SAPA –
Over 55 million hectares of land has been grabbed in Africa since the year 2000, this is according to research presented at the Africa Land Grab conference held in Midrand. More land had been “grabbed” in Africa between 2000 and 2012 than in the rest of the world combined, Dr Blessing Karumbidza, senior research associate at the Durban University of Technology. Land grabs were broadly defined as large-scale land acquisitions which displaced vulnerable communities and farmers, with disregard for the rights of these people and social and environmental impacts.
They took place without free prior and informed consent, within the context of poor institutional governance structures. Large multinational companies, with the consent of the state, and the state itself, were implicated in land grabs.A contributing factor to land grabs was the legacy of the colonial land ownership system which, following decolonisation, left the question of who owned what land unresolved.
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