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WRM Bulletin
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Issue Number
47 - June 2001 |
| OUR VIEWPOINT | ||||||||
| LOCAL STRUGGLES AND NEWS | ||||||||
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| GENERAL | ||||||||
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The focus of this issue: OIL PALM PLANTATIONS Oil palm monocultures are being promoted and spreading throughout the tropics, impacting on nature and on people’s livelihoods. Given the importance of the issue and the lack of awareness about the impacts they entail, we decided to focus this issue of the WRM Bulletin entirely on this subject. Although the articles constitute a sample of the many countries where these plantations are being implemented, we believe that they provide an overview of the different problems and actors involved, which can be of assistance to people struggling at the local level against this increasing threat.
OUR VIEWPOINT - The urgent need for action against the spread of oil palm plantations Oil palm plantations currently extend over millions of hectares of forest lands throughout the tropics. Further plantations are either being implemented or promoted in almost every Southern country where soil, water and solar energy fill the requirements of this palm. From Mexico to Brazil, from West to East Africa and from Asia and Southeast Asia to Oceania, governments are being urged to create conditions for the expansion of this crop. This is completely at odds with governments' commitments regarding tropical forest conservation. It is a proven fact that most industrial oil palm plantations result in deforestation, having even worse impacts than the destructive industrial logging still in force in most of those countries. These plantations are usually preceded by logging, which "clears" the land to make them possible. The plantation then impedes the regrowth of the forest by the widespread use of herbicides. The forest thus disappears entirely from extensive areas, with serious impacts on local flora, fauna, soil and water resources. And that is usually the "best case" scenario. In other cases, the entire forest --and not only the plantation area-- is set on fire, as was patent in Indonesia with the 1997/98 forest fires, which were the result of "clearing" activities carried out mostly by plantation companies. The social impacts of these plantations are also evident, but are simply ignored. Plantations are not implemented in uninhabited areas and for the local people the most serious impact is the appropriation of their land by the plantation companies. In most tropical countries, local people do not have former ownership of the land they traditionally own. Plantation companies are awarded concessions or land titles to that land and receive government support to repress whatever opposition they may face from local communities. Additionally, the environmental impacts described in the previous paragraph are also social, given that local people obtain a large number of products and services from the forest environment which disappears as a result of the plantation. From a macroeconomic viewpoint, Southern governments appear to have learned nothing from previous experiences with "miracle" crops. The falling prices of coffee, cacao, banana and many other crops have a simple explanation: the widespread promotion of a certain crop in as many countries as possible. The result is oversupply and competition between and within countries for market access. The burden is then carried by local producers and local workers --whose incomes get increasingly lower-- or by local tax-payers when production is supported with government subsidies. But the end result is extremely favourable for the major processing and trading companies, which are able to access abundant and cheap raw material, thus ensuring high profits. As with any other crop, the problem is not the palm itself but the industrial model in which it is being implemented. There are numerous examples --particularly in Africa-- to show that this palm can be grown and harvested in an environmentally-friendly manner and that it can serve to fulfill the needs of the local populations in a sustainable and equitable manner. However, it is usually the industrial and not the small-scale diversified model which is being promoted. Even worse, the palm oil industry aims at developing genetically modified oil palms, which will increase the current problems and create new and yet unknown ones. In spite of the threat posed to forests and forest peoples by oil palm monoculture expansion, national and international NGOs don't appear to be --with few exceptions-- sufficiently involved in this problem. We therefore hope that this bulletin will encourage more NGOs to get involved in much needed research and campaigning activities to support local people struggling at the ground level to defend their rights and forests against the plantation invasion.
LOCAL STRUGGLES AND NEWS AFRICA - Cameroon: Oil palm, people and the environment Oil palm plantations in Cameroon cover more than 80,000 hectares divided in three different sectors: 1) large scale industrial plantations, with some 58,000 hectares; 2) Village plantations comprising 12,000 hectares and 3) "Informal" plantations covering some 10,000 hectares. Village plantations were promoted by the state for the supply of the large state-owned plantation and processing companies. The former are plantations which are contractually obliged to deliver, at market prices, their entire production to the processing plants of the --now privatised-- agroindustries: SOCAPALM, CAMDEV or PAMOL. The "market price" is obviously established by these enterprises, which at the local level constitute absolute monopolies. The above situation has recently led to an increasing gap between small producers and large estates. The "informal" plantations have increased and deliveries of palm fruit to large processing plants have progressively diminished. Villagers prefer to either process their harvest themselves or sell to smaller processing units, from whom they usually obtain a higher price and cash payments. Until the early 1990's, the price established by the companies was considered to be too low, which led to diverting small-scale production to other buyers. Once it became evident that the agroindustries' own production was insufficient to cover their processing needs, they were forced to increase the price offered to outgrowers (from 26-31 francs CFA to 40-50 francs), in order to ensure raw material supply to the processing plants. It is thus obvious that the complementarity between village plantations and the agroindustries has not been successful and that their relationship has been more based on competition than on complementarity. The sole fact that village planters refuse to even communicate their exact plantation areas to the companies is self-explanatory of this relationship. Additionally, it is important to stress that the establishment of large-scale plantations has often been preceeded by the expropriation of land of the neighbouring villages, without adequate compensation. According to the Cameroonian law, peasants do not own the land by customary right, and thus expropriation does not require compensation on the part of the State. This land property formula was already used in the times of colonization for expropriating the land of peasants and then tranferring it, without cost, to new settlers, who could then grow their crops. After national independence, this practice continued in force, now for the benefit of local élites. The establishment of large private palm plantations --normally located in the surroundings of villages-- requires considerable extensions of land, and several cases have already been reported of conflict arising with local communities living in the area from the modality and conditions of land acquisition by outsiders, who, with the support of the government, obtain lands over which they had no previous customary right. However, by cultivating an evergreen plant, like oil palm, they are entitled to permanent customary rights, which guarantee their rights in detriment of the local population. In addition, oil palm plantations have resulted in a number of environmental impacts, among which deforestation, biodiversity loss and pollution due to extensive use of agrochemicals. All those impacts result in loss of livelihoods for local people and the deterioration of the environment in which they live. It is important to highlight that no food crops are allowed within plantations, even at the early establishment phase of plantations, where local people could be allowed to cultivate food crops until palms start interlocking canopies. The socio-economic and environmental impacts of these plantations on adjoining towns and villages need to be investigated to reflect issues related to: - Availability of local food staples (food more expensive in Limbe), forest foods supportive system (non timber forest products are expensive and need to be imported from other parts of the country), availability of local craft items and alternative income opportunities (income of plantation workers is very low). - Impacts associated to deforestation, as various hazardous floods are now common in the zone (Limbe and Ekondo-Titi cases in 2001 and 1998 respectively). - Impacts of pollution from agrochemicals, as there are claims that chemicals banned in industrialized countries are still being used by these corporations on the grounds of reduced cost, lack of supervision by the State. - Impacts on human health, as plantations are located close to human habitations, and aircraft sprays drift to towns from sister banana plantations. - Impacts associated to pest infestation and infectious diseases due to plantations. - The enclavement of towns as there are no opportunities for expansion and hill settlement has become a common phenomenon, with implications for upstream and downstream conflicts emanating. - Impacts on soil chemical/physical/biological properties from palm oil production effluents discharged into open land during processing, which render the land useless for any agricultural purposes. In spite of the existence of opportunities for converting the effluents into useful products, they continue being discharged untreated into the environment. With the above impact assessment carried out, alternative positions to monocultural plantations can be suggested to reflect more environmentally-friendly approaches to land use patterns in the sub-region. Article based on information from: Robert
