Fodder for War: Getting to the Crux of the
Natural Resources Crisis*
JANUARY | 2010 Liz Alden Wily
land to loggers, miners, rubber or other plantation
INTRODUCTION
companies, and especially now, commercial food
Let me begin with a polemic to get my main point
and bio-fuel producers. Best if you can back this up
across as to the connection between inequitable
with a contract which will hold under international
land rights and conflict.
law, and even better to back in up with a State to
Let me put it this way: what is the best way to State agreement.
start a civil conflict today?
But don’t forget to pay the customary land owners
Well, one way is territorial invasion and respondent a little something for the crops or buildings they
resistance. This has a pretty solid history – and is lose; this will help keep resentment down.
still seen in some of the older conflicts grinding on Obviously you don’t have to do this for the forests,
today (the Basque and Kurdish conflicts, Israel/ pastures or other lands which are not farmed. For
Palestine) but we are seeing this less and less - with there really is no visible evidence that these lands
one or two painful recent exceptions (Chechnya, are ‘theirs’. Look, the trees are still standing. [If you
Ossetia, Iraq). need more excuses to concur with the likely
PARTNERS national law of that country, then you have it in
There is a simpler way, and one which can produce two facts: they hold the unfarmed communally, not
much more chronic conflict: first, operate in an as single owners. In addition, it seems that when it
agrarian state. This is a country where most of the comes to unfarmed land, the community by
population depends upon land, not jobs, for custom does allow this to be sold. And we all know
survival. Then curtail their rights to those that ‘property’ is only ‘property’ when it is fungible,
resources; land, forests, pastures, rangelands and able to sold. Well, that’s what western law says
wetlands. The easiest way to do this is actually to anyway, and it is always right].
do nothing, just sustain often old colonial policies
which deny that these rights exist; that is to say, Now offer a few jobs in your new enterprise. Or
that these rural communities are in law no more better still, like the Chinese in Cameroon today,
than permissive occupants and users of national or hand out a few ‘bodo bodo’ bicycles with large
State land. back seats and front baskets so they can leave the
area altogether and start taxi services in town. And
Then, add to this the ‘needs’ of the State and its then ignore the matter and let it fester...
associated elites with their deep pockets. Lease this Does this sound unlikely? Well, no. Over the last
half century nearly one hundred of the world’s
countries, many of them bitterly poor, have tended
* This presentation was given to a Public Meeting at the Overseas
to this position. In so doing they deny that
Development Institute, London, 26 November 2009, to launch Uncharted
longstanding rural populations own the land they
Territory: Land, Conflict and Humanitarian Action, ed. Sara Pantuliano,
Practical Action Publishing, 2009.
and their forefathers have lived on for centuries. In
JANUARY | 2010
Meanwhile many other poor economies which had
their well-crafted laws, they gently take away these
limited feudal inequities to repair, simply persisted
properties, the very assets they need to clamber
in the convenient notion that such lands don’t
out of poverty.
belong to people but to government, in the interest
of public purpose. It is around these precious
In one way or another we are seeing the results on
resources that most contestation now begins to
every agrarian continent, whether it is the peri-
show itself. Whose land is it? is the cry beginning to
urban villages of China, the forest dwelling
be heard from state to state.
populations of the Congo Basin, the customary
landholding majority in most African states, the
My concern is that our new century may be riven
indigenous and introduced slave populations of
with as much civil conflict as the last and
Latin America, or simply the long forbearing
inequitable land relations may be as big a factor as
land-poor of South Asia, who still till the land for
in the past.
generation after generation for unreformed feudal
landlords, most of whom are businessmen and
Looking back in terms of property relations, the
bureaucrats and don’t even live on the farm
20th century ended with significant progress in
(Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh).
more equitable distribution of farmlands around
much of the agrarian world.
The point I am trying to make is straightforward:
that equitable land relations matter and that
Looking forward, we can expect significant
sustained abuse takes its toll.
progress in the redistribution of property power
between people and the State by the end of the
We don’t have to look far for the evidence. The 20th
century. However, like the last, without clear and
century was one of state to state war. But it also
pre-emptive will to reform, this may not occur
was a century of rebellion, revolution, and civil war,
without rebellion, conflict, and even civil war.
and radical transformation of political systems, at
least partly brought about by resistance to
This is why working to tackle the inequitable
persisting feudal land norms. More than 50
property relations that underwrite so much of
different countries were forced to reform the way
modern, struggling agrarian society is the urgent
they treat rural land ownership. In practice, well
project of the ‘now’.
under half made significant progress and challenge
to feudal land relations remains on the agenda
In the process, we must hope to see two important
today.
