Tag Archives: Cameroon

Let’s talk about money

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CDC oil palm plantation, Southwest Region, Cameroon

CDC oil palm plantation, Southwest Region, Cameroon

 

There’s a rush on for land in the Congo Basin and palm oil is one of the main drivers of this investment boom.

Palm oil producers talk about global demand for palm oil and feeding the planet, but they wouldn’t be jostling for acreage if the potential profits weren’t so high.

Palm oil, generating US$ 20 billion-a-year in revenues, is the world’s most productive and most lucrative edible oil crop. In Malaysia, for example, palm oil plantations yield an average of 3.5 to 5 metric tons of oil annually. The current market price is hovering close to US$ 800 per ton.

In Africa, a combination extremely cheap land, low wages and tax breaks for foreign investors make palm oil an investor’s dream.

Here’s Gabon’s Agriculture Minister, Julien Nkoghe Bekale, speaking to Ventures Africa on the sidelines of the November 2012 UK-Gabon Investment Forum: “We have a large amount of available land and an attractive environment for investment … What we’re aiming to do is create an attractive framework, whether it be legislative, regulatory or fiscal, for investment. For agricultural enterprises we’re going to have tax exemptions on VAT, on customs and even on companies … At the moment palm oil prices are good, so obviously we will seek to export it rather than focus on local consumption.”

But in their race to the bottom to make themselves “attractive” to foreign investors, what are African governments gaining? Land leased for next to nothing. Produce and profits leaving the country. Little or no tax revenue. It’s really as crazy as it sounds.

The U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier de Schutter, was in Cameroon in July 2012. At a press conference at the end of his mission, de Schutter addressed the problem of land “giveaways.” He stressed that Cameroon desperately needs better contract negotiations, negotiators and transparency. De Schutter said land prices are far too low and that contracts must be indexed to the price of resources. The benefits of investment must be equal or greater than the impacts, he said, also calling on the country to tax foreign investment properly. Today is not the 1980s, de Schutter said. Cameroon is in a position of strength and needs to leverage this.

De Schutter is hardly alone in his assessment. Dr. Mthuli Ncube is the Chief Economist and Vice President of the African Development Bank and is obviously a champion of investment. But in his article, A Global Rush for Africa’s Land: Risks and Opportunities, Mthuli Ncube writes that, “below market level land fees have characterized most land deals in Africa,” seriously undermining their value for host countries.

He continues: “Recently documented cases indicate land fees have ranged between US$4.8 to US$7.1 per hectare in Sudan against US$300 per hectare in Peru. Details of large-scale land leases are often concealed especially in host countries with a poor record of transparency and accountability.  In the Democratic Republic of Congo, close to 50% of arable land is either leased to foreign companies or is under negotiation for leasing, without a clearly defined framework governing these transactions. Some of the land acquisitions are held for speculative purposes given the sketchy details of implied investments (after acquisition) and the low land fees, which make secondary land transfers very lucrative….

“Thus, to obtain value from recent surge in land acquisition, African governments need to undertake institutional reforms that foster accountability, proper valuation of land, and social and environmental sustainability of investments.”

Mthuli Ncube suggests land auction systems as one possible measure to increase investment value: “Land fees in many African countries, for comparable grades of land, are significantly lower than other developing regions of the world. For instance, land lease per hectare in India’s Punjab Doaba region is estimated to be more than 50 times the average land lease in Africa. Land auctions serve the twin advantage of setting prices right and promoting transparency of land deals. Peru’s competitive land auction system is often cited as a global best practice in stipulating strong terms of ‘commitment of investment’. Thus, mechanisms that discourage speculative land acquisitions should be fostered in Africa’s land markets.”

Further information

Read the full report of the U.N. Special Rapporteur’s mission to Cameroon here.

Read more on the palm oil investment from the Financial Times here.

Read Dr. Mthuli Ncube’s full article here.

Cargill: Expanding plantations from Indonesia to Cameroon

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The Wall Street Journal reports that U.S. industrial agriculture giant, Cargill Inc., is seeking to expand its oil palm plantations in Indonesia. The company currently has more than 42,000 hectares of plantations in the country as well as an additional 27,000 hectares worked in partnership with smallholder farmers. Indonesia requires that at least 20% of plantation land be reserved for smallholder farmers.