Hirsch, "Dynamique récente des plantations individuelles de palmier à
huile au Cameroun" Oléagineux, Corps Gras, Lipides. Vol. 7, Numéro 2,
Mars - Avril 2000 : 172-4, Dossier : Afrique, plantation et
développement
- Côte d'Ivoire: Increasing conflict between smallholders and oil palm estates In March this year, planters at Cote d'Ivoire's Ehania agro-industrial oil palm plantation unit embarked on an "unlimited strike action" to press for an increase in the price of palm oil. The strike paralysed the activities of three factories that collect and transform palm oil. The Ehania planters, grouped in an agricultural cooperative called Palm-Ehania, were protesting against a drop in the purchase price of their produce, which had since January 2001 fallen from 23 to 19.07 CFA francs (1 dollar = 700 CFA francs). The cooperative's vice president Ahissi Brou, said "the drop in price may force growers to abandon the plantations." He said they were determined to pursue their strike action until their demands were met, arguing that it was "inconceivable" that palm produce prices drop while those of finished products such as soap or table oil were constantly on the increase. This is not the first strike of this kind and there have been similar actions taken by outgrowers since the 1997 privatization of the previously state-owned Palmindustrie company. The assets of that company where bought by three large private enterprises: 1) PALMCI (Blohorn-Unilever and SIFCA-Cosmivoire), which acquired two thirds of the production capacity of Palmindustrie, including 9 processing plants and 35,000 hectares of industrial plantations; 2) SIPEF-CI, that bought 2 processing plants and 12,700 hectares of industrial plantations and 3) PALMAFRIQUE, with 3 processing plants and 7,500 hectares of plantations. The plantations of those three companies constitute however only a third of the plantation area in Cote d'Ivoire, where smallholders have a total of 135,000 hectares of oil palm plantations. This situation is the result of the Plan Palmier launched in 1963, which outlined a program for the establishment of state owned nucleus estates (plantations agroindustrielles) and land belonging to contracted smallholders (plantations villageoises). Funds provided by the World Bank and the European Development Fund played an important role in enabling the implementation of the plan. The state released forest reserves for the new plantations and created a land tenure system whereby anyone working the land could have title to it. By 1984 the estates, operated by the parastatal Palmindustrie, constituted 60.3% of the area devoted to oil palm production and 39.7% was constituted by contracted smallholders. The current situation has drastically changed, with companies holding 30% and smallholders 70% of the plantation area. Although there are already some examples of small cooperative-operated processing mills, the major companies are the main buyers of the outgrowers' production, which --coupled with the international drop in palm oil prices-- are now leading to situations such as the strike at Ehania. In this case, the company involved is PALMCI, whose assets in the area include 11,600 hectares of plantations and three oil processing plants which also process the harvest of some 22,000 hectares of smallholder plantations. The company has more assets throughout the country such as: - at Toumanguié: a 2,900 hectare plantation and one processing plant, with smallholder plantations totalling 15,000 hectares - at Irobo: a 5,300 hectare plantation and one processing plant, with smallholder plantations totalling 12,000 hectares - at Boubo: a 4,400 hectare plantation and one processing plant, with smallholder plantations totalling 10,000 hectares - at Blidouba: a 3,000 hectare plantation and one processing plant, with smallholder plantations totalling 10,000 hectares - at Iboke: a 5,700 hectare plantation and one processing plant, with smallholder plantations totalling 10,000 hectares - at Néka: a 2,700 hectare plantation and one processing plant, with smallholder plantations totalling 12,000 hectares. Within this context, the Ehania strike can be seen as a sympthom of the aspirations of those who now hold the largest part of the plantations vis a vis the three companies that hold the processing facilities and who establish the price for the raw material. Privatization has generated the scenario for this confrontation and the government is not even a neutral observer, being in this case a PALMCI shareholder. The future is difficult to predict, but the most plausible hypothesis appears to be that --unless palm oil prices increase in the international market-- conflicts will be on the rise. And, given the widespread promotion of oil palm plantations throughout the tropics, palm oil prices are most unlikely to increase. Article based on information from: Pari Baumann, "Equity and Efficiency in Contract Farming Schemes: The Experience of Agricultural tree Crops". London, ODI, October 2000. http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/wp139.pdf ; http://www.afribourse.com/fiches/PALMCI.html Panafrican News Agency: Ivorian Oil Palm Workers Go On Strike, 7 March 2001, http://allafrica.com/stories/200103070459.html Emmanuelle Cheyns et al, "La filière palmier à huile en Côte d'Ivoire 3 ans après la privatisation", http://www.john-libbey-eurotext.fr/articles/ocl/7/2/166-71/
- Ghana: The documented impacts of oil palm monocultures More than 125,000 hectares of land are under oil palm cultivation in Ghana, mostly under the nucleus estate model, which implies a large plantation surrounded by smaller plantations established in local farmers' lands. The large scale plantations were implemented by the State at the expense of local peoples lands, with little or no compensation for the cottages, camps, and farms lost, together with various land-use or proprietary rights. As could have been expected, this resulted in social resistance, as in the case of the dramatic refusal of the migrant Ningo farmers of Atobriso and Okaikrom to grant government and Ghana Oil Palm Development Company officials entry into their acquired land. The peasants' resistance has also included pilfering of palm fruit from the plantations as well as acts of sabotage, which resulted in the tightening of security at considerable cost to the plantation companies. But, according to Ghanaian researcher Edwin A. Gyasi, "perhaps the most serious adverse effect has been the rapid transformation of the forest ecosystem and its resilient diversified ecologically based traditional economy into a vulnerable artificial monocultural system. Instability, risks, or uncertainties are inherent features of the natural environment, which the peasant farmers recognize. Traditionally, the peasants try to minimize these environmental risks, combat soil erosion, optimize utilization of the different soil nutrients, and enhance food security by intermixing crops of varying degrees of environmental sensitivity and different nutritional value, and by other forms of agricultural diversification and risk minimization. The resilient, diversified indigenous agriculture, modelled on the forest ecosystem and based on eco-farming principles borne out of the peasants' intimate knowledge of the natural environment, is being replaced by the risk-prone monocultural system, with devastating consequences for the forest ecosystem." Among the major impacts, the following have been recorded: - shortages of local staple foods - the vulnerability of the monocultural palm farms to insect pests and diseases, which have experienced unusually massive and destructive insect invasions - the difficulty of marketing palm fruit and oil associated with poor marketing facilities for the increased output - deforestation, and the associated growing cost and scarcity of forest products such as "bush meat", medicinal plants, and wood, an important constructional material and the basic fuel source - the high cost, erratic supplies, and polluting effect of the agrochemicals used to boost palm yields and to control pests and weeds, especially in the large plantations - environmental pollution by the palm fruit and palm oil effluents. In sum, although large-scale oil palm plantations might appear to be attractive because of their ability to accelerate agricultural production and agro-industrial growth, they are basically vulnerable and have adverse effects on traditional landholding and land-use rights, on food and fuel security, and on the natural environment. Article based on information from: Edwin A. Gyasi, "The environmental impact and sustainability of plantations in Sub-Saharan Africa: Ghana's experiences with oil-palm plantations"; Oil Palm Research Institute, http://www.csir.org.gh/opri.html
