Presenters focus on the way in which land grabs re-shape ecological conditions and functions in various places as well as the way in which notions of the Environment shapes global discourses and structures of land use. All of the papers stress the often hidden relationships between alternative energy projects and traditional configurations of property, nature and capital.

Philip McMichael focuses on the ability of states and capital to use the recent food and fuel crises to further both accumulation and dispossession, Brenda Baletti analyzes the role played by discourses of sustainability in legitimating expropriation in the Brazilian Amazon, Benjamin D. Neimark outlines the connections between bio-prospecting, agro-industrialization, and agri-fuel production in Madagascar, and Ritu Verma analyzes the political strength of food security as a narrative that trumps social justice, sustainability and distribution in Kenya, Madagascar and Mozambique.

Chair: Benjamin Gardner, University of Washington, USA

• Philip McMichael, Development Sociology, Cornell University, The food regime in the land grab: articulating ‘global ecology’ and political economy (Presentation)
• Brenda Baletti, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Geography, Saving the Amazon? Land grabs and “sustainable soy” as the new logic of conservation
• Benjamin D. Neimark, Dept. of Geography and Urban Studies, Temple University, Biofuel battlegrounds: Property rights, land deals, and alternative energy production in Madagascar (Presentation)
• Ritu Verma, University of Sussex, The ‘New’ Politics of Land and Development: Experiences of Dispossession, Social Equity and Environmental Sustainability in East and Southern Africa (Presentation)