained, as they act in different directions, and differentially on trees and grasses, leading to uncertainty in future service provision. Land-use change and socio-political dynamics are likely to be dominant forces of change in the short term, but important land-use dynamics remain unquantified. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Tropical grassy biomes: linking ecology, human use and conservation’.

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Direct and indirect land-use change caused by large-scale land acquisitions in Cambodia

Environmental Research Letters ◽

10.1088/1748-9326/ab6397 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 15 (2) ◽

pp. 024010 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Nicholas R Magliocca ◽

Quy Van Khuc ◽

Ariane de Bremond ◽

Evan A Ellicott

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Large Scale ◽

Indirect Land Use Change ◽

Land Acquisitions ◽

Large Scale Land

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Large-Scale Land Acquisitions, Livelihoods, and Gender Configurations in Zimbabwe

Handbook of Research on In-Country Determinants and Implications of Foreign Land Acquisitions - Advances in Finance, Accounting, and Economics ◽

10.4018/978-1-4666-7405-9.ch007 ◽

2015 ◽

pp. 130-144 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Patience Mutopo ◽

Manase Kudzai Chiweshe ◽

Chipo Plaxedes Mubaya

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Case Studies ◽

Rural Women ◽

Large Scale ◽

Rural Livelihoods ◽

Land Loss ◽

Land Acquisitions ◽

New Challenges ◽

Large Scale Land ◽

And Gender

The notion of large-scale land acquisitions has been topical in recent years in Zimbabwe; it has even created more nuanced debates, since 70% of rural women in Zimbabwe are the majority of food producers. Foreign and locally orchestrated land deals have presented new challenges and threats to the livelihoods of women in rural Zimbabwe, at a time of land redistributive programs that have been viewed nationally and internationally as chaotic, affecting the food security, economic prowess, and international relations of Zimbabwe. The main aim of this chapter is to examine how women are particularly affected by the investments, based on three case studies. An analysis of the Zimbabwean scenario is presented with regards to participatory methodologies that reflect women's rural livelihoods and land loss.

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Land Grabbing in Europe? Socio-Cultural Externalities of Large-Scale Land Acquisitions in East Germany

Land ◽

10.3390/land7030098 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 7 (3) ◽

pp. 98 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Ramona Bunkus ◽

Insa Theesfeld

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

East Germany ◽

Rural Livelihoods ◽

Land Grabbing ◽

Negative Consequences ◽

Land Acquisitions ◽

Large Scale Land ◽

Investment Object ◽

Acquisition Processes ◽

Land Transactions

Recently, we witnessed an immense increase in international land transactions in the Global South, a phenomenon slowly expanding in northern industrialized countries, too. Even though in Europe agriculture plays a decreasing economic role for rural livelihoods, the increases in land transactions by non-local, non-agricultural investors pervades rural life. Nevertheless, the underlying processes are not yet well understood. Large-scale land acquisitions describe such purchases and leases in a neutral way, while ‘land grabbing’ expresses negative consequences for rural people. We investigate whether and under which conditions the term land grabbing is justified for the phenomenon observed in Europe. We propose six socio-cultural criteria that scholars should consider to come to an initial classification: legal irregularities, non-residence of new owners, centralization in decision-making structures, treating land as an investment object, concentration of decision-power, and limited access to land markets. We supplement our findings with empirical material from East Germany, where such land acquisition processes occur. Our paper contributes to the ongoing discussion about agricultural structural change in Europe, which is intensified by increasing land prices and a new distribution of landownership but likewise strongly intertwined with rural development.

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Representing large-scale land acquisitions in land use change scenarios for the Lao PDR

Regional Environmental Change ◽

10.1007/s10113-018-1316-8 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 18 (6) ◽

pp. 1857-1869 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Niels Debonne ◽

Jasper van Vliet ◽

Andreas Heinimann ◽

Peter Verburg

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Large Scale ◽

Lao Pdr ◽

Land Acquisitions ◽

Large Scale Land

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Contesting large-scale land acquisitions in the Global South

World Development ◽

10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105581 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 146 ◽

pp. 105581

Author(s):

Jan Sändig

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Global South ◽

Land Acquisitions ◽

Large Scale Land

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What Drives Landowners to Resist Selling Their Land? Insights from Ethical Capitalism and Landowners’ Perceptions

Land ◽

10.3390/land10030312 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 312

Author(s):

Ruxandra Malina Petrescu-Mag ◽

Hamid Rastegari Kopaei ◽

Dacinia Crina Petrescu

Keyword(s):

Large Scale ◽

Critical Reflection ◽

Agricultural Land ◽

Urban Land ◽

Land Conversion ◽

Land Grabbing ◽

Ethical Perspective ◽

Land Acquisitions ◽

Large Scale Land ◽

Land Transactions

Foreign land grabbing is acknowledged as a phenomenon that generates disempowerment and dispossession of local farmers, human rights violations. Previous studies have revealed the lack of ethical benchmarks in foreign large-scale land transactions that raise moral concerns. It is evident that when resources are scarce and people depend on them, the balance between values and interests transforms itself into a dilemma. Within this context, the aims of the paper were to bring to the fore critical reflection on a more ethical perspective of large-scale land acquisitions and to extend the scant information on what factors determine landowners not to sell their land to foreigners to limit land grabbing. This context justifies the need for a critical reflection on a more ethical perspective of large-scale land acquisitions. Therefore, two objectives were set. The first one is to document the role of ethics in large-scale land transactions. Based on the land grabbing literature, authors selected a set of eight land grabbing narratives, most often interrelated and overlapping, that pose ethical considerations. The second objective is to reveal how well a set of variables can predict the “Resistance to sell” the land to foreigners even when an attractive price is offered. As ethics is a social construct, the analysis captured the stakeholders’ perspective on land grabbing. Therefore, a questionnaire was applied to a sample of 332 Romanian landowners from twelve randomly selected counties to reveal their perceptions. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to observe how well a set of seven variables could predict landowners’ “Resistance to sell” their land to foreign buyers. The use of PLS-SEM was justified by the existence of single items and the need to examine many structural model relations. Results showed that the variables with the strongest contribution to the prediction of the dependent variable are the “Probability to join an association for farmers rights defense”, the “Importance of the land price offered by the potential foreign buyer”, and the “Perceived effect of agricultural land conversion to urban land”. Raising awareness on the importance of buyer attributes, increasing people’s perception of the negative effect of agricultural land conversion to urban land, or strengthening the state’s image as a necessary actor to limit land grabbing will increase landowners’ resistance to sell their land to foreigners. Finally, it can be inferred that, within this frame of discussion, ethics should be valued as a means to create economically viable and morally justifiable solutions for foreign large-scale land transactions.

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