According to the Wall Street Journal global demand for edible oils is rising by around 3% annually, but palm-oil consumption growth is as high as 7%. “Cargill argues that expansion is necessary to feed world’s growing population and rising industrial demand, but feels it can be achieved without endangering the environment.”

Cargill is also seeking land for palm oil development in several African countries, including Ivory Coast, Liberia and Cameroon. In Cameroon, the company is reportedly in late-stage negotiations for 50,000 hectares of land.

In May 2012 Reuters reported that, “U.S agribusiness conglomerate Cargill plans to invest up to 200 billion CFA francs ($390 million) in a 50,000-hectare oil palm plantation in Cameroon, an official at the Central African nation’s investment agency said on state radio.” Cameroon’s investment agency magazine, Investir au Cameroun, ran a short story reporting that Cargill was prospecting for 50,000 hectares — a plantation that could create 10,000 jobs.

Cargill is already present in Cameroon in the cocoa sector, where its joint venture partner, Telcar Cocoa, is the country’s leading cocoa exporter.

Last month the Rainforest Foundation reported that Cargill’s project was “close to signature.” If this land deal is secured, Cargill’s Cameroon palm oil operations in Cameroon will be on a similar scale to its Indonesian business.

Cargill and other agri-business firms are aggressively seeking land across West Africa and the Congo Basin but their actions don’t generate much media coverage. Massive palm oil deals in Liberia have been getting some attention, but the scale of the investment merits much more reporting. Golden Veroleum (Golden Agri Resources) and Sime Darby have each leased over 200,000 hectares in Liberia, for example. That’s about the same land mass as the state of Rhode Island. And Golden Agri Resources, the company that has been getting some good press lately for its zero deforestation policy in Southeast Asia, does not appear to be abiding by the same standards in Liberia.

Land deals in the Congo Basin region are getting even less attention. The Cargill negotiations have not been the subject of any reporting in Cameroon. Back in May a Cargill spokesperson said the company, “does not comment on speculations.” But shouldn’t the people of Cameroon be aware of major investments coming to the country? Bringing these deals out from the shadows is an important step for making them work for all stakeholders.

It’s not forests or food, it’s forests for food

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Southwest Cameroon. Forest or oil palms...what will feed the planet?

Southwest Cameroon. Forest or oil palms…what will feed the planet?

 

“As world population climbs from 7 to a projected 9 billion people and emerging and developing economies demand ever more of the food and fiber that drive deforestation, many environmentalists ask with increasing urgency whether and how tropical forests can survive,” write Steve Schwartzman and Ruben Lubowski of Environmental Defense Fund. Their recent article, Can Saving Forests Help Feed the World, asks, “whether and how the world’s increasing, and increasingly rich, population can be fed unless tropical forests survive.”

Schwartzman and Lubowski’s article is one of a series in response to the question, “How do we feed the world and still address the drivers of deforestation?” The articles are available online at the Skoll World Forum website.

Noting the connection between global warming and global agricultural output, the authors note, “Putting total global greenhouse gas pollution on a fast and steady downward trend may be the only way to avoid serious risk of catastrophic disruption of world food supplies.  Tropical deforestation and agriculture together account for about a quarter of GHG emissions in approximately equal proportions. In addition, tropical forests hold some 300 billion tons of carbon.”

Those who argue that new palm oil plantations are necessary for “development,” who seek to frame the debate in terms of “jobs vs. trees,” seem to be at odds with scientific evidence.

But how to translate evidence into action? Another article in the series, Strong ‘No Deforestation’ Commitments Save Forests and Feed People, by Scott Poynton, Founder and Executive Director of the Forest Trust, makes the case for zero deforestation practices.

“We need strong ‘No Deforestation’ commitments enforced by companies throughout the supply chain with mechanisms to reward and teeth to punish,” Poynton writes. “They fit with the market and are simple: “Deforest and I will not buy your product”. This great start is made exponentially stronger when contracts are cancelled because suppliers are engaged in deforestation.”

Does that sound unrealistic? Poynton believes change is already happening: “The world’s largest food company, Nestle, the world’s second largest palm oil grower, Golden-Agri Resources and now, the world’s third largest pulp and paper company, Asia Pulp & Paper, have already made super strong No Deforestation commitments that are being implemented as we speak. Such commitments turn bulldozers off – now. They do not require workshops, meetings, millions of dollars or the creation of complex markets with thousands of mitigation measures. No Deforestation commitments send strong signals through the existing multi-trillion dollar globalized market – via global supply chains – and forests are being protected today as a direct result.”