- Nigeria: Palm oil deficit in a traditional palm oil producing country Oil palm is indigenous to the Nigerian coastal plain, having migrated inland as a staple crop. In the case of Nigeria, oil palm cultivation is part of the way of life --indeed it is the culture-- of millions of people. However, during the past decades the country has become a net importer of palm oil. While in the early 1960s, Nigeria's palm oil production accounted for 43% of the world production, nowadays it only accounts for 7% of total global output. Contrary to the situation of the oil palm heavyweights Malaysia and Indonesia --whose production is based on large-scale monocultures-- in Nigeria 80% of production comes from dispersed smallholders who harvest semi-wild plants and use manual processing techniques. Several million smallholders are spread over an estimated area of 1.65 million hectares in the southern part of Nigeria. Oil palm is inter-cropped with food crops such as cassava, yam and maize. In an attempt to emulate the "success stories" of the two above mentioned countries, Nigeria tried to implement large-scale plantations, which resulted in complete failures. Such were the cases of the 1960's Cross River State project and of the European Union-funded "Oil palm belt rural development programme" in the 1990's. This project included the plantation of 6,750 hectares of oil palm within an area thought to be one of the largest remnants of tropical rainforest in Nigeria. In spite of local opposition, the project moved forward and EU funding was only discontinued in 1995, seven years after its approval. The project was implemented by a company called Risonplan Ltd., partly owned by the government. The company appropriated land owned by local communities without their consent and with minimal compensation. Once land had been secured, Risonpalm constructed a huge dyke and bulldozed many thousands of hectares of the project area for cultivation. Local peoples' forests, farms and grave sites were destroyed, fish ponds were poisoned, pesticides banned in Europe were used, and land tenure problems arose. The dyke and drains have considerably altered the hydrology of the area which has already led to the death of trees. The proliferation of roads led to an increase in logging and hunting, and it is expected that all of the area's mature timber trees will be felled in the near future. As revealed in the Commission's own mid-term review, the use of heavy machinery caused compaction of soils. Local peoples conducted strikes and tried to obstruct the project, which consultants to the Commission conceded was the "only effective means to express their discontent". Other large scale projects have resulted in similar impacts and have also resulted in major failures. The situation thus appears to be at a standpoint, where neither monocultures nor smallholdings seem able to provide answers to the problem of the scarcity of palm oil in one of the countries where the oil palm is native. However --according to experienced local people-- the solution to the problem should not be impossible to achieve if adequate policies were put in place and implemented, along with certain guidelines such as: - Large scale monocultures should not be implemented because they involve soil --and in many places water-- mining, they damage ecosystems, undermine human society and they are an inefficient way of producing resources - Investments should be made in terms of processing capacity and technology. The capacity of traditional presses is very low. The efficiency of these methods is lower than modern mills and oil extraction rates range from 20% to 50% compared with 90% in Malaysia - The investments however, need to be directed towards the small farmer and farmer co-operatives where oil palm cultivation continues as a manipulation of "wild" groves, as part of mixed farming and as small plantations of one or two hectares - Production of existing plantations should be maximised --so that new ones are not required-- and returned to the original landowners as smallholder blocks that will inevitably be converted into a more mixed and more viable agricultural ecosystem The above approach is essential for poverty elimination and for the economic empowerment of local people, whilst at the same time serving the country's interests as a whole. Article based on information from:
Nick J Ashton-Jones (personal communication, 28/12/2000); Rainforest
Foundation. "Out Of Commission - The Environmental and Social Impacts
of European Union Development Funding in Tropical Forest Areas"
ASIA - Burma: Forced labour in oil palm plantations On 13 June this year, Amnesty International released a report on Burma titled "Myanmar. Ethnic minorities: targets of repression." The report states that for the last 13 years this organization has documented "the widespread use of forced labour of ethnic minorities by the Myanmar military" and adds that "perhaps the most common human rights violation of ethnic minorities is forced labour of civilians, who are much more likely to be seized by the army than the majority Burman group." According to Amnesty International, "there are two broad types of forced labour: the first is portering, which entails carrying heavy loads for the military over rough terrain for days or weeks at a time. The second type involves work on construction projects such as roads, railways, and dams. Men, women, and children are all taken for labour duties, and almost never paid for their work." Organizations such as the Karen National Union and Free Burma Coalition have identified oil palm plantations among the many types of activities being carried out forcibly by local people. In February 1999, the Vice Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council (Burma's military regime) General Maung Aye was accompanied by national entrepreneurs on a field trip to reclaim "vacant, virgin and fallow lands" for cultivation of crops in Taninthayi Division. Gen. Maung Aye said that "the land between Kauthaung and Myeik is appropriate for cultivation of edible oil palm on commercial scale, and should local entrepreneurs establish edible oil palm plantations on thousands of acres, it is sure that Taninthayi Division would become the "edible oil pot" of the country like Magway Division". He assured that the government would provide support for success of local entrepreneurs implementing the projects in accord with the economic objectives of the State. Local entrepreneurs also explained the tentative plan to cultivate oil palm on 400,000 acres in the division and the chosen sites. The Vice Chairman has certainly kept his promise of "providing support". On 27 July 2000, SPDC's troops ordered villagers from Thagyet and Kyeinchaung villages to work for a military oil palm plantation at Kyeinchaung area. 70 persons from Thagyet, 50 from Nyaungbingwin, 30 from Thebotleik, 50 from Kamukru, 30 from Kyauktalone villages were demanded to go and work in turn. The oil palm plantation has a 55,500 acre extension. Since January 2001, SPDC have started another oil palm plantation plan in Tanawthiri township (Taninthayi) in Mergui district, Tenasserim division. The planned area to clear are in the surroundings of Thaboleik, Leikpu, Htihpo-awmay, Kabawplaw villages in the east of Taninthayi town and the villagers from those related villages were ordered to clear the plantation site. The area of plantation was not known yet. SPDC authorities are working for Yan Naing Myint Co.and have ordered their local militia to take responsibility for the operation. SPDC had ordered all the local village tracts nearby to plant the oil palm saplings when the site was ready. Every household must go and plant the sapling from the beginning to the end. This is clearly the most extreme case of exploitation and human rights violations related to oil palm plantations and the international community needs to be made aware of the situation. Organizations campaigning against large-scale oil palm monocultures should take the Burmese case on board to provide support for those communities facing such abuses. Article based on information from:
- Cambodia: The unfulfilled promises of an oil palm plantation Since 1997, the Mong Reththy Investment Cambodia Oil Palm Company has planted an area of 3,800 hectares with oil palm trees. The company, with the help of the Phnom Penh authorities, moved 99 families from a squat in Phnom Penh to work on the plantation adjacent to Route 4, 150 kilometres south of Phnom Penh. However, few of the people moved from Phnom Penh have actually found work on the plantations, the processing factory is still to be built, and many people are simply moving back to Phnom Penh to look for work there. (See WRM Bulletin no. 39.) The company behind the project, Mong Reththy Investment Cambodia Oil Palm is owned by Cambodian businessman Mong Reththy (60 per cent), Borim Universal (South Korea, 30 per cent), and Lavanaland (Malaysia, 10 per cent). When people were moved from Phnom Penh in early 1999, the company promised to give them two hectare oil palm plots in order that they could earn some money from the oil palm kernels produced. In July 2000, Mong Reththy, one of Cambodia's richest businessmen, told the Phnom Penh Post that his company "is still waiting on a loan from the Rural Development bank to pay for preparing the land and providing villagers with seedling and fertilizer." Six months later, Mong Reththy wrote to Watershed magazine, explaining, "The promise of two hectares of planted palm oil plantation is still on the Company top priority agenda. The company is sourcing every possible way to secure a loan from local and international banks." Mong Reththy claimed that this was proof that his company is "more than willing to commit". After more than two years, the villagers are still waiting for the promised two hectare plots. In June 2001, Bok Chhiv Tor, Project Coordinator for Mong Reththy, dismissed the problem, saying "The villagers can freely do whatever they please to earn their living. If they choose to work for the company we will give them employment." He added, "We really don't know how many of the villagers are currently employed by the company." The land used for the oil palm plantation was either forest or farmland according to villagers in the area. In Tanei village, almost all the 300 families lost land to the company's plantations. Many have received no compensation from the company. Bok Chhiv Tor claims that before the