structural changes in the agrarian world. Firstly, a
degree of reconstruction of the agrarian State itself
And even were reforms were undertaken, many
as it revitalises its role as serving, not taking from
administrations, took the opportunity to capture
its citizenry. Secondly, we need to see new meaning
naturally collective assets in particular – the
of ‘development’; development as meaning
forests, woodlands, wetlands, and pastures of rural
progressive agrarian enterprise which is founded
communities. Through this the State, if not the
upon the landholding rights of the rural poor, not
feudals, remained into the 21st century the
built upon its dispossession. In this way we can
majority landlords, while the natural and
hope to see the indigenous peoples of Peru for
customary owners remained dispossessed.
example, or the ordinary rural communities of the
3
DRC, become rightful shareholders in social change, how much more natural forest estate is being
not its casualties. acknowledged as community property.
MAIN POINTS 2 However progress is too dangerously slow
- probably too slow to yet prevent rising
Let me summarise ten main background points.
numbers of civil conflicts – and the costs are
1 Progress is being made in connecting mounting.
inequitable land relations and conflicts.
In Afghanistan for example, failure since the Bonn
Land and property issues are now better Agreement to swiftly resolve bitter inter-tribal
placed on the agenda than they were even five conflict as to pasture access that stems from
years past. Humanitarian and reconstruction disputed State ownership, is opening a new front in
agents in conflict states are taking a deeper look at the ongoing war against insurgents. Taliban have
the issues and moving beyond a narrow focus upon begun to actively support and arm fellow Pashtun
restitution of property wrongfully taken during the tribesmen in this land conflict. This now raises the
war. The knee-jerk reaction of donors to solve land prospect of reactive threat of Iranian support for
problems with house and farm registration, is often the non-Pashtun Shia tribes. Meanwhile, the land
being rethought. conflict can be seen to be handing the Taliban with
a new and powerful social agenda. A taste of this
In the land tenure reform sector as a whole, and was seen in Pakistan in early 2009 as Taliban
within and outside conflicted states, great progress grasped the utility of engaging landless tillers in
has been made since 1995 in revisiting the position their war against entrenched feudal notables.
of most agrarian populations as tenants of State.
In Sudan a more typical source of future conflict
In Latin America this has focused on indigenous unfolds. A main cause in the long North-South civil
peoples, with a rising number of land grants. In war from 1984 was State leasing of some millions of
Africa this more widely embraces entire rural hectares of customary rangelands and woodlands
populations through changing the legal status of to entrepreneurs, including foreigners, on the basis
unregistered and customary ownership in national that these belonged to Government, not local
laws. In Asia and Central Asia both in different ways communities. Despite pledging to reassess the
cautiously and much more slowly begin to apply. status of customary property interests in the Peace
We see this is the quietly increasing grip of Agreement of January 2005, President Omar al
customary tenure in Indonesian law, in the way in Bashir has re-launched mass leasing of lands. An
which Nepal, Afghanistan and Liberia ponder the estimated five million ha are already in the hands
usefulness of retaining all pasture and forest of State or state-supported enterprise of Egypt, Abu
resources as state property. Dhabi, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, UAE
and South Korea – for rice, maize, dairy, livestock
As a whole, the balance of State-people landholding production. All this is to feed their own food-short
is shifting (for the issue at this point is first and populations. Needless to say, militias are allegedly
foremost an issue of their property relationship, reforming in many of the affected areas.
rather than among social classes). Observant
3 The key source of the problem is common
forest-related agencies, for example, begin to note
across agrarian states. It is that most rural
JANUARY | 2010
intentions, but in the growing angry response by
populations in agrarian economies are still
the rural poor [see Robin Palmer’s excellent
little better than squatters on their own land,
collation of clippings and papers].
in the eyes of their country laws.
Not surprisingly, this makes their collective
5 Mining, logging, ranching, farming, and other
properties most vulnerable; the areas which they
commercial enterprise are hardly illegitimate.
sensibly retain as community owned rather than
individual or family land: forests and rangelands,
Poor countries and ordinary farmers need
often full of minerals and water.
investment and technical expertise. This is not
disputed. What must be disputed is the strategy:
This is not a small problem. It affects over one
the failure to root these developments on a
billion of the world’s rural poor in Asia, Central Asia,
platform of local tenure recognition. To do so
Latin America, and Africa.
would structure enterprise with, rather than
4 Nor is it coincidental that these are the areas against, rural populations. It is this failure which
– and especially in Africa – where most civil has the most potential to generate new conflict in
wars and lesser conflicts are rife. these countries.