For more on the need for zero deforestation, read Fred Pearce’s recent article on biodiversity in previously logged forests.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

African governments giving land away quickly, recognizing land rights slowly

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Farmer walking through forest earmarked for palm oil plantation. Southwest Region, Cameroon

Farmer walking through forest earmarked for palm oil plantation. Southwest Region, Cameroon

Two steps forward, one step back. Or is it one step forward and two steps back? In the case of land-rights reform in Africa, the pace of progress needs to pick up — and fast — to protect community access to land.

Here are details on two new reports issued in Yaounde, Cameroon, by the Rights and Resources Initiative:

Africa remains a target for land-grab developments worth billions; regional dialogue in Yaoundé focuses on the need for speed

While African governments are moving gradually towards protecting the land rights of rural people and indigenous communities, they are moving quickly to give away community forests and other lands for development. These conflicting choices are the focus of two new reports and a regional dialogue on forests, governance, and climate change.

“Governments across West and Central Africa are now in a bind and divided, with some ministries choosing to hand over natural resources to agribusiness and mining, and others seeking to protect the rights of their citizens and respect recent commitments,” said Andy White, Coordinator of Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI). “Which view will win out? There is a true need for speed in safeguarding these communities before all available land is handed out for the sake of ‘quick-fix’ development and exploitation.”

“What communities on the ground in Cameroon see is no different from what is unfolding in other neighboring countries,” said Samuel Nguiffo, Secretary General of the Center for Environment and Development (CED), Cameroon. “The slow pace of good intentions—the efforts to protect communities of subsistence farmers who have no wealth except for the land that they cultivate—has been overtaken by greed and power. Real economic development brings wealth to all, not just the elite.”

RRI released two reports scrutinizing land transactions in West and Central Africa as well as the legal reforms that would protect the communities whose land is targeted by these transactions. The reports were the focus of discussion at a regional dialogue hosted by the Cameroonian Ministry of Forests and Fauna (MINFOF), RRI, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the Commission for Central African Forests (COMIFAC) in Yaoundé. The conference also highlighted the number of commitments made by national governments and confirmed by the African Union Declaration on Land Issues and Challenges[1] in 2009 that were never enacted.

At the conference, attendees deliberated on stalled progress in land rights. Two examples emerged from their discussions that illustrate a trend—for every bit of progress, additional measures undercut the momentum for change:

  • In Liberia, the Community Rights Law (CRL) of 2009 was lauded as a major innovation for the region because it recognized customary ownership of land. The country’s Land Commission is seeking to further codify these rights. But large-scale developments have been negotiated or are planned for nearly three quarters of the country, rendering these rights moot before they are permanently established.
  • In Cameroon, a new forestry law currently being finalized strengthens and expands community forest rights, but maintains regulations and taxes that discourage the development of small forest-based enterprises run by local communities, preventing communities from profiting off of the resources they maintain. The government is also revising the Land Law of 1974, providing a new opportunity to improve community land rights. However, if done without consulting local peoples, this revision can increase risk, conflict and uncertainty given that billions of dollars in foreign direct investment are destined for mining and agriculture in Cameroon by 2015.

“Across Africa, weak governance and a lack of legal recognition and support for customary rights are inhibiting any real progress,” said Michael Richards, a natural resources economist and author of the report examining 18 large-scale African land acquisitions in the agriculture sector. “Most cases revealed a lack of consultation with and consent by communities in affected areas; coercion or political pressure; protests, which were sometimes violent; community dissatisfaction or anger; misleading or falsified documents; legality doubts; and low transparency. If a free, prior, and informed consent process had been followed, it seems probable that in 17 out of the 18 cases I looked at, the communities would not have given their consent.”

The conference in Yaoundé comes as government-led, large-scale land transactions across Africa continue to disregard or override the rights of communities that live on the impacted lands. This in turn leads to even greater unrest and strife on the continent. In Liberia, for example, Sime Darby (the world’s largest palm oil producer) suspended the development in 2012 of a planned 220,000 hectare oil palm and rubber plantation because the communities that lost their land protested; the company’s ensuing pushback triggered local unrest and riots.