company arrived, the land was "empty land, and it was a concession granted by the Royal Government." In February 2001, more than 6,500 oil palm trees on Mong Reththy's plantation burned down. Mong Reththy told the Cambodian newspaper, Rasmey Kampuchea, that the fire was deliberately started, arguing that the fire started simultaneously in two different places. The oil palm trees burnt were planted in 1997, and were beginning to fruit. The company estimated the cost of the damage at around US$70,000. So far, the oil palm venture doesn't even make a profit. The first fruits have begun to be harvested, but without a factory to process the kernels, the first year's harvest was simply left to rot. The US$5 million factory is due to be completed in 2002 but it is not clear where the money will come from. Mong Reththy is currently negotiating with the government in an attempt to gain help in funding the factory. In May 2001, Mong Reththy told the Cambodia Daily, "If there is no factory, I will lose another US$1.5 million in 2002." He said so far the plantation project has cost US$10 million in overheads, and this year it lost US$1 million. In March 2001, the Rasmey Kampuchea newspaper reported that the Ministry of Agriculture did not encourage the oil palm plantations project, on the grounds that "it would not give a positive result". In the meantime, Mong Reththy is focussing on his 1,800-hectare cassava plantation. The company has failed to benefit either the local population or the people moved from Phnom Penh. People living in the area of the plantations have lost their land and forests to the company, without compensation. Of the people moved from Phnom Penh, supposedly to work for the company, few have received jobs and none have received the land the company promised them. They have even lost the precarious livelihoods they had in Phnom Penh. Who will compensate all of these people? Will the company be "more than willing to commit" to this? By: Chris Lang, e-mail: http://chrislang.org
- Indonesia: Million hectare oil palm plantation programme in Jambi Jambi province, Sumatra, is one of a number of areas where the newly empowered regional government is pushing for major expansion in oil palm plantations. The provincial governor has announced plans to develop a million hectares of oil palm in the province by the year 2005. Last year, the provincial authorities threatened to cancel the licences of 49 plantation companies which had been allocated over 700,000 hectares in Jambi but had not yet planted it with oil palm. In December, Malaysia's ambassador to Indonesia announced that Malaysian companies were ready to take over around 356,300 hectares of oil palm plantations in the province that current lease-holders had failed to develop. Jambi currently has around 265,000 hectares of oil palm plantations, of which 200,000 hectares were in production last year. About 320,000 tonnes of crude palm oil was produced by 13 processing plants with a total capacity of 640 tonnes per hour. In January governor Zulkifli signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a US-British-Swiss venture capital consortium, Asian Jade Venture Ltd, based in Johor Baru, Malaysia. The agreement covered investments of US$500 million for oil palm plantations, downstream processing industries, a port, a new town and for the tourism and fisheries sectors. The local environmental NGO, WALHI Jambi, has issued a statement rejecting the million hectare oil palm programme, arguing that it would destroy forests, and wipe out the sustainable livelihoods of communities living near the forests. WALHI has also accused the authorities of failing to indicate where the new plantations will be developed and argues there isn't enough available land to develop such a large area. WALHI says that the focus should be on improving conditions and resolving conflicts between farmers and plantation owners at existing oil palm plantations. WALHI's press statements --and the apparent second thoughts of Asian Jade Ventures Ltd-- have provoked a furious response from governor Zulkifli. He has accused the NGO of being anti-investment, anti-progress and anti-regional autonomy. The governor and his supporters are believed to be behind a campaign of intimidation, launched by suspect 'NGOs' calling for WALHI to be shut down. This has involved trucking 300 protesters to demonstrate at WALHI's office, and issuing statements of support for the governor's programme. Article based on information from: " A million hectares for Jambi", Down to Earth No. 49, May 2001, http://www.gn.apc.org/dte/49OP.htm
- Malaysia: Exporting social and environmental impacts of oil palm monocultures Malaysia is the world's number one producer and exporter of palm oil. However, the development of this sector has not only not benefitted the local people but, on the contrary, has resulted in serious adverse effects, particularly in the state of Sarawak. This crop, which generates huge profits for a few large companies linked to the government and local elites, leads to serious negative social and environmental impacts that affect the majority of the population, giving rise to social conflicts that nearly always resulting in human rights violations. Logging companies have been destroying forests through large-scale unsustainable logging, causing irreparable damages. However, their activity has only been the prologue for something even worse. When wood resources began to decrease and world demand for palm oil increased, many logging companies opted to redirect their activities to oil palm plantation. For local peoples, this means the final appropriation of their traditional territories by the companies. As a local person said: "Logging companies destroy our forest and leave. Plantation companies destroy our forest and stay!" Most of these plantations are being implemented in indigenous traditional territories, thus depriving local peoples of their livelihood and vital resources. In Sarawak, the government has granted licenses to oil palm companies in lands used by the local peoples to cultivate their basic food, such as rice, fruit trees, vegetables, pepper, etc. Moreover, the destruction of forests determines the disappearance of a wide range of products, traditionally used by local communities. Deprived of their resources, local peoples are gradually forced to hand over all their rights to their lands, and to turn into salaried workers of the companies, in seasonal, low-paid jobs and under bad working conditions. The increasing occupation of lands by oil palm plantation companies has unleashed an unequal fight, in which local communities resist against forest destruction, the deprivation of their lands and the disregard for their traditional rights. They then become victims of repression and harassment from the government, which protects the interests of the companies. Oil palm companies and the government are thus responsible for promoting deforestation and for violating the human rights of the local peoples that fight for forest conservation. It is important to highlight this situation, given that many of those companies are expanding their activities to other tropical countries, where they will surely repeat the same behaviour pattern. Malaysian government and corporate representatives have visited a number of countries such as Indonesia, Philippines, India, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Nigeria, Guyana, Honduras and others, promoting this palm monoculture system. Of course they never mention the serious adverse social and environmental impacts this system is generating in their own country. And that is precisely what people must know, and they should ask themselves: ¿What can we expect of companies that, in their own country, act against local communities and the environment? ¿Will they behave better in foreign countries? Very unlikely. The same as at home, they will probably act in the name of "development", but their profitability will be obtained at the expense of the destruction of the environment and the use of cheap labour. That is the hypothesis which local people of the countries where these companies intend to expand their activity should adopt, until those same companies modify their behaviour in their own country. Article based on information from: http://www.rengah.c2o.org ; http://www.surforever.com/sam; http://www.laprensahn.com/econoarc/9709/e12004.htm ; http://forests.org/archive/indomalay/oilpalm.htm
LATIN AMERICA - Colombia: Perverse economic incentive for oil palm plantation Oil palm was introduced in Colombia in 1932, but its commercial development started by the end of the fifties. In the mid sixties there were over 18,000 hectares of that crop in the provinces of César, Magdalena, Santander and Norte de Santander. Palm cultivation expanded to other provinces and according to data published in 1995 by Fedepalma, by that year there were already around 130,000 hectares, being the country's main oil crop, mainly in the north, central and eastern zones of the country. Currently, within the framework of the so called "Plan Colombia", the government aims at replacing plantation of illegal crops with oil palm and plans to plant up to 300,000 new hectares. These new plantations would be included under the agricultural plan of the present administration, disregarding both people and the environment. As stated by the Peasant Association of the Valley of River Cimitarra (Asociación Campesina del Valle del río Cimitarra - ACVC), these plantations are a "a sad example of the coctail of large land owners with aspirations of efficiency or modernity who, pretending to be productive, not only don't abandon but reaffirm themselves in their exclusivist and monopolistic land use structure." And ACVC adds: "This system aims at increasing yield per hectare without altering the structure of land ownership at all. The new feudal lords talk about productive alliances, which are nothing but a sort