Land Grabbing in Senegal

해결

1. The impact of land grabbing[1] at the expense of the local farmers’ livelihood is tremendous, for example causing food and nutrition insecurity, lack of access to energy for women, threatening natural resources, etc

2. Land grabbing is also a source of social instability for rural communities who claim their rights to have access to land and defend the interests of local communities against foreign interests.

3. Currently 12 farmers, members of the “Collectif des 99 paysans sans Terre de Diokoul” who have been evicted from their land by a farmer named “Mame Tolla Wade” for more than 6 years, have been held in jail for more than a month now in Louga, northern Senegal.  They were imprisoned because they demonstrated by cutting the barbed wire fence around the 3000 hectare farm in a sign of impatience to regain their lands ahead of the coming rainy season.

4. In February 2011 on the occasion of the World Social Forum held in Dakar, The Greens with local partners expressed their concern on the land grab phenomenon.

5. The Global Greens, meeting in Dakar, extend their congratulations to the newly elected President and to the Senegalese people, and call on the President-elect to address the land grab issue as a matter of priority and take the measures necessary for the release of the 12 farmers, who are fighting for their rights to land and to survival for themselves and their families.

[1] Land grabbing is when companies, governments and individuals (often foreign) make large scale land acquisitions in developing countries.