Monitoring land transactions

Much knowledge on land-oriented investments projects currently comes from the media. Although this provides a good starting point, lack of transparency and rapidly changing contexts mean that this is often unreliable. The International Land Coalition, in partnership with Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD), University of Pretoria, Centre for Development and Environment of the University of Bern (CDE), GIGA and GIZ, with the support of OXFAM, started to compile an inventory of land-related investments.

This project aims to better understand the extent, trends and impacts of land-related investments by supporting an ongoing and systematic stocktaking exercise of the various investment projects currently taking place worldwide. It involves a large number of organizations and individuals working in areas where land transactions are being made, and able to provide details of such investments.

The project monitors land transactions in rural areas that imply a transformation of land use rights from communities and smallholders to commercial use, and are made both by domestic and foreign investors (private actors, governments, government-back private investors). The focus is on investments for food or agrofuel production, timber extraction, carbon trading, mineral extraction, conservation and tourism. The timeframe considered goes from 2000, when the FAO food price index was lowest.

Up to now, over 2000 deals have been recorded across 100 countries. Details of such transactions have been classified in a global matrix and cross-referenced. This is an open database enabling a continued monitoring exercise and the improvement of data accuracy. A public interface allowing users to explore and comment on the details of the transactions will be launched in April 2012.