of disguised sharecropping. These alliances are the legal remedy to elude their obligations with poor agricultural workers. As workers become partners, large land owners save the payment of wages and eliminate extra time and social contribution duties. According to the owners, they should remain in charge of the administration of these alliances, as they are "experienced". In other cases these "new" large land owners offer a plan to small and even medium sized land owners and producers for association with their monoculture projects through their indebtness under the sophism of the "peasant palm economy". The actual plan of the large land owners, which control the industrialization and commercialization processes, is one for getting a permanent raw material supply without establishing any labour link between them and the impoverished peasants. Not even the declared objectives --such as a higher monetary incomes per hectare-- will be achieved, since, as stated by ACVC, the actual aim is to increase the raw material supply. The Malaysian situation last year was an example of what could happen in Colombia in the near future. Despite an increase of 30% in the September-October harvest, the price kept a steady falling trend along the year and by October was 40% lower than in January of the same year. Malaysia is the world's main producer and exporter of palm oil. The country has great experience in oil palm production, which is not precisely very positive, especially regarding people and the environment. A short time ago, by the end of May, many Malaysian producers had to burn their production of ripe fruit ("because it is too costly to transport the produce to the nearest processing mill in Beaufort, in the wake of the low price of palm oil in the global market."), as informed by the local newspaper Daily Express. But the most irreversible damage will be the one caused to the environment and therefore to the people and fundamentaly to those with less resources. According to a study which was recently published by the Alexander Von Humboldt Institute (Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander Von Humboldt), "it is important to remember that palm plantations are not forests but uniform ecosystems which replace natural ecosystems and their biodiversity. This usually results in adverse social and environmental impacts: water production decreases; the soil structure and composition is modified; the abundance of fauna and flora and their species' composition are altered; the livelihood base of the native population is lost, and in some cases black and indigenous populations and peasant communities are displaced". Some examples of these have already been recorded, such as that of the western palm cultivation zone (Municipality of Tumaco), where the destruction of the primary forest is mostly associated to palm cultivation. Furthermore, as is widely known, one of the main causes leading species to enter into the higher endangered categories, is the destruction of their habitats". The main aim of that study was to prove the "perversity" of certain incentives, such as the Incentive of Rural Capitalization (Incentivo a la Capitalización Rural - ICR), which are claimed to "achieve peace" and are promoted within the framework of the Plan Colombia. "The ICR was chosen for the late yield crops as a potentially perverse incentive, as it is directly oriented to the expansion of oil palm platation wherever within the country, disregarding considerations of biodiversity conservation. The ICR is a condonation of the credit granted by FINAGRO to farmers and cattle-ranchers and could reach 40% of the total credit, depending on the type of producer involved." It is important to clarify that this incentive is just a new formula of an old history of incentives, as "incentives have been granted to oil palm producers since the 50’s, and the increase of planted areas from 250 hectares in 1957 to over 150.000 hectares in 1999 has been the result of all sort of incentives, including "fiscal and tax incentives, research and technical assistance, free distribution of plants and seeds, access to credit", among others. Through a microeconomic analysis which made it possible to determine the behaviour of producers regarding changes in the price of credit, it was possible to establish that the ICR "can encourage both established producers as well as new investors to increase the area planted with oil palm, replacing other plant covers, like tropical rainforest and grass." The model used in this study allowed to "simulate the possible effects on biodiversity of applying the ICR in two palm producing areas: north and west" and to "estimate the optimal areas which would be required by the producers" . It also enabled the calculation of the Indicator of Biodiversity (IBD) which allows the comparison of the present biodiversity level with the level those potentially required areas would have if they were actually turned into palm cultivation". The results indicated a biodiversity loss ranging from 21.8 and 39.15% in the various areas analysed. But above all the environmental and social impacts which may arise from an expansion of oil palm monocultures, it is unbelievable that the "solution" offered by the Plan Colombia to the peasants currently growing illegal crops should be the plantation of oil palm. A viable solution will only be such if illegal crops are replaced by others with similar income levels of the ones they presenty receive and this is something which for sure will not be provided by oil palm cultivation. The current price for oil palm is already not profitable and the increase in the area devoted to oil palm plantations will further reduce it. This is therefore a new deception, which will only render higher profits for the Colombian palm oil companies, while its impacts will be suffered by people and the environment. Article based on information from:
Fedepalma, http://www.fedepalma.org/general.htm;
Servicio Informativo Red Resistencia ; E-mail: redresistencia@dataway.ch
, http://free.freespeech.org/agp/colombia/neolib.htm
; Asociación Campesina del Valle del rio Cimitarra – ACVC, E-mail:
acvc@col1.telecom.com.co, cimitarra@mixmail.com,
ACVC paper at the International Conference "El Otro Davos":El
neoliberalismo, la cuestión agraria y el conflicto social y armado en
Colombia; Daily Express,
- Ecuador: Oil palm in the devastated Garden of Eden In Ecuador, the relaunching of oil palm cultivation has given rise to different reactions. In a long interview published by a widely read newspaper, for instance, the question was raised on whether oil palm plantation in the province of Esmeraldas would bring this poor Ecuadorian region nearer to paradise (El Universo, 11/3/2000), while at the same time other headlines stated that oil palm cultivation is destroying native forests and that thousands of hectares have been destroyed in San Lorenzo (La Hora, 18/5/2001). Other press media, on the other hand, echoed the massive campaign carried out by the Association of Oil Palm Cultivators of Ecuador (Asociación de Palmicultores del Ecuador ANCUPA), aimed at cleaning up their image after having been blamed for the destruction of forests. In this sense, they claimed that oil palm monocultures constitute a development proposal which is subject to "environmental censorship" and put forward the question of whether oil palm cultivation was the hen that laid the golden eggs or the "bad guy" for the environment. Salomón Gutt, manager of Palmeras de los Andes, one of the companies responsible for the most extensive destruction of primary forest in San Lorenzo, declared that "this area had been forgotten by God and the world" until they arrived. He also stressed the fact that the palm is environmentaly friendly and that "in the end a new palm forest emitting lots of oxygen is obtained. There is probably no other enterpreneurial project which can equal oil palm cultivation, where man and nature are completely intertwined." The governmental sector also participated in the discusion. Hans Thiel, former Forestry Director and now undersecretary of the Ministry of Environment, declared that the Ministry sees the creation of alternative sources of employment by the palm companies as something positive, since the main pressures on natural forests arise from poverty, colonization and population displacements (sic) (Diario Hoy. Blanco y Negro, 6/5/2000). Now, after several months have elapsed since the start of the accellerated implantation of these monocultures in Esmeraldas, several points of the present situation need to be highlighted: - the process of land acquisition has resulted in the displacement of Afro-Ecuatorian population. Some of these people, fostered by palm cultivators, are now putting pressure on the territory of the Awa and Chachi indigenous communities, which have denounced the situation to the Ministry of Agriculture. - almost 8000 hectares have already been deforested, most of them illegally, and areas within the Forest Heritage of the State has been illegally awarded. - the companies have not submitted the necessary environmental impact studies to carry out these operations, and the sanctions and timely actions to stop deforestation have not been taken, as can be deduced from the declarations of government officials. As a result of environmental organizations' accusations, the Environment Minister had to make an appearance in the National Congress, where he explained that eight judicial actions had been filed on account of the clearance of native forest and that seven of them had already received a verdict. The situation of those cases would be as follows: in the case against Palmeras de los Andes, the proceedings were rendered void in the appeal, due to errors in the location of the land. Palesma was sentenced to pay a fine of 67.908 US dollars for clearing 250 hectares of secondary forest. Ecuafinca has been sanctioned with a fine of 10 minimun vital