In January 2008 when I was preparing the chapter in Consider the facts: who, for example, are the
Uncharted Territory: Land, Conflict and traditional and continuing customary owners of
Humanitarian Action, I identified 70 significant the ten million ha of valuable rural real estate
current conflicts in 43 states, the most recent of which the Government of the Democratic Republic
which was in Kenya where post-election violence of Congo is reported to have offered to a South
segued quickly into inter-tribal battles over African Farmers Union for development? Who is the
ancestral lands. Only 15 of the 70 conflicts were not natural owner of the 10,000 ha which the Cameroon
in agrarian economies and nearly half (48%) were in Government has leased to China for rice production
Africa. On further examination, there is a close and where, perhaps to the surprise of the Chinese
correlation of conflict with (i) the proportion of company, they have begun to find is not vacant,
land area under state rather than citizen unoccupied or unowned land after all?
ownership; (ii) the existence in rural areas of
6 Conflict in and around this grievance can
majority unrecognised customary ownership; (iii)
increase – and the signs are it will increase.
levels of rural poverty and institutional weakness
– and increasingly, (iv) a correlation with
The current ‘global land grab’ is merely grist to the
proclaimed land availability for inter-state
mill. Popular response to the plan to lease 1.3
supported biofuel and especially food farming
million ha of customary property in Madagascar to
leases.
the Daewoo Corporation saw the fall of the
government in March 2009. Tanzanians have
Of course this is not entirely new, as it follows on
queried the lease of their common properties to
from some decades of equally dispossessory
Chinese and other investors and new developments
leasing of forest estate and pasturelands for
have been paused.
logging and mining enterprise. A quick run through
the press over the last couple of years in Africa
makes salutary reading, not just in respect of the
5
seeking food security but to make money out of
Yet it would be wrong to say that just solutions will
food insecurity, rising food shortages and prices,
be easily reached. Rumour has it that the response
that is, from both the harvests and the land itself.
of the Tanzanian Government for example, has
They seek land in mainly Africa because it is cheap
been to consider amending recently reformed land
to lease, bountiful and host Governments seem
law which recognised community ownership of not
only too eager to rent out ‘their’ lands. So far this
just farms and houses, but communal properties of
has been through less-than-transparent
each community to rid itself of this now apparent
agreements and within which local benefit is vague
obstruction. In Ethiopia, the position of ultimate
at best.
State ownership over all land has allegedly
hardened to facilitate the many new foreign
GRAIN, among others (e.g. the UN Special
business land occupations.
Rapporteur on the Right to Food), also throws cold
7 There are elements in the process which are water on the time-old response of the industrial-
provocative to not just human rights but backed international community (notably FAO and
common sense. The World Bank, Japan and the G-8) to this
threatening conflict of interest. The response
The leasing of land by foreign governments and comes in the form of establishing a ‘win-win’ code
their agencies to feed their own populations most of conduct for foreign land and food security
afflicts Africa. This is a continent where few investments. The international press has broadly
countries produce enough to feed themselves and welcomed this. A sigh of relief around international
where a third of the population is hungry. Among agencies and companies can be heard. The
the 40 million ha known to have been leased since argument is ‘agricultural investment is needed and
late 2007 or under negotiation, half is in Africa. This this will be good for African economies, so let’s
is in countries where poor rural majorities live and make it work’. GRAIN raises the point that even the
depend upon not just farming but forest/woodland food security is unsound, that the answer lies not
and rangeland use: Ethiopia, DRC, CAR, Sudan, in the north taking and farming the lands of the
Cameroon, Kenya, Angola, Madagascar, south, but building upon existing family farm and
Mozambique, Zambia, and Malawi. local market development in poor agrarian states.
The real question, GRAIN says, is not ‘How do we
Local livelihood is almost always organized on a make these investments work? But ‘What farming
community or village basis, each community having and food systems will feed people without making
both its family farming areas and shared non- them sick, keep farmers on the farm instead of the
farmed resources. These are the target for city slums, and allow communities to prosper and
investors, and easily accessible because host thrive?’
governments either claim these lands are unowned,
or hold them in trust for local communities, a trust To this might be added the now-doubted returns of
which it has proven all too easy to abuse. large-scale estate farming in labour-rich economies
over the last sixty or so years. So too must a future
GRAIN reports that more foreign state or agency be challenged on moral and common sense
land for food applications and offers are in the grounds where African nations become the
pipeline. It remarks the trend of private investors farmyard of the industrialised world and the
getting in on the act: hedge funds, private equity Middle East, not quite the client future which
groups, and investment banks. This sector is not Africans envisioned for themselves.
JANUARY | 2010
humanitarian community, long used to focusing
upon the plight of refugees and displaced persons,
But history endlessly repeats itself and
a new version of displacement will present itself,
justifications can always be found. As recently as
involving growing numbers of farmers displaced
the 1970s large scale investor-based farming
from their own lands by the hand of their own
dispossessing customary owners caused war in
unthinking governments.
