Demand for land threatens world’s poorest, says Oxfam

It has been labelled a “land grab” fuelled by the need produce food, biofuels and building materials for people overseas.

The report, Land and Power, says up to 227m hectares have been sold, leased or licensed in large-scale land deals since 2001. Half of these deals are in Africa, and cover an area nearly the size of Germany.

It warns the situation is worsening because of increasing demand for food, the gathering pace of climate change, water scarcity and the drive towards non-food crops like biofuels.

In Uganda, the research claims that thousands of people have lost their homes and land to make way for a British timber company, the New Forests Company (NFC).

Evictees told Oxfam they were forcibly removed and left without enough food or money to send their children to school.

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Oxfam Chief Executive Dame Barbara Stocking said: “Many of the world’s poorest people are being left worse off by the unprecedented pace of land deals and the frenetic competition for land.

“The blinkered scramble for land by investors is ignoring the people who live on the land and rely on it to survive.”

One woman, a famer called Christine, told researchers: “All our plantations were cut down – we lost the banana and cassava. We lost everything we had. I was threatened – they told me there were going to beat me if we didn’t leave.”

On its website, NFC describes itself as a “sustainable and socially responsible forestry company”. It denies that it was involved in any of the evictions, which took place between 2006 and 2010.

The New Forests Company takes Oxfam’s allegations extremely seriously and will conduct an immediate and thorough investigation of them.

In a statement the company said: “The New Forests Company takes Oxfam’s allegations extremely seriously and will conduct an immediate and thorough investigation of them.

“Our understanding of these resettlements is that they were legal, voluntary and peaceful and our first hand observations of them confirmed this,” the statement said, adding that the firm’s practices are backed by the Forest Stewardship Council and International Finance Corporation.

Robert Devereux, New Forests Company’s chairman, told Channel 4 News he was “bemused” by Oxfam’s focus on the firm.

He also said some of the people evicted were “illegal encroachers”.

“We offered to make available funds to [the Ugandan] government to enable them to pay compensation which, as is consistent with their law and policy, they refused,” he explained.

“We have tried to tread a very delicate line between ensuring that the ‘illegal encroachers’ were nevertheless treated humanely and appropriately and not interfering in the legitimate actions of the democratically elected Ugandan government.”

Oxfam has welcomed NFC’s plans to investigate the claims, calling for the inquiry to be independent and transparent.

Dame Barbara said: “By launching the investigation the New Forests Company is acknowledging that something went terribly wrong in Uganda.

“However, this investigation must be carried out independently and transparently and its findings made public as soon as possible.”

The UN’s Committee on Food Security in Rome meets in Rome next month, and Oxfam will be pushing for new, tougher guidelines on pro-poor, pro-women land tenure.