salaries. Palmeras del Pacífico was acquitted by the Forestry District of Esmeraldas due to lack of evidence. Aiquisa was sanctioned with a fine of 10 minimum vital salaries. The case against Agrícola San Lorenzo was rendered void by the appeals court due to administrative errors. Teobrama was sanctioned with a fine of 10 minimum vital salaries, and the same fine was imposed on Ales Palma (the minimum vital salary amounts to 4 American dollars!). The activity of oil palm companies is also affecting the Forest Heritage of the State. Ales Palma has areas which "overlap" the Forest Heritage of the State in Ricaurte; Alzamora has similar "overlapping areas" in Corriente Larga; Palesema in Campanita and partly in the mangroves reserve Cayapas-Mataje, and Palmeras de los Andes, in Corriente Larga. Such illegal awards were made by the National Institute of Agricultural Development, INDA (Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo Agrario), which has been accused of being a "cave of thieves" by the Minister of Agriculture. As a consequence of so many irregular situations, on March 14, 2001, the Constitutional Court decided in favour of the appeal filed by environmental organizations to immediately halt the further implementation of oil palm monoculture activities and to declare a state of environmental emergency in the province of Esmeraldas, demanding the initiation of legal actions to sanction those who have cleared forests and that the action of the Ministry of Environment be in accordance with the legal provisions in force. Instead of abiding by the legal provisions, San Lorenzo’s palm cultivators threatened to paralize activities and leave the zone, stating that the Ministry of Environment was not providing them with "sufficient guarantees". Former Minister of Environment Rendón insinuated that his resignation, which occured a few days after those declarations, had been the result of the oil palm companies' pressure. Despite all the evidence regarding the illegal activities of oil palm companies and despite the ruling of the Constitutional Court banning further oil palm activities in the region, the situation continues to be serious. The derisory fines imposed, the fact that no one has been indicted on the charges provided for those guilty of forest destruction, and that no civil servant collaborating with deforestation has been sanctioned for negligence, are proof of the above. Furthermore, the companies continue with their business in zones in which the State cannot even enter, by making use of their power and influence within the Government, and thus evading all sort of sanction and control. The current devastation in the province of Esmeraldas arises from a logic of development that allows the destruction of forests to give way to monocultures; shrimp exports in exchange for mangrove destruction; wood extraction over biodiversity. And on top of it all, the green province of Esmeraldas is affected by the aerial spraying carried out during these months in Colombia to eradicate coca cultivation. This Garden of Eden should be urgently declared in emergency. By: Ricardo Buitrón, Acción Ecológica, June 25, 2001. e-mail: bosques@accionecologica.org
- Mexico: Oil palm and the different meanings of Chiapas Chiapas means much for many people all over the world. It is a synonym of Zapatistas and of Subcomandante Marcos, and these, in turn, of struggle for liberation and against injustice. However, for national and transnational corporations, Chiapas is still merely a synonym of cheap land, cheap labour, abundant resources and profit opportunities. It is not surprising then that both the government and the company owners are promoting a number of projects that would harm the rich cultural and biological diversity of Chiapas. Among these is the promotion of oil palm monocultures by the government, opening the door to foreign investors, especially from Malaysia, who dominate the international palm oil market. Oil palm still occupies relatively small areas (some 3,000 hectares), located in the municipalities of Acapetahua, Acacoyagua, Mazatán, Mapastepec and Villa Comaltitlán, which supply the oil extracting plants installed in Villa Comaltitlán and Acapetahua. However, the impacts are beginning to be perceived. In the year 2000, the oil palm producers of Acapetahua already felt that they were "at the mercy of the voracity of buyers, the owners of the extracting plants, who pay the price they choose per ton". According to the producers, the government --who was responsible for the introduction of the farming programme of this crop-- should be responsible for regulating a guarantee price for the product. However, as the government did not take on that role, the producers, confronted with the prices established by the industrial monopoly were on the verge of bankruptcy. Since then, prices have dropped even more. Why is there so much interest in oil palm production in Chiapas? The answer is simple: because it yields high profits, does not need much labour, requires few inputs, and it is low-risk capital for companies. In general terms, peasants provide land and labour; they do not own the production process, but just the fruit extraction. Cultivation of this crop also takes advantage of the cheap labour offered by migrants in the border region. It is the case of the day labourers of the Guatemalan border: those who are lucky earn 32 pesos a day (3.5 dollars), not including food, and even children are often hired. In addition, in some cases, the Guatemalan authorities have had to act to require the payment of unpaid wages to Guatemalan workers. This means that the workers are literally being exploited. From the environmental perspective, the impacts can already be perceived. In fact, large scale monocultures imply the destruction of great extensions of forests of the region and their rich biodiversity. If government plans of allotting thousands of hectares to cultivation of this crop are carried out, it would also imply the occupation of great extensions of land belonging to indigenous and farmer communities of Chiapas. The oil palm production potential of Chiapas is estimated at 940,000 hectares in the Northern, Forest and Coastal zones. But since these areas are not empty, the promotion of this and other crops (such as eucalyptus), will result in the appropriation of vast areas currently used by local peoples. It is thus clear that the promotion of this crop is not aimed at improving the life quality of local peoples, because among all the possible alternatives, it is one of the worst in terms of wages and employment generation. Furthermore, it endangers the survival of forests and of resources of the local people, through the occupation of huge extensions of land by palm monocultures. The local people have already begun to perceive it, which explains the increasing opposition of the Chiapaneca people, who are not willing to change their natural resources for false promises. Article based on information from: "El Plan Puebla Panamá: análisis crítico". Coordinadora Regional de los Altos de la Sociedad Civil en Resistencia, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas. E-mail: coordinadoraaltos@eudoramail.com; CIEPAC, Chiapas al Día, No. 125, 29/8/98. "Las Inversiones Extranjera Directa, Nacional y Estatal en Chiapas: Otro Mito (Segunda Parte y última)". E-mail: ciepac@laneta.apc.org; El Orbe, 24/6/2000: "Productores de Palma Africana se Quejan de Desamparo Gubernamental" http://www.elorbe.com.mx/pretor/24062000/nota3.html
- Nicaragua: US United Fruit, oil palm and forest destruction The history of oil palm in Central America is closely linked to the history of the economic group United Fruit. Preston and Keith, two US businessmen who, for 20 years since 1870 concentrated on planting and exporting bananas to the USA, merged their companies in 1899 to found the United Fruit Company (UFCO), as a means of diversifying their plantations and increasing their profits. In 1901, the Guatemalan dictator Manuel Estrada Cabrera granted UFCO the exclusive right to transport mail between Guatemala and the USA. The Compañía Guatemalteca de Ferrocarril (The Guatemalan Railway Company) was created, as a subsidiary of UFCO. The company was allowed to buy land at cheap prices, it was granted subsidies, and with some variations, it obtained in many Central American countries the control of transport and communications, which also allowed it to collect money for every product transported from one place to another. This was the entrance door for UFCO’s large investments in Latin America. In few years, the power of UFCO, also known as "yunai" or "La Frutera" (the fruit company), stretched over several countries. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, the consolidation of the banana business in Honduras was hindered by serious political problems, and in Costa Rica, the coffee grower oligarchy showed a strong opposition to the banana business. In 1923, United Fruit created a research department and an experimental station (both of them in Honduras), with the objective of introducing and assessing new tropical crops in Central America. The appearance and dissemination of Fusarium wilt in banana plantations forced UFCO to abandon large farming areas. Part of those areas were used to plant oil palm. In the 1940's, the first oil palm plantations were established in Nicaragua in an area of approximately 1,800 hectares, in the municipality of Rama, on the Atlantic Coast. The location of the plantation allowed good adaptability and profitability. However, due to armed conflicts in the area, the exploitation was discontinued and its development as a commercial crop was disregarded. Another pilot project considered experimental, was installed in the southern area, near the border with Costa Rica, in Rio San Juan. All this region is considered of high potential for this crop. After 1942, UFCO accumulated considerable experience and information about the extraction and processing of oil from oil palm. Evaluation studies were carried out by area, and many samples were sent to the USA. The results were so promising that UFCO began its commercial plantations. In 1962, UFCO began a period of strong incentive to this crop, and the decade of the sixties was characterized by the adoption of a number of measures to expand plantations. In 1965, UFCO acquired the NUMAR group in Costa Rica for processing and marketing vegetable oils --as a means of vertically integrating its business-- and in 1967 it established processing units in Honduras. In 1969, it bought Compañía Aceitera Corona in Nicaragua. In 1970 United Fruit changed its name to United Brands after merging with another company, leaving behind a name linked to a long history of political and social manipulation. However, for the seasonal workers in the fields life continues being harsh. Working conditions are physically dangerous, work is seasonal and the toxic chemicals used in the crop are a permanent hazard. The oil palm industry has been in permanent expansion in the main tropical regions of Central America, and oil palm is nowadays one of the main crops in those areas where it is established. However, this expansion has not been exclusively carried out by the companies. In Nicaragua, in the eighties, two experimental stations were established in the humid tropical zone in the same area of Rio San Juan through the Fondo Simón Bolivar --a multilateral voluntary fund. At present one of these stations has been abandoned and has no link with the local communities, while the other one has been reactivated for commercial exploitation, including the instalation of an industrial facility for raw material processing. At a Seminar on Pesticides, Ecology and Scientific Research in the Xolotlán, Cocibolca and Río San Juan Lakes held in 1999, local organizations and communities settled in the south of Nicaragua, denounced the direct contamination of water courses as a result of the oil plant activity, and the consequent death of species of the local fauna. For the oil palm to reach high productivity levels, high sun radiation levels are also required, which has generally led to the deforestation of vast regions of primary forests. Until now it has not been possible to force the company to take on its responsibility for the damages denounced by the communities. The accusations were swiftly followed by threats. "25 year-old Genoveva Gaitán Matamoros from San Miguelito, says that Mr. Juan Reyes threatened to shoot her if she did not stop going around with those environmentalists, who did not let him earn his money. And he earns it destroying our forests and our lives, because the forests mean life for everyone: people and animals" Article based on information from: Yamila Zepeda, Centro Humboldt, Amigos de la Tierra-Nicaragua, e-mail: humboldt@ibw.com.ni ; D. L. Richardson, ASD Oil Palm Papers, N° 11, 1-22, 1995 http://www.asd-cr.com/ASD-Pub/Bol11/B11c1Esp.html ; The Río Dulce, Guatemala Information Web Site http://www.mayaparadise.com/ufc1s.htm ; El Nuevo Diario http://www2.elnuevodiario.com.ni/archivo/1999/septiembre/24-septiembre-1999
OCEANIA - Papua New Guinea: Incentives to oil palm plantations Papua New Guinea (PNG) possesses one of the planet's largest remaining tropical rainforest. At least seventy-five percent of its original forest cover is still standing, occupying vast, biologically rich tracts over 100,000 square miles in all. Its forests provide the habitat for about 200 species of mammals, 20,000 species of plants, 1,500 species of trees and 750 species of birds, half of which are endemic to the island. It has been estimated that between 5 and 7% of the known species in the world live in PNG. Rare plants and animals like the largest orchid, the largest butterfly, the longest lizard, the largest pigeon and the smallest parrot ever registered live in these forests. The forests also constitute the home of the indigenous peoples. But these forests and forest peoples are under threat due to large-scale logging activities and oil palm plantations. PNG is the world seventh largest palm oil producer and the third largest exporter of palm oil, exporting almost its entire production to Europe. During the last years the oil palm industry has been expanding throughout PNG, mainly in West New Britain Province, which is the leading producer of oil palm in the country, known as "The Oil Palm Province". Initially, oil palm plantations were implemented by companies in which the government was one of the shareholders. But now the situation has changed with the increasing investment of Chinese, Malaysian and Indonesian companies in oil palm plantations which destroy the forests to give way to this monoculture. This is resulting in the appropriation of local communities' lands and therefore in resistance against this activity. One of such cases is that of the Maisin indigenous people, who inhabit the rainforest of Papua New Guinea. The Maisin filed a lawsuit against a Malaysian company, that found its way to Papua New Guinea's highest Court. The company claimed to own leasing rights to both clear-cut the Maisin's forests and to establish an oil palm plantation. Under the Papua New Guinea constitution, the Maisin are the legal owners of their traditional lands. The Maisin claim they have never signed away their forest lands, and that the Malaysian company possesses an invalid lease with forged signatures. The company denied the charges, but the Papua New Guinea Courts have enjoined the project pending final resolution of the case. Instead of promoting environmentally sound and socially beneficial activities --such as community forest management-- the PNG government is strongly supporting this type of development. In April this year, the Livestock Minister Muki Taranupi announced plans for tax incentives in the oil palm sector designed to encourage growth and boost production. The minister said the government would offer tax credits to oil palm estates and reduce import duty on agricultural imports. The minister added that he had also directed his department to examine the possibility of reducing import duties on imported agricultural equipment and implements including fertilizers. It is worth noting that an activity such as this, which results in the impoverishment of local peoples --who lose their lands and forests-- and in the depletion of biological and water resources receives strong governmental support, while socially and environmentally beneficial activities do not. In the case of PNG, oil palm plantations are not even aimed at the production of edible oil for the local population and almost the entire production is export-oriented. As usual, corporate profits and macroeconomic benefits seem to be more important than local peoples livelihoods and environmental conservation. Article based on information from:
Papua New Guinea Rainforest Tribe Takes Timber Developers to Court ( http://www.vje.org/volume2/Inews104.html
); Underlying Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation, Papua New
Guinea’s Case Study
GENERAL - Working conditions in oil palm plantations The following description of work in plantations was written in 1987. Unfortunately, the situation has in general terms not improved much and it is therefore applicable to most of today's plantations. "Work on an oil-palm plantation is back-breaking and dangerous. Palm-oil fruits (used in making margarine and cooking oil) grow alongside thorny fronds, 12 to 15 feet above the ground. They are cut down with a long and heavy pole and the skin, head and eyes of the harvester are likely to be cut by the falling fronds. In Malaysian plantations, fruit is cut down mainly by men, while women collect and load the 40-kilogram fruit branches, and thorns can become permanently lodged in the hands, causing constant irritation and infection. Only rarely is protective clothing issued to the women who spray a mixture of lethal paraquat on the ground to kill weeds. The clothes are too warm for the climate and they don’t even afford much protection: as the sprayers aim for weeds the fine mist drifts and slips inside the clothing. Some people believe the chemicals cause the material to disintegrate. Wages on plantations are low. Oil-palm plantation workers in Malaysia earn just under the industrial wage - if they are lucky. Earning the full weekly wage usually involves long hours in the baking sun, struggling to fulfill the company’s quota of palm-oil nuts. The whole family - mothers, grandparents, fathers and children usually work together. Their wages are also dependent on the world market price for palm-oil, and so fluctuate with that price." Article based on information from: Barbara Dinham. "Planting Poverty. New Internationalist 172, June 1987 ( http://www.oneworld.org/ni/issue172/planting.htm )