Although the acquisitions vary in size and purpose, a number of crosscutting themes showed up in Richard’s analysis:

  • In nearly all countries examined, local communities receiving little to no compensation in these transactions faced some form of coercion or political pressure, triggering ardent protests and violent clashes.
  • Women failed to prosper in transactions that took away access to community lands. Income from fruit trees in Ghana and Mali disappeared, sources of firewood and medicinal plants in Zambia and Mozambique vanished, and land rights were lost without compensation in Sierra Leone.
  • High levels of water pollution and the nearly unlimited water extraction rights often granted to these concessions jeopardized downstream livelihoods in Cameroon, Mali, Mozambique, and Sierra Leone.

“So much human tragedy could be averted if land rights in Africa didn’t erode so soon after they are established,” said Phil René Oyono, independent expert and author of the second RRI report. “The fact that 13 of 26 countries in the region have undertaken some level of reform since 2009 is great, but the challenges that African governments face are steep and progress is slow. In Gabon, for example, the new land law passed in 2012 revises the structure of land tenure rights mainly to provide a more flexible regime for commercial transactions on the land. We must convince governments that they will not find success in this quest for development by turning over their natural resources for plunder.”

“Yes, there has been a surge of new laws and reform processes since 2009,” added Samuel Nguiffo, “but these efforts are too slow and do not meet the challenges presented by rapid development and exploitation in the extractive sector. Africans will not sit idly by as our future is handed over to the highest bidder.”

Often times, projects intended for economic development meet with violent resistance and disastrous consequences:

  • In Cameroon, foreign investors are using coercion to initiate the conversion of two 60-70,000 hectare concessions from mostly forested land to oil palm plantations. Thousand have been displaced and drinking water sources have been polluted. Murder, rape, and the destruction of tombs and houses plague communities opposed to one project. The second faced legality concerns involving a restraining order against the investor and a delayed environmental impact assessment.
  • In Ghana, a project converting forest and crop land into jatropha (a plant used to make biodiesel) plantations resulted in harsh migrant-native farmer conflicts over lost jobs and income, along with the clearing of 780 hectares. US and Ghanaian investors leading another project used political pressure to turn farm and fruit land into rice plantations, resulting in legal action, the displacement of many locals, water pollution, over-grazing, and erosion.
  • In Rwanda, a Ugandan sugar company converted 3,150 hectares of swampland used for food and cash crops into sugar cane fields—despite claiming it would not do so when acquiring the land. Defense forces were brought in as thousands of locals who were pushed into low-paying jobs as a result responded with violence and arson.

“Handing land over to these companies has been justified by local and national governments as attempts to bring economic development to all corners of Africa,” said Andy White. “But you cannot sweep away established communities and transform the environment without calamitous collateral damage. This is not development. Until the pace of land rights reform gets in front of the pace of development, Africa will never get out from under the ‘resource curse.'”

RRI has released two new analyses highlighting the wide-ranging impacts and risks of land and concession deals in Africa, with a particular focus on Central and West Africa.

The analyses were released at the Thirteenth Dialogue on Forests, Governance and Climate Change: Harmonizing Tenure and Resource Policies in Central and West Africa’s Changing Landscape, held in Yaoundé, Cameroon on March 5-7, 2013. Read the press release in English or French.

The first publication, Social and Environmental Impacts of Agricultural Large-Scale Land Acquisitions in Africa – With a Focus on West and Central Africa, analyzes 18 country case studies that are among the best-documented large-scale land acquisitions in terms of their impacts in the said region.

The second paper, a policy brief on Land and Forest Tenure Reforms in West and Central Africa: A Preliminary Assessment of Progress Made Since the Yaoundé, 2009 Conference examines the implementation of recommendations relating to large-scale land acquisitions from the International Conference on Forest Tenure, Governance, and Enterprise, held in 2009 in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Both papers are available in both English and French. To download them and for more details, click here.

Yaoundé, Cameroon (7 March 2013)

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[1] http://www.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/AssemblyDecisionLand.pdf

The Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) is a global coalition of 14 Partners and over 120 international, regional and community organizations advancing forest tenure, policy and market reforms. RRI leverages the strategic collaboration and investment of its Partners and Collaborators around the world by working together on research, advocacy, and convening strategic actors to catalyze change on the ground. RRI is coordinated by the Rights and Resources Group, a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC. For more information, please visit www.rightsandresources.org.