Sudan as much as the hacienda culture of Latin
America generated revolution after revolution last
9 Of course there is remedy - and a relatively
century. In the 1880s Europeans claimed that their
simple one at that – in principle.
carve-up of Africa was for the good of native
populations, for they would ‘gain Christianity and
This rests in long-overdue acknowledgement of
civilisation’. Today, those who make the deals will
customary land rights as equivalent to private
certainly be able to fill their pockets. For rural
property rights in this modern day and age and to
communities themselves? Well, they will gain some
be upheld in national constitutions and land laws
jobs (although the Chinese for one will bring their
as such. This is whether or not these lands are
own labour) and some foodstuffs produced will
customarily owned by individuals/families or
reach the local host market. But the costs will be
communities; whether or not the land is farm,
enormous, and not just the loss of use of their
forest or pasture; and whether or not local custom
traditional lands. Affected rural communities will
allows the latter classes to be sold outright or not.
lose their possession of this latent capital.
8 Moreover, the prospect of ever regaining As legally recognised land owners, communities,
secure tenure will be diminished. not the state, would then become the rightful and
logical lessor to non-local enterprise, should they
The fragile process of securing tenure which is so wish. This can and should happen by the
quietly advancing in these affected continents will assisting and vigilant hand of the State itself,
slow down or even be abandoned, as Governments government agencies fulfilling their rightful duty
make their choice in favour of global agriculture in to assist their citizens –not themselves - to develop
the interests of proclaimed greater economic good, their assets.
and most likely, through retaining and deepening
malformed norms and arrangements. Of course this is less easy in practice. It requires
modern Governments to surrender their landlord
Global agriculture will take off and affected roles over the most sought after resources in the
communities will find a curious shift in their world. Already even those who have made
property relations: where before they were in the significant progress in securing customary land
eyes of the law tenants of State, now they will be rights (e.g. Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique in
more accurately tenants of corporate international Africa) are found to be in danger of falling at the
enterprise. first attractive challenge to citizen land rights.
Everywhere, a clearer and tighter set of country
And not all can or will remain on these lands as legal norms need promotion and support. This
employment, such as it is, contracts with the means rooting customary land rights in such a
‘economic necessity of efficiency’. For the manner that it is these owners, not governments or
other agents, who become the direct shareholding
partners in the commercial development of their RESOURCES
lands. This has to directly include not just their
houses and farms, but the target of most land Refer to Pantuliano, S. (ed). 2009. Land, Conflict and
grabbing past and present whether it has been Humanitarian Action. Practical Action
local or international - the yet uncultivated Publishing, UK.
rangelands, woodlands and forests which belong And:
today and customarily to these rural communities. Agencies. 2009. South Koreans acquire huge
farmland in Tanzania. Daily Nation, Kenya,
To achieve such changes requires a mindset September 25, 2009.
change, and in a time when vested interest, Alden Wily, L. 2008. Whose Land is It? Commons and
corruption, and greed militate against change, and Conflict States Why the Ownership of the
where the meaning of ‘good government’ has lost Commons Matters in Making and Keeping
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resources and how they are and should be owned,
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is probably on the agenda. And sadly, the continent
Limit War. A Case from Afghanistan in
which can least afford it, Africa, is the most
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10 Finally, why should the humanitarian (ed. H. Young), Environmental Law Institute and
community be concerned over these issues? UNEP.
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who make the policies and deals, who have to clean Agricultural Investment and international land
up in civil conflicts, find the shelter and food for the deals in Africa. FAO, IIED and IFAD.
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Sunderlin, W., J. Hatcher and M. Liddle, 2008. From ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Exclusion to Ownership? Challenges and Liz Alden Wily is an international land tenure specialist and a
Opportunities in Advancing Forest Tenure Rights and Resources Initiative Fellow.
Reform. Rights and Resources Initiative,
Washington.
Wily, Liz Alden. (Contributing Author). Fodder for War: Getting to the Crux of the National Resources Crisis.
Washington: Rights and Resources Initiative, 2010.
The Rights and Resources Initiative is a global coalition to advance forest tenure, policy, and market
reforms. RRI is composed of international, regional, and community organizations engaged in conservation,
research, and development. For more information, visit www.rightsandresources.org.
This publication was made possible with the support of the Ford Foundation, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of
Finland, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Swedish International Development Cooperation
Agency, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and UK Department for International
Development. The views presented here are those of the authors and are not necessarily shared by the
agencies that have generously supported this work, nor all the Partners of the coalition.
Source: RRI