commentary
Commentary, March 23, 2018

GREEN GRABBINGINDUCED DISPLACEMENTSARA VIGIL

T

he complex impacts of climatechange on human mobility havegained increased attention, but an invisible and growing number of people are also being displaced – paradoxically –by the very measures taken in the name ofaddressing it. Although mitigation and adaption interventions are crucial in order to decrease the likelihood of forced displacement,
climate response measures such as agro-fuelproduction and carbon forest projects havebeen amongst the main drivers of the global
land rush which is unprecedented in scale
since the colonial era1. These green grabs, or‘appropriations of natural resources for environmental ends’2, are serving to cleanse theimage of polluters, with devastating socialand environmental consequences. The logic
behind market-driven initiatives is that weshould ‘sell nature in order to save it’3 and thatunsustainable practices in one place can berepaired by sustainable ones in another4. With
regard to displacement, they assume that
their negative effects can be balanced by thegains in environmental protection5. However,and although the presence of certain entities(mostly corporations and extractive industries) is indeed negative for the environment,
it is local populations and indigenous peoples– who are the best positioned to protect natural resources – that are being evicted. Although not generally recognized as a part ofclimate or environmental-induced displacement debates, the links with this category are
twofold: 1/ when climate change policies
drive land grabs and the eviction of local
populations; 2/ when climate mitigation oradaptation projects destroy local resources,

1 For the most reliable figures, see the Land Matrix.

4 M. Leach, J. Fairhead and J. Fraser, “Green Grabs and Biochar:

2 J. Fairhead, M. Leach and I. Scoones,. “Green Grabbing: A New

Revaluing African Soils and Farming in the New Carbon
Economy”, The Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 39, no. 2, 2012, pp.
285-307.
5 A. Agrawal and K. Redford. 2009. “Conservation and Displacement: An Overview”, Conservation and Society, vol. 7, no. 1,
2009, p. 1.

©ISPI 2018

Appropriation of Nature?”, Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 39, no.
2, 2012, pp. 237-61.
3 A. McAfee, “Selling Nature to Save It? Biodiversity and Green
Developmentalism. Environment and Planning D”, Society &Space, vo. 17, no. 2, 1999, p. 133.
Sara Vigil, Hugo Observatory, University of Liège and Ispi

1

The opinions expressed herein are strictly personal and do not necessarily reflect the position of ISPIThe ISPI online papers are also published with the support of Fondazione Cariplocommentary
Afforestation and reforestation schemes in
Uganda, conducted under the Clean Development Mechanism, have also evicted approximately 20,000 residents who had been
living on their land since 197510. Given the lackof recognised rights for populations and thecorruption of elites, the distribution of benefits
from these projects is often captured by local
and international elites rather than distributed
equally amongst local populations11. On theother hand, whilst employment creation isoften presented as the main benefit oflarge-scale biofuel plantations by governments, investors, and local populations
themselves, de facto employment creation
tends to be scarce, seasonal, or unreliable.
For example, around the Lac de Guiers inSenegal,
thelivelihoodsof9,000
semi-nomadic herder populations have been
infringed upon by a land acquisition whichclaimed to produce sweet potatoes for ethanol export to Europe and that failed to deliver production and employment promises.
As land that was previously used for agriculture and grazing has been converted, communities have been either displaced or left
with little more options than to move12. In fact,
plantations are often highly mechanized andhave a much lower labor input than thesmall-scale family farms that they often replace. In Mozambique, a biofuels company
that had estimated employment creation for
2,650 people had only created 35 to 40 full

forcing people off their land in what could beseen as a form of tertiary displacement6.
Examples from Africa
How diverse ‘green’ interventions impact thehuman mobility of local populations depends
on a variety of factors ranging from the social
and tenure arrangements already in place, tothe purpose of the project, the negotiation
power of populations, the level of rule of law
in the host country, and how the costs andbenefits are distributed7. Although land andgreen grabs are occurring worldwide, it is incountries where the protection of humanrights is low, or inexistent, that they havereached the most alarming peaks. Due to a
combination of international and domestic
drivers, Africa has been by far the most targeted continent8. Tropical forests are typically under the formal control of the government and it is relatively simple to expropriatethem from inhabitants in the name of climate
mitigation. When tenure is not formalised,
populations have little negotiation power andcan be labelled as illegal settlers and evictedwithout compensation. For example, in theRufiji Delta in Tanzania, the state portrayedinhabitants who had been occupying the land
for millenia as recent migrants and poor
stewards of the mangrove forest. This false
portrayal has justified their expulsion in thename of REDD+, deprived them of their livelihoods, and created considerable conflicts9.

