$29.95 – Paperback / Transworld Publishers Ltd / United Kingdom
The Landgrabbers: The New Fight Over Who Owns The Earth
Across the world there is a land grab. Entire countries are being snatched from under the feet of native residents: Saudia Arabia now owns most of Ethiopia; the Rev Moon owns a slice of South America the size of Switzerland.
Triggered by the 2008 world food crisis and the credit crunch, this grab is not just about food. It is about securing commodities such as cotton, rubber or biofuels. And, in the name of conservation, about fencing in the world's wilderness. In the process, poor local nhabitants are being thrown out of their homes.
Fred Pearce's terrifying, topical new book lifts the lid on a global scandal and seeks the answers to questions such as:
Why is Goldman Sachs buying up the Chinese poultry industry?
What links a super-rich Saudi sheikh to Bill Clinton, Ethiopia's ex freedom-fighting prime minister and the wastelands of the Saharan fringe?
Who is buying Paraguay and Laos?
And why should we be scared?