 

Plantation life

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Workers' camp, Ndian Estate, Mundemba, Southwest Region, Cameroon

Workers’ camp, Ndian Estate, Mundemba, Southwest Region, Cameroon

The Southwest Region of Cameroon, where the U.S.-based Herakles Farms has started development of  a controversial 73,000 hectare palm oil project, is no stranger to plantation agriculture. It is home to most of the country’s largest plantations, many dating to the colonial period.

The communities in and around the Herakles concession area have long co-existed with industrial plantations. Historically plantation operators brought in workers from other regions — a practice that continues to a certain extent today — but over the years many locals have also been employed on the plantations.

Workers' camp, Ndian Estate, Mundemba, Southwest Region, Cameroon

Workers’ camp, Ndian Estate, Mundemba, Southwest Region, Cameroon

Many people in the area ask why they would want or accept another plantation when plantation agriculture has usurped their lands and brought them nothing. The plantations have been around for decades yet the surrounding areas have neither electricity nor decent roads. Worker housing built over fifty years ago is dilapidated, yet still in use. According to local sources, the average salary for a PAMOL plantation worker is approximately US$70 per month. (Cameroon’s minimum wage is approximately US$ 57 per month.)

Workers' camp, Ndian Estate, Mundemba, Southwest Region, Cameroon

Workers’ camp, Ndian Estate, Mundemba, Southwest Region, Cameroon

Governance and local development specialist, Herve Sokoudjou, writes:

The main “benefit” of oil palm cultivation, according to promoters of the crop, is the generation of employment (planting, maintenance and harvest). Yet most jobs are only temporary. Workers on industrial plantations experience the same problems as other agricultural workers in the country: extremely low wages and poor work conditions. Besides, the establishment of these plantations has often been preceded by the expropriation of land of neighbouring villages without adequate compensation. According to Cameroonian law, peasants do not have customary rights to land, and thus expropriation does not require indemnification by the state. Already in colonial times, land was expropriated from peasants and then transferred free to new settlers. After national independence, this practice continued but for the benefit of local elites, including palm plantation firms or the elites who have recently established medium-scale plantations. Since colonial times, therefore, peasants have been losing land to the state …. Palm plantations located near villages also often threaten subsistence crop development and access to forest products by much of the community.

Read more here: New reports: African governments giving land away quickly, recognizing land rights slowly

Forest riches, continued

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Barkcloth and the wood used to make it. Lipenja II, Southwest Region, Cameroon

Lipenja II, Southwest Region, Cameroon

Checking out barkcloth and the wood used to make it in Lipenja II, one of the villages located inside the Herakles Farms palm oil concession area. Lipenja II is surrounded by dense forest. There’s a dirt road that connects Mundemba to Fabe and Lipenja, but from  Lipenja to Lipenja II there’s nothing more than a narrow motorcycle track the villagers have cleared themselves. Although Lipenja II is only about 55 km (35 miles) from Mundemba, the trip to Lipenja II takes well over two hours during the dry season.

In Lipenja II the forest is the source of food and income for everyone. The villagers have their farm plots inside the forest, where they grow food crops and cocoa. They gather fruits, nuts, honey, bark and plants for food and medicine. The women sell bush mango seeds to Nigerian traders who travel throughout the area. The forest is everything, people say.

The villagers in Lipenja II are opposed to the Herakles Farms project. The company says it will not go where it is not welcome. But many questions remain. Will the voices of the villagers be heard in what has been a “top-down” and secretive project from the start?  And if the project respects the villagers’ wishes, how much forest will be left standing around Lipenja II and what will that mean for the future of the village?

People in Lipenja II are vocal about the need for development. They want a decent road to connect their village to Mundemba (and beyond), so they can get perishable crops to market. There’s no radio or mobile phone coverage in Lipenja II and villagers want improved communications. They want jobs. But they don’t want projects imposed from outside that take away what is most valuable: the forest.

Barkcloth. Lipenja II, Southwest Region, Cameroon

Barkcloth. Lipenja II, Southwest Region, Cameroon

 

Oil spill

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Near Mundemba, Southwest Region, Cameroon

Near Mundemba, Southwest Region, Cameroon

No, it’s not crude oil. It’s palm oil or, to be precise, POME, Palm Oil Mill Effluent, the highly-polluting, oily wastewater generated by palm oil processing mills.

In Southwest Cameroon a PAMOL palm oil mill is located just across the river from Korup National Park, a recognized  global biodiversity hotspot.  Stand on the bank of the Mana River and you’ll see primary forest on one side and oil palm plantations on the other. If you’re standing at the top of the bluff that leads down from the mill to the old river port, you’ll also see a stream of brown, greasy liquid flowing into the river and covering the beach with sludge. When the water is calm an oily sheen stretches from bank to bank.