©ISPI2018

6 S. Vigil, “Climate Change and Migration. Insights from theAdding Insult to Injury: Climate Change, Social Stratification, and theInequities of Intervention, vol. 22, no. 2, 2012, pp. 332-41.
10 R. Carrere,. “Carbon Sink Plantation in Uganda : Evicting
People for Making Space for Trees”. Upsetting the Offset: The
Political Economy of Carbon Markets, 2009, pp. 98-101.
11 E.O. Sills, S. Atmadja, C. de Sassi, A.E. Duchelle, D. Kweka, I.a.P.
Resosudarmo, and W.D. Sunderlin (Eds.), REDD+ on the Ground: A
Case Book of Subnational Initiatives across the Globe, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor, Indonesia, 2014.
12 S. Vigil, ‘Without Rain or Land, Where Will Our People Go?
Climate Change, Land Grabbing and Human Mobility. Insightsfrom Senegal and Cambodia’, 2016.

Sahel”, in Out of Africa. Why People Migrate, Milano, Ledi Publishing-ISPI, 2017, pp. 51-71 ; S. Vigil, “Green Grabbing-Induced Displacement”, Handbook on Environmental Displacement and Migration, Routledge, 2017.
7 B. White, M. Saturnino, Jr. Borras, R. Hall, I. Scoones, and W.
Wolford, “The New Enclosures: Critical Perspectives on Corporate Land Deals”, Journal of Peasant Studies, vo. 39, no. 3-4,
2012, pp. 619-47
8 Land Matrix (2017).
9 B.A. Beymer-Farris and T.J. Bassett, “The REDD Menace:Resurgent Protectionism in Tanzania’s Mangrove Forests”,

2commentary
time jobs two years after its approval13. Moreover, the growing demand for land for climate
interventions increases the value of the landthat millions of people depend upon for theirlivelihoods. Although this could bring opportunities to certain farmers, it can also translate
into the inability for the poorest to accessneeded farmland and to further increase thenumbers of involuntary migrants. Concerning
destinations, and as occurs with any othertype of movement, migration tends to remaininternal, inter-regional, and south-south. Themain explanatory factor is that people need ahigher amount of human, financial, social, andnatural capital to be able to move longer distances. Since green grabs take place in countries that are often incapable of absorbing thelabour they expelled, they are contributing tohigher inequality, exclusion, and increasing theplanet of slums14. Moreover, displacement also describes situations in which some people
are deprived of their productive lands or income-generating assets without being physically evicted15. Mobility is just one of the possible outcomes emanating from a multifaceted ‘package of losses’ including the loss ofsocial networks and capital, economic andmaterial goods and power, political and legal
rights, and even of cultural moorings16. Lacking the necessary assets to make a move,
many of those who lose land become ‘involuntarily immobile’ 17 and in conditions of increased social vulnerability.

The perverse impact of bad “solutions”
Amongst those interested in forced displacement, there remains a tendency to analyse the drivers of displacement as a result ofvisible disruptions such as natural disasters,development projects, or civil wars, and tounderstand movements following lack oftenure, market calamity, or debt asout-migration rather than as evictions. Thismeans that the forces underlying and coercing people to move – such as land and green
grabs – often remain invisible and analyzed
through the lenses of ‘labour migration’ 18 .
However, when climate projects are implemented in countries where human rights
protection is low or inexistent, they are de
facto serving as a mechanism to legitimize
the expulsion of the most vulnerable and tofurther reinforce and centralise the control ofnatural resources in the hands of the politicaland corporate elites which are responsible forclimate change to begin with. Solving thevery real problem of anthropogenic climatechange through exactly the same mechanisms that created it (e.g. the market in theabsence of social protection), will not only
take us further from the 2°C commitment, butwill also contribute to delegitimizing the vitally important cause of climate change altogether. These indirect impacts of climate
policy should thus be urgently addressed inorder to avoid further ‘green grabbing-induced displacement’19, and to preventthe impoverishment of the most socio-environmentally vulnerable populations.

©ISPI2018

13 E. Aabø and T. Kring, ‘The Political Economy of Large-Scale

Agricultural Land Acquisitions: Implications for Food Security
and Livelihoods/Employment Creation in Rural Mozambique’,2012. pp.32-35.
14 M. Davis, Planet of Slums, London, New York, Verso, 2006.
15 M. Cernea, 2005. ‘Restriction of Access’ Is Displacement: ABroader Concept and Policy.’ Forced Migration Review, vol. 31, 2005,
pp. 48-49.
16 S.C. Lubkemann, 2008. ‘Involuntary Immobility: On a Theoretical Invisibility in Forced Migration Studies’, Journal of RefugeeStudies, vol. 21, no. 4, 2008, pp. 454-75.
17 J. Carling, 2002. ‘Migration in the Age of Involuntary Immo-bility: Theoretical Reflections and Cape Verdean Experiences’,
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol. 28, no. 1, 2002, pp. 5-42.
18 S. Sassen, ‘Expelled: Humans in Capitalism’s Deepening Crisis’.
Journal of World-Systems Research, vol. 19, no. 2, 2013, pp. 198-201.
19 S. Vigil, 2015a. ‘Displacement as a Consequence of Climate
Change Mitigation Policies’. Forced Migration Review, no. 49,
2015, pp. 43-45. S. Vigil, ‘Green Grabbing-Induced Displacement’, in Handbook on Environmental Displacement and Migration,
Routledge.

3