Abstract
Abstract. The rapidly increasing interest of foreign investors in land in the global South, also termed land grabbing, has been widely discussed as potentially supportive, but often rather harmful for local populations. Combining a critical livelihoods perspective with access theory and a bargaining model, this study scrutinizes local people's perceptions of the land investments, power relations during land negotiations and intra-community differences. By analysing two European forestry companies in Tanzania, we have chosen a sector and a country with presumably more positive outcomes for local populations. The deals resulted in not only labour opportunities and infrastructural improvements, which are mainly perceived as positive, but also cases of violated land rights, inadequate compensation and decreased food security. Hence, even under favourable preconditions, the consequences for local people are ambivalent. With this study, we contribute to a differentiated analysis of the contested role of large-scale land deals in contemporary rural development.
Highlights
The rapidly increasing interest of foreign investors in land in the global South is a prominent phenomenon of new rural dynamics, often termed global land rush or land grabbing
Tanzania was chosen as case study country owing to its relatively abundant land availability (Deininger, 2011) and its laws recognising customary land rights (Alden Wily, 2012)
While it was developed to analyse international joint ventures, we argue it can be applied in our case studies based on the long-term collaboration or at least acceptance that is needed between forestry companies and local people
Summary
The rapidly increasing interest of foreign investors in land in the global South is a prominent phenomenon of new rural dynamics, often termed global land rush or land grabbing. While much of the literature on the land rush examined land deals related to food or biofuels production, less attention has been paid to forestry plantations. Forestry plantations are profitable due to their wood products and as providers of carbon sequestration certificates that can be sold on the global market of greenhouse gas emission reductions They are long-term, highly vulnerable investments, prone to fires and illegal harvesting. Tanzania was chosen as case study country owing to its relatively abundant land availability (Deininger, 2011) and its laws recognising customary land rights (Alden Wily, 2012) While both analysed cases focus on forestry plantations in Tanzania, they differ in terms of local land availability, type of acquired land (individual or communal land holding) and offered compensation (in cash or in kind). The article closes with a discussion of the findings and concluding remarks regarding the land rush phenomenon
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