Land Matrix: The Online Public Database on Land Deals
From the webpage:
The Land Matrix is a global and independent land monitoring initiative that promotes transparency and accountability in decisions over land and investment.
This website is our Global Observatory – an open tool for collecting and visualising information about large-scale land acquisitions.
The data represented here is constantly evolving; to make this resource more accurate and comprehensive, we encourage your participation.
The deals collected as data must meet the following criteria:
- Entail a transfer of rights to use, control or ownership of land through sale, lease or concession;
- Have been initiated since the year 2000;
- Cover an area of 200 hectares or more;
- Imply the potential conversion of land from smallholder production, local community use or important ecosystem service provision to commercial use.
FYI, 200 hectares = 2 square kilometers.
Land ownership and its transfer are matters of law and law means government.
The project describes its data this way:
The dataset is inherently unreliable, but over time it is expected to become more accurate. Land deals are notoriously un-transparent. In many countries, established procedures for decision-making on land deals do not exist, and negotiations and decisions do not take place in the public realm. Furthermore, a range of government agencies and levels of government are usually responsible for approving different kinds of land deals. Even official data sources in the same country can therefore vary, and none may actually reflect reality on the ground. Decisions are often changed, and this may or may not be communicated publically.
I would start earlier than the year 2000 but the same techniques could be applied along the route of the Keystone XL pipeline. I am assuming that you are aware that pipelines, roads and other public works are not located purely for physical or aesthetic reasons. Yes?
Please take the time to view and support the Land Matrix project and consider similar projects in your community.
If the owners can be run to ground, you may find the parties to the transactions are linked by other “associations.”