From WWF: “A palm oil mill generates 2.5 metric tons of effluent for every metric ton of palm oil it produces. Direct release of this effluent can cause freshwater pollution, which affects downstream biodiversity and people. When POME is not released directly into rivers it is often discarded into disposal ponds, its contaminants polluting the soil and groundwater and releasing methane gas into the atmosphere.”

Near Mundemba, Southwest Region, Cameroon

Near Mundemba, Southwest Region, Cameroon

Read more about POME and what to do with it here.

“The environmental impact of POME cannot be over emphasized,” write Nigerian researchers J.C. Igwe and C.C. Onyegbado in the introduction to their report, A Review of Palm Oil Mill Effluent (Pome) Water Treatment. It’s a fairly technical report that provides a detailed description of POME pollution and treatment.

Palm oil mills don’t have to pollute. Palm oil plantations don’t have to cause deforestation. Smallholder farmers can be involved. Labor conditions can be improved. Yes, things can be done differently. But if the current state of affairs is anything to go by, there’s cause for alarm.

Near Mundemba, Southwest Region, Cameroon

Near Mundemba, Southwest Region, Cameroon

Illegal logging is rampant. Plantation labor conditions are appalling with workers often paid less than Cameroon’s minimum wage (approximately US$60/month). Environmental regulation is weak and rarely, if ever, enforced. The palm oil projects currently in the pipeline in Cameroon are the result of secretive deals with zero transparency and no community involvement. The government is reportedly allocating vast expanses of land to foreign companies for next to nothing:

“The contracts signed between governments and oil palm developers are being kept secret, reducing transparency and democratic accountability. Those contracts that have come to light show that governments have already signed away some of the potential economic benefits, by granting developers extremely generous tax breaks of 10 to 16 years and land for ‘free’ or at highly discounted rates.” (Seeds of Destruction, Rainforest Foundation U.K.)

If Cameroon is prepared to lease land for US$1 per hectare per year, one can wonder how much concern the government has for the forest or its inhabitants.

 

Palm oil and the high forest, low deforestation equation

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The rainforest of South West Cameroon, a global biodiversity "hot spot."

The rainforest of South West Cameroon, a global biodiversity “hot spot.”

 

The Congo Basin is home to the second largest tropical rainforest on earth. Although the region has been logged for decades, the six Congo Basin countries (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon) have low deforestation rates overall. They are referred to as “High Forest, Low Deforestation,” or HFLD, countries. Countries like Indonesia that have lost significant amounts of forest are known as HFHD or “High Forest, High Deforestation.”

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Why palm oil? Why Africa? Why now?

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PAMOL plantation in South West Cameroon. The PAMOL plantations date from the colonial period.

PAMOL plantation in Southwest Cameroon. The PAMOL plantations date from the colonial period.

 

Palm oil, from the fruit of the oil palm tree (Elaeis guineensis), is the world’s most widely used edible oil. Although the oil palm is native to west and central Africa and is widely cultivated in the region, most of the palm oil produced for the global market comes from the vast industrial plantations of Malaysia and Indonesia.

Growing demand for palm oil and rising production costs in Asia have led to a new land rush across the Congo Basin. Today palm oil is coming full circle, “returning” to its ancestral home: The mega-plantations are arriving in Africa, threatening both the environment and the livelihoods of countless smallholder palm growers and farmers.

According to a recent study published by the Rainforest Foundation (U.K.): “New industrial oil palm expansion projects currently underway cover 0.5 million hectares in the Congo Basin, which will result in a fivefold increase in the area of active large-scale palm plantations in the region. The area of projects announced since 2009, but not necessarily underway, covers 1.6 million hectares and palm oil companies are searching for larger areas. Approximately two-thirds of the total forest area of the Congo Basin’s forests – 115 million hectares – has suitable soil and climate for growing oil palms.”

Environmentalists and social justice activists fear the development of massive, industrial palm oil plantations in the Congo Basin, home to the world’s second largest tropical rainforest and a number of notoriously corrupt governments. Palm oil production has wreaked havoc in Indonesia and Malaysia, leading to massive deforestation, critical loss of biodiversity and violent social conflicts. Will the same occur here?

Continue reading →