Un nuovo sito web per fare luce sul landgrabbing: si chiama Land Matrix e offre informazioni dettagliate e una mappatura dei territori soggetti a questo fenomeno. Ancora sconosciuto ai più, il landgrabbing non ha neppure una traduzione condivisa, anche se l'equivalente italiano "accaparramento della terra", restituisce il connotato violento del termine che indica la controversa e assai diffusa pratica per cui governi stranieri e società private si appropriano di grandi aree di terreno nei paesi in via di sviluppo, così da sfruttarne le risorse naturali.
A pagare le spese del landgrabbing sono soprattutto le popolazioni locali. Nonostante infatti le terre cedute ai governi di altri paesi e alle società straniere siano tecnicamente di proprietà statale, in realtà sono da sempre coltivate dagli abitanti del luogo che lavorano e vivono su questi terreni. Creata dalla Coalizione Internazionale per la Terra, Land Matrix intende informare e sensibilizzare il grande pubblico su questo fenomeno. Il sito contiene già informazioni dettagliate sulle oltre 1200 transazioni effettuate in tutto il mondo dal 2000 ad oggi.
The Land Matrix is an online public database of large-scale land deals. It provides a visualisation of records documenting land deals since 2000. The data you can explore represent about 50% of the entire data base. The remaining deals are being crosschecked and added, together with new data provided, on an on-going basis. The visualisations offer overview of the data as well as giving full access to the public database down to the level of an individual deal.
The public interface provides factual information in a systematic, clear, visual and accessible format. It facilitates the collection and representation of data; encourages citizens, researchers, governments, and companies to provide data and improve the quality of and access to data; as well as provide a regular and accessible analysis of the phenomenon.
You can explore data through different entry points, ranging from summaries that give insights to the content of the database, to direct access to the data for more in-depth exploration and analysis.
The Land Matrix is facilitated by a partnership of organisations with an interest in promoting transparency and accountability in decisions over land and investment through open data. The Land Matrix aims to provide a permanent observatory to which any user can contribute information.
The Land Matrix Public Interface is currently in Beta. Please provide any comments on how it could be more useful to you at landmatrixfeedback@landportal.info. Your comments will be considered in finalising the interface.
What type of land deals are monitored?
The land Matrix monitors land transactions in rural areas that are made for agricultural production (for food or agrofuel production), timber extraction, carbon trading, mineral extraction, conservation, and tourism. Transactions incorporated in the database fulfil the following criteria:
- Entail a transfer of rights to use, control or own land through sale, lease or concession;
- Have been concluded since 2000, when the annualised value of the FAO real food price index was at its lowest level;
- Cover an area of 200 hectares or more;
- Entail the conversion of land from local community use or important ecosystem service provision to commercial production;
- Directly involve, or backed by, domestic and/or foreign investors, which may be private actors, governments or government-backed private actors.
The complete Land Matrix database contained over 2,200 deals as of April 2012, with a total land area of over 200 million Ha. This public component of the database includes only those deals with a reliability ranking of >1, hence all figures on the website only refer to this subset. The process of verification is ongoing, and the website is automatically updated as new data is added.
Sources
Records are derived from a variety of sources that include media reports, reports by international and local organisations and NGOS and field-based research projects. These sources are partly accessed through two active Internet portals dealing with land transactions: www.commercialpressureonland.org and www.farmlandgrab.org. Company websites and government records are also used where these are available.
Procedures for building database
1. Data input: Data from the above sources is collated and entered into the relevant fields of the Land Matrix database by a small team. Each record is assigned a reliability code (See table below). Information is sought for over 30 fields for each deal, but for legal reasons only 8 fields that cannot be interpreted as allegations are published at this stage.
2. In-country data checking: The data entry team circulates subsets of the data to contacts of the partners in host countries to check the records. The checked records and new records added by country contacts are assigned a reliability code 2 (See table below). The process for in-country checking varies from one country to another. It includes personal interviews or direct personal knowledge of the transaction, as well as access to research that has not yet been published.
Table: Reliability Codes
| 0 | Land transactions reported by the press or other means that have not been triangulated. |
| 1 | - Land transactions reported in research papers based on empirical evidence through field research.
- Company websites (information on the main fields, such as: size, produce, and year. (Information on controversial issues, such as consultations, was not entered).
- Government records (this was particularly the case for mining and forest concessions).
- Other reliable sources considered on a case-by-case basis, e.g., press interviews with the investor.
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| 2 | Land transactions checked by the Land Matrix Partnership through questionnaires submitted to organisations working in the host country. |
| 3 | Land transactions of which contractual agreements have been made available by public sources. |
3. Data error-checking: In order to avoid inaccuracies, the current Land Matrix database underwent a final error-checking process. The Land Matrix does not seek to validate or ground-truth the data contained in the sources themselves. Records classified as ?1', ?2', and ?3', were assigned to a small team of researchers who checked a subset of data against the source provided in the database. Where corrections were necessary or questions arose, researchers followed a common procedure for correcting or flagging inaccuracies, or adding additional sources. Records that had been error-checked were returned to a central contact point for further corrections where necessary and then reintegrated into the main Land Matrix database. This error-checking process sought, where possible, to eliminate multiple records that refer to the same land transaction and to eliminate records for which a source could not be confirmed.
4. Crowdsourcing: By using the crowdsourcing function of this website, any user is able to submit details on a deal. This information is cross-checked by the partnership before it is included in the database. Comments made on existing deals remain on the website, unless the deal is removed from the database.
Note
- The result of this process is that only records and fields that have been subjected to the final error-checking process are publically available on this website.
- Other data records will not be released until there is sufficient data to assign them a reliability code of ?1', ?2', or ?3'. However, these records do contribute to the global and regional aggregate figures periodically published by the Land Matrix Partnership.
- The error-checking process has confirmed that data in the Land Matrix is correct according to the sources given for each record. It has not in most cases validated or ground-truthed the data contained in the sources themselves.
- Whilst the Partnership endeavours to ensure that all errors have been corrected, some may still remain due to human error. We welcome and encourage the giving of any information that can help improve the accuracy of our records.
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