LAND GRABBING & CONFLICT
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Practises changed
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Policies Changed
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agendas changed
The global rush for land exacerbates inequality, fueling conflicts
What is land grabbing, exactly?
- Land grabbing happens when big companies, governments, or powerful people take control of large areas of land—often much more than what local farmers usually own
- Land grabbing, frequently analyzed through the framework of Large-Scale Land Acquisitions (LSLAs), is defined across three core dimensions:
- Transfer of Use, Control, or Ownership Rights: Land grabbing refers to transactions involving the transfer, or attempted transfer, of legal or operational rights to use, control, or own land through direct sales, long-term leases, or state concessions. In global monitoring databases such as the Land Matrix Initiative, these transactions specifically cover deals of 200 hectares or more that have been concluded since 2000
- Conversion of Local and Subsistence Territories: It encompasses the reallocation and potential conversion of land away from smallholder agriculture, pastoralism, communal resource access, or local ecosystem stewardship toward commercial and industrial production. These transfers frequently take place at the expense of local inhabitants and rights-holders, often occurring without obtaining genuine Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC)
- Dispossession of Customary and Inhabited Landscapes: Land grabbing operates by dispossessing traditional communities and converting public, collective, or informally held customary lands into private or corporate holdings. This directly dismantles investment narratives that claim target lands are "barren," "empty," or "underutilized," as documented deals heavily overlap with populated rural landscapes and ancestral Indigenous territories
For more on what land grabbing is, see FAO's publication, "What is Land grabbing?"
Our research shows that since 2010, over 26.7 million hectares of land have been claimed by private interests.
These interests are often backed by domestic elites. The land rush exploits historical inequalities from colonial and commercial land exploitation.
Indigenous Peoples and local communities who live on and from the world’s remaining biodiversity hotspots are the most affected by land grabs. Many affected communities lack legal land titles, undermining their ability to defend their rights. As of 2021, only 15% of the 250 large-scale land acquisitions for which Land Matrix had relevant data, report that free prior and informed consent was given.
Driven by large-scale agriculture, tourism, infrastructure, and increasingly climate mitigation projects, the land rush can displace communities entirely. Since 2000, recent analyses estimate that between 177 million and 250 million people have been directly affected by documented agricultural land deals globally. Investors often claim they are acquiring "barren" or "unused" land where, in reality, target lands have a median population density of 55 people per square kilometer, nearly identical to the global average population density.
Other times, it restricts their access to lands, making their ways of life untenable due to the loss of communal grazing grounds and traditional farming areas or the fact that many lands are rendered infertile or unfit for cultivation.
The impacts ripple across entire regions. Ecosystems degrade due to unsustainable use, food systems fragment, poverty and inequality deepen, and social and cultural structures fall apart. In this way, the land rush not only exacerbates inequality, but often escalates already existing conflicts or leads to new ones– between and among communities, private entities, and in bigger geopolitical contexts.
In fact, World Bank data indicates that 56% of global conflicts are land-related.
Indeed, modern land acquisitions rely on complex legal and financial tools that make accountability difficult. Private equity firms, pension funds, and offshore tax havens conceal the ultimate beneficiaries of land deals, insulating investors from human rights claims. Across global land deals, only 28% report conducting Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) with local populations, and 78% involve active land disputes.
We push for people-centred land governance-- championing the dignity of communities living on and from the land -- to address the root causes of the land rush.
Resisting Land Grabs in Argentina
Tackling the Issues
Our network has compiled a series of regionally-adaptable tools to prevent land grabbing and land grabs: from evidence-based advocacy and legal actions to the development of community land registries through participatory mapping. Explore some case studies below.
Taking on land grabs
A data-based approach
Land Matrix is promoting transparency & accountability in decisions over large-scale land acquisitions, by capturing and sharing data about these deals on its online open-access platform. Since 2012, the Land Matrix has captured 7,117 concluded deals, covering over 50 million hectares of land. Beyond traditional commercial agriculture and forestry, the platform’s scope has evolved to systematically monitor emerging drivers of global land pressure, including land-based carbon offset projects in the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM), clean energy infrastructure, and transition mineral mining. Today, the database tracks nearly 100 million hectares (99.9 million ha) across more than 3,400 operational deals.
To Land Matrix
Reducing land conflicts
We work with members to develop and implement practical skills to document and protect their lands, including land use planning and participatory mapping skills. Often, mapping lands is the first step to getting a land title.
Always, when communities have clearly delineated lands, risk of conflicts dramatically decrease.
These three stories of how participatory mapping has changed lives in three communities in Togo, Indonesia, and Uganda:
The community land protection initiative
Together with Namati, and the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the Community Land Protection Initiative is equipping ILC members with the practical skills to support communities to document and protect their indigenous and customary lands.
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