Web chat: Fred Pearce on his new book The Land Grabbers

The author of the expose on how people worldwide are being dispossessed
of their common ancestral lands will take your questions on Wednesday
between 1-2pm.

In his latest book, The Land Grabbers, Fred Pearce
investigates the "new colonialism", which, he says, is having more of an
impact on the lives of poor people than climate change. The book
conducts an expose of the murky deals made by oligarchs, sheikhs and
agribusiness corporations to empty commonly owned ancestral lands around
the world of the peasant farmers, herders or hunting tribes living on
them, with no regard for their historic or cultural rights.

The
veteran environmental writer has spent the past two years investigating
this global epidemic, travelling across the 10 countries where the most
egregious grabbing is taking place - the savannah of Brazil, the
forests of Indonesia, the inner Niger delta of Mali - collecting the
stories of people whose lives have been destroyed. The book follows the
trail from boardrooms and ministries to the extreme conservationists
buying up Patagonia, City speculators using money from our pension
funds, and Gulf oil sheikhdoms worried about food security.

Read the story: http://m.guardian.co.uk