- The rights and welfare of plantation workers In 1996, the World Rainforest Movement and the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Association (IUF-UITA,IUL) made a joint statement to the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) focused on the social aspects of plantation development, where "plantation workers are among the poorest and most exploited of all agricultural labourers." The joint statement --endorsed by many other organisations-- expressed that "low wages are not the only problems faced by plantations labourers. The ILO (International Labour Organization) notes that, by and large, housing conditions in plantations continue to be characterised by overcrowding and insufficient and poor infrastructure. Medical assistance is poor especially in the lack of provision of preventive health care, sanitation and clean water supplies. Primary education facilities are generally insufficient to enable children to attend school regularly and complete their primary education. Poor safety standards are common particularly with regard to the misuse of agro-chemicals. All these problems are linked to the fact that the rights of plantations workers to organise and collective bargaining are commonly denied. These problems are exacerbated by the fact that, globally, prices for most plantation commodities have progressively declined in real terms in the past decades." Additionally, the WRM and IUF stress that "rights to organise and bargain collectively are still denied in many countries and private companies have exploited this lack of protection by maintaining or driving down wages and benefits. Mechanisation has reduced the demand for and hence the bargaining force of labour. Even where commodity prices have risen in real terms, such as in the pulp and paper sector, benefits have rarely been passed on plantations workers. The trend towards the divestment of lands and reliance on contract farming and smallholder nucleus estates has had very varied effects. In some countries, small farmers have been able to benefit, by organising as cooperatives and through effective collective bargaining with processing and exporting industries. In other countries, however, where small-farmers are weakly organised or their rights to organise and bargain collectively are suppressed, companies have been able to increase their profits by shifting onto small-farmers the costs of health, schooling, pension and insurance provisions as well as the risks associated with spoiled and injuries". The statement urged the IPF to take the issue on board, stressing the "urgent need for renewed efforts to ensure stronger protections for plantation workers and new mechanisms to allow more adequate consideration of their rights and interests in planning. The full statement is available at: http://www.wrm.org.uy/plantations/information/workers.html
- Genetically-modified oil palms: The final threat Despite the numerous social and environmental impacts of monoculture oil palm plantations, the industry is continuously trying to increase productivity and lower costs, which can only lead to even more serious impacts on people and nature. It is the system's perverse logic. Within that logic, the obvious step forward is genetic manipulation of oil palms. Not only to increase productivity, but to alter the end-product: palm oil. And they are already working in that direction. Malaysian Palm Oil Association chief executive M.R. Chandran has publicly declared that "the priority should be to develop transgenic palms for better oil quality, yield and minimal height". To work in that direction, he added, "the industry must build alliances with established R&D institutions, universities and industry players, both locally and overseas, to make possible a quantum leap in applied and adaptive research work." For him, clones are not enough. Chandran said that "the national CPO [Crude palm oil] yield has stagnated at 3.6 to 3.8 tonnes/ha in the past 13 years even though new clones developed can produce as much as 6.5 to 7.5 tonnes/ha.", adding that "the industry should take advantage of the Government's subsidy offer of RM1,000 per hectare to carry out accelerated replanting with superior planting materials and with mechanisation in mind". Research in this direction is already well advanced. In 1998, the press informed that indepth studies had already been undertaken by local plant biologists and geneticists to create genetically-engineered palm oil which would be able to produce "the kind of oil, flavour and scent the detergent and cooking oil manufacturers, the chocolate makers, the beauty industry, the perfume designers and salad makers desire." So the aim of this research is clearly to transform a natural product into an artificial one adapted to industry's needs. This is the final threat to both natural environments and to people who consume palm oil and its different products. Smaller plants will allow further mechanization in harvesting. New qualities will be introduced to palm oil to adapt it to industry's --not consumers'-- needs. The effects on human health of the resulting genetically-manipulated products could be serious. Impacts on the natural environments could be irreversible. And the whole process would have only one reason: profit making for industry and trade. Article based on information from: "Palm Oil Most Studied Commodity Today" By Cheah Chor Sooi, The New Straits Times Sunday, September 6, 1998, http://members.spree.com/abman/art16.htm; "Surviving the low prices of palm oil" By Yong Tiam Kui, New Straits Times, April 8 2001, http://members.tripod.com/skypin/ekon/ekon47.html
- Global warming: More plantations or more will to reduce emissions? During the international negotiations on climate change, some governments committed themselves to reducing carbon dioxide emissions in their own countries. This very encouraging attitude from an environmental perspective --for the reduction of the greenhouse effect-- can at the same time be the worst decision against the environment if it were to be implemented through the promotion of plantations to act as so-called "carbon sinks." Negotiations will be restarting in July this year and the issue is very much on the agenda, given that more and more governments and corporations --mostly Northern-- are stimulating monoculture tree plantations in the South --eucalyptus, pines or oil palm-- as a means to "offset" (in reality to justify) their greenhouse gas emissions, instead of controlling and reducing them. These decisions are being taken without taking into account the impacts of monocultures on the countries and peoples which inhabit the regions in which they are implemented. In the case of oil palm plantations, they are being promoted through the press or scientific studies which, to the usual false arguments (employment generation, contribution to the country's development) now add an equaly false one: that "Oil palm is an excellent "machine" [that] can fix carbon dioxide using solar energy". We have already stated through the WRM bulletin all the reasons to oppose the carbon sink mechanism (see web page address below), so we won't repeat them now. What we do wish is to reproduce a few quotes to exemplify the propaganda with which the unknowing public is being increasingly bombarded with the aim of both imposing oil palm plantations and of imposing the "remedy" of carbon sink plantations as the solution to global climate change: 1- Forests are a natural store of carbon. Oil-palm plantations have similar net carbon fixation to lowland forests. ("More Land To Be Needed For Oil-Palm Areas" from the New Straits Times, February 13th, 2001 - Malaysia) 2- Like hevea, oil palm trees are environmental friendly. It removes carbon dioxide from the air and releases oxygen to the atmosphere. At the same time, stands of oil palm trees form renewal resources for the pulp and paper industry. These materials will be available from the 2.8 million hectares of oil palm trees in Malaysia and thereby reduces pressure on some forest species. ("Sustaining Agricultural Development in Malaysia: Experience in the Plantation Sector" by Dr. Abdul Aziz, Academy of Sciences Malaysia, Director-General of Malaysian Rubber Board and Dr. Yusof Basiron, Academy of Sciences Malaysia, Director-General of Palm Oil Research Institute of Malaysia) 3- Well managed oil palms sequester more carbon (C) per unit area than tropical rainforests, and oil palm estates are predicted to become an important part of C offset management in the next century. ("Oil Palm – The Great Crop of South East Asia: Potential, Nutrition and Management" by Ernst W. Mutert and Thomas H. Fairhurst, Potash & Phosphate Institute, Paper presented at the IFA Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 14-17 November 1999) 4- In the same way as rubber tree plantations, the cultivation of oil palms is also regarded as environmentally friendly, because it helps to fix carbon during the plant growth stage, cutting down on the greenhouse effect, besides providing other environmental advantages. Research shows that a forest, during its growth period, absorbs more carbon than it discharges into the atmosphere, thus working as a type of "filter". Oil palm and rubber plantations have this profile, according to scientists. (OMB Group, Oil Palm / Dendê Plantation, Brazil) 5- Oil palm is an excellent "machine" can fix carbon dioxide using solar energy ("Palm Oil Project - An International Collaboration in Gene Manipulation of Oil Palm for the New Century" by Dr. Hiroshi SANO, Chief Research Scientist, Agricultural Chemicals Laboratory Yokohama, Research Center Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation) 6- An oil palm plantation can "sequester" up to 15 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for each hectare planted, thus contributing to mitigate the greenhouse effect ... a planted forest is replacing another forest (Jorge Román, Project Manager of Palmeras de los Andes, Revista Gestión Economía y Sociedad, Octubre del 2000. No.76) 7- ...while Malaysia's Primary Industries Minister chimed in a few months later with the claim that his country's oil palm plantations are in fact "better than the developed nations' pine trees in terms of absorbing carbon gases". (The Corner House Briefing #15 - "The Dyson Effect: Carbon "Offset" Forestry and the Privatisation of the Atmosphere" - 1999) 8- Malaysia emitted 144 million tonnes of greenhouse gases...almost half (68.7 million tonnes) of the emissions was absorbed by "carbon sink" – planted forests,...oil palm turned out to be the country's largest carbon sink, taking up 63 per cent of the 68.7 million tonnes of greenhouse gases absorded due to their extensive areas. ("Malaysia's CO2 emissions among lowest", Malaysia Daily Express, November 27, 2000) For more related information please visit our web site sections on Climate Change: http://www.wrm.org.uy/actors/CCC/index.html and Plantations Camapaign: http://www.wrm.org.uy/plantations/index.html
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