En el bosque de los Tres Ríos, en el norte de Benin, el inicio de la temporada agrícola es un punto de conflicto frecuente entre las comunidades locales y los funcionarios forestales. 

Es en este momento cuando se exigen tasas forestales que den permiso a los residentes para cultivar los campos o apacentar el ganado. Sin embargo, es precisamente en este momento cuando los agricultores se ven en apuros económicos para preparar sus tierras y obtener insumos para iniciar la nueva temporada.

In the Three Rivers gazetted forest of northern Benin, the start of the agricultural season is a frequent hotspot of conflict between local communities and forest officials. 

It is at this moment when demands are made for forest fees giving permission for residents to cultivate fields or graze their livestock. Yet this is exactly when farmers experience a financial squeeze in preparing their land and obtaining inputs to start the new season.

El maíz es un cultivo comercial clave a nivel mundial, que se produce en todos los continentes excepto en la Antártida. Como cultivo flexible, tiene múltiples usos, entre ellos el consumo humano directo, como ingrediente para la alimentación animal, como componente clave en los alimentos procesados o en la producción de etanol. Según cifras de FAOSTAT, la producción mundial aumentó de 0,2 a 1,2 mil millones de toneladas entre 1961 y 2020.

Maize is a key global cash crop, produced in every continent except Antarctica. As a flex crop, it has multiple uses including for direct human consumption, as an ingredient for animal feed, as a key component in processed foods, or in ethanol production. According to figures from FAOSTAT, global production increased from 0.2 to 1.2 billion tons between 1961 and 2020.

Colonial and apartheid land dispossession in South Africa was the most extensive of any country in sub-saharan Africa. Despite a land reform programme initiated after the transition to democracy in 1994, equitable access to land remains an unresolved question in both urban and rural areas.

Indigenous Peoples and local communities have successfully stewarded biodiversity rich landscapes for generations, helping to conserve and protect forests and other critical ecosystems while pursuing their own self determined priorities and livelihood needs. However, in the absence of legally recognized rights to their lands and forests, forest communities face an increasing array of threats from growing local and global demand for land and resources.

Since the turn of the century, 27,000 km2 of land in Cambodia has been deforested. This is 14.8% of total land area in the country. It also represents 26.4% of forest cover as existed in 2000.

An acceleration in deforestaton is seen from the early 2000s to 2010. For the land‐grab aficionado, the trend runs parallel to the ‘global land rush’ and mirrors the evolution of agricultural commodites prices.

Mining in the context of climate of climate change brings new challenges to the industry and exacerbates already existing sustainability problems. This Datastory highlights some of these tensions while pointing towards emerging best practice. The findings are based on document analysis and semi-structure structured interviews with corporate representatives from the 37 largest mining companies in the world.

Since the rise of the modern corporate economy, land wealth has been relegated to a simple footnote when it comes to addressing wealth and wealth inequality.