Dr Giuseppina Siciliano (SOAS), Dr Izabela Delabre (Birkbeck) & Professor Thomas Tanner (SOAS)

There has been a surge in transnational large scale land acquisitions by governments, corporations and private investors, to secure large tracts of land through long-term leases or purchase agreements, mainly in countries in Asia, Africa and South America. This phenomenon is defined as “land grabbing”, with the majority of land agreements being for agricultural or forestry purposes, and resulting in the appropriation of land and natural resources and enclosures for the production of trees or crops for food, renewable energy, and other industrial uses (Borras et al., 2016). 

These land appropriations have been associated with negative consequences on rural livelihoods and ecologies, human rights, and local food security of peasants, pastoralists, rural women and indigenous peoples, including their right to decide how these natural resources will be used (Delabre & Okereke, 2020). 

This project will investigate the European Union’s influence on, and interactions with land grabbing in South-East Asia, including how the European Union’s Biodiversity and Forest strategies for 2030 take into account local communities’ rights.   

Europe has been identified as one of the main actors of large-scale land acquisitions in the Global South (Borras et al., 2016). Almost 26% of the acquired land is used for forestry purposes (i.e. tree plantation), and the major countries targeted by European investments are located in Africa, Asia and South America. The literature on the involvement of European corporations and financial actors in the global land grab has shown that EU policies have encouraged the demand of land, such as the EU Renewable Energy Directive, the EU Investment Policy, the EU Trade Policy, the EU Land Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy (Siciliano et al., 2017).   

Alongside these trends, the EU Biodiversity and Forest strategies for 2030 adds complexity to the multi-scalar dynamics of land grabbing. Although the strategies aim to protect all remaining old-growth forest in Europe, without the reduction in the demand of forest products in the EU, the policy could have negative unintended consequences on populations, deforestation and emission reductions by displacing where logging takes place (Cerullo et al., 2023). Furthermore, these policies may embed particular ideals and norms that require further critical analysis, such as the role of transparency, verification, and global definitions of legality (for example, the EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade has been criticised for “regulatory imperialism” by imposing global definitions of legality and verification upon wood-exporting countries in the Global South (Myers et al., 2020)).  

By focusing on South-East Asia, Malaysia and Indonesia, two countries with timber trade relations with Europe, this studentship will shed light on the legal, macro-structural and micro-level aspects of the new European Union’s Biodiversity and Forest Strategies and their implications on land grabbing from a political ecology and environmental justice lens, with a focus on climate mitigation, north/south power relations, inequalities and environmental conflicts. The research will use mixed-methods, encompassing the analysis of primary and secondary data on European land acquisitions in the two selected countries, gathered through a comprehensive review of the literature on EU land deals, combined with the analysis of the current two most complete public datasets available on global land investments, i.e. the Land Matrix (Land Matrix, 2023), and environmental justice, i.e. the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJAtlas, 2023), as well as primary data collection with actors in the EU and in the case study countries.  

This studentship has four specific research objectives:   

1) to analyse the extent to which local communities’ rights are addressed by conducting a policy analysis of the European Union’s biodiversity and forest strategies for 2030;  

2) to examine trends in land grabbing of forestlands for agriculture, biofuels and timber plantations using the Land Matrix database;  

3) to explore environmental conflicts using the EJAtlas as well as primary data collection in the case study areas; 

4) to examine the interactions between the EU biodiversity and forest strategies and their politics of translation at local levels through primary data collection with actors in the EU, Malaysia and Indonesia. 

Closing date for applications is:  12pm (midday UK local time) on 31^st May 2024

Further details about the project may be obtained from: 

Dr Giuseppina Siciliano gs45@soas.ac.uk or Dr Izabela Delabre i.delabre@bbk.ac.uk 

Further information about PhDs at SOAS and how to apply:

Applicants interested in this award will need to ensure they submit an application for a PhD in Development Studies 

Further information about PhDs at SOAS University of London is available from our Doctoral School Admissions team who can be contacted at dsadmissions@soas.ac.uk  

Please note that this award is open to UK/Home Students only.  

There is a two-step procedure for applying.  

1. Step one, apply for your PhD Programme and be sure to mentioned that you are applying for the Bloomsbury PhD Studentship  

Guidance for applying to a Research Programme and information on what makes a complete application can found on our How to Apply webpages.  

2. Step 2, apply for the scholarship by 12pm (midday UK local time) on 31^st May 2024. You can access the scholarship application by clicking the following link: Online Scholarship Application Form 

Key References

Borras S., Seufert F., Backes S., Fyfe D., Herre R., Michele L., Mills E. (2016). Land grabbing and human rights: The involvement of European corporate and financial entities in land grabbing outside the European Union, European Union policy report. Available at: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2016/578007/EXPO_STU(2016)578007_EN.pdf 

Cerullo G., Barlow J.,  Betts M., Edwards D., Eyres A., Franca F., Garrett R., Swinfield T., Tew E., White T., Balmford A. (2023). The global impact of EU forest protection policies, Science Letters, 381: 6659. 

Myers R., Rutt R. L., McDermott C., Maryudi A., Acheampong E., Camargo M., Cầm H. (2020). Imposing legality: hegemony and resistance under the EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade (FLEGT) initiative. Journal of Political Ecology, 27:1.  

Delabre, I., & Okereke, C. (2020). Palm oil, power, and participation: The political ecology of social impact assessment. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 3(3), 642-662. 

Siciliano G.,  Rulli, M.C., and D’Odorico, P. (2017). European large-scale farmland investments and the land-water-energy-food nexus, Advances in Water Resources, 110.