A campaign to raise awareness of the problems caused by the buying up of large areas of land in developing countries saw members of the Oxford Students’ Oxfam Group taking over monuments all over Oxford on Saturday, including the Bridge of Sighs, the Radcliffe Camera and the tower of the University Church of St Mary.
The campaigners argued that because LEDCs lose an area of land the size of a football pitch every second due to governments, banks and investors purchasing enormous plots to grow food and crops for biofuels. They argue that in consequence, those who live on the land are often suddenly evicted from their homes and lose the land they rely on to grow food to fund themselves and their families.
The campaigners emphasised that many of the investors who purchase such large swathes of land produce food crops to export abroad, or crops to be used in biofuel. Such actions, Oxfam argues, make the hunger problem faced by many of the countries affected by land grabs even worse.
Oxfam is demanding that the World Bank takes action against land grabbing by freezing big land deals, many of which are funded by the World Bank itself, and protecting the rights of the inhabitants of the land, who often live in poverty.
The charity seeks to create a fairer way to buy and sell land, protecting the rights of poor inhabitants while encouraging positive investments to fight against poverty instead of entrenching and exacerbating it.
The Oxford land grabs involved students emulating the actions of land grabbers in developing countries at many popular Oxford sights, aiming to raise awareness of Oxfam’s campaign throughout the city.
Nathaniel Rees, President of the Oxford Students’ Oxfam Group, said, “Post-Live 8, with economic uncertainty and disillusionment, it is easy for people to block out the great problems still faced by the developing world. Our land grabbing was a creative way to reengage with the public. Throughout the day we talked to many people genuinely interested in the issue and in what we had to say.”
He added, “Seeing our placards at the top of St Mary’s Tower from across Radcliffe Square, or the incongruity of construction tape hanging from the Bridge of Sighs, caught their attention in a way that handing out leaflets on Cornmarket never could.”
Graham Atkins, another member of the group, commented, “Personally, I think land-grabs are an important issue because they amount to a de facto violation of property rights and are a serious injustice, yet few people seem to be aware of what’s happening as they’re ostensibly legal.”
Henry Baker, Vice-President of the group, told Cherwell, “I think it’s important in a place like Oxford, which can be so insular – to the extent that students can tend to lose touch with what’s going on in the outside world – to do attention-grabbing protests like the land grabs, in order to really make people realise what a sheltered and fortunate existence we have here.”
Although the protest was generally well-received by members of the public, Rees admitted, “Our only negative response was from a lady concerned that we were ‘terrorising the bridge’ in University Parks, but we think it is over the trauma.”
