By Ngeta Kabiri, Environmental Evaluation Unit, University of Cape Town

In the past decade, there have been large-scale acquisitions of land in Africa that have drawn the attention of both agrarian policy analysts and local populations in the affected areas. The key concerns are the merit of the land deals and the way they are executed, both in terms of how they are negotiated and the resultant structures of the new land tenure dispensation.The central concern, however, has been the capacity of the local populations with a claim tothe affected lands to secure their preferred outcome. Can they, for example, block the deals if they don’t want them? What is the import of these land acquisitions to local population and the country generally? While proponents say the deals are beneficial to the states and local communities, critics argue that they portend ill for the countries concerned, especially on food security, the environment and access to land by the poor. This paper inquires into these issues within the specific context of the TLCT. The central question guiding the inquiry is whether these land deals constitute conservation and development icons, and to what extent the affected local communities have been involved in the framing of the deals.