The Land Grabbers

February 13, 2012
In the latest by environmental journalist Pearce (When the Rivers Run Dry), politics and human rights take center stage. Bouncing around the globe, Pearce analyzes the practices of “land grabbers”—outsiders contentiously acquiring large-scale land rights—and exposes their often heavy-handed tactics. Whether in Tanzania, Australia, or Kenya, Pearce shows how land grabbers displace natives who have lived there for generations and who receive little or no help from national laws. Through personal interviews and stories, Pearce reveals how governments often work on the side of big corporations, with a “casual indifference to people’s rights.” As he makes clear, it’s dangerous to pretend that big commercial farming has any interest in feeding the world. His survey also extends beyond land grabbing, such as in a chapter dealing with the Chicago Board of Trade, which focuses on the evils of market speculators and day traders. While readers will find the lives and tribulations of uprooted natives captivating and troubling, the fact that these incidents are not localized to the Third World is part of Pearce’s message. Unfortunately the narrative becomes repetitive, resulting in the feeling of reading the same story over and over again. Agent: Jessica Woollard, the Marsh Agency.

April 15, 2012
New Scientist environmental and development consultant Pearce (The Coming Population Crash, 2010, etc.) documents widespread global "land grabs" by moneyed interests and the dire consequences for poor people around the world. In this wide-ranging but efficient book, the author looks at how purchases by foreign investors of massive tracts of land in countries in Africa, South America, the former Soviet bloc and elsewhere have often caused local ruin. Impoverished residents of these countries, he writes, often lose their land, homes and livelihoods as they are evicted to make way for new projects. Most often those projects are massive industrial farms, with the majority of profits enriching foreign companies and their investors. Pearce is acclaimed for his keen environmental reporting in books about water shortages (When the Rivers Run Dry, 2006) and climate change (With Speed and Violence, 2007), and here he discusses environmental impact, particularly regarding projects in which water sources are diverted or forests are razed. More often the author focuses on financial and societal consequences, particularly for those at the bottom of the economic totem pole. These big-ticket investment deals often influence and distort governments and the law. In one section, he details how international investment agreements can create an environment in which "[e]ven if the locals are starving or parched with thirst, in law the rights of the foreign investor come first." He also writes of how even well-meaning conservation groups' efforts to create protected wildlife zones in some countries can have the side effect of uprooting local residents. Pearce paints a bleak picture, with many seemingly insurmountable problems, but he provides an important look at a problem rarely discussed in the mainstream media. A well-researched, informative and accessible look at important economic and agricultural issues.

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Starred review from February 15, 2012
One of Britain's top environmental journalists, the author of nine energetically inquisitive books, Pearce tends to be skeptical of eco-doom-and-gloom. But in this knockout account of the enormous land grabs that occurred in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse and the concurrent, riot-sparking surge in food prices, he is mighty alarmed. Land is the living treasury of a nation's identity and culture, and responsible land use is the key to environmental health and financial stability. So when foreigners acquire millions of fertile, biologically diverse acres in developing countries for mega-industrial farms, much is at stake. Pearce boldly investigates land deals in Africa, Asia, Indonesia, Ukraine, and South America, asking tough questions about who is buying what and how, discovering, as he reports in this ardently detailed chronicle, that tyrannical and corrupt governments are selling property they do not own, forcing people to give up land that has been in their families for generations without compensation, even using land grabs to further sectarian violence. With a colorful international cast, including princes of petroleum, George Soros, Lord Rothschild, and self-styled wild man of Wall Street Philippe Heilberg, and imperialistic land grabs that, in the worst cases, link crimes against humanity and environmental tragedies, Pearce's provocatively fascinating expose raises complex and urgent issues.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)