Cameroon

An interview with the activist Nasako Besingi. He organized communities in their protests against US agribusiness Herakles Farm’s palm oil plantations. Due to this engagement, he has been the victim of Herakles Farm and government physical attacks, intimidation and criminalization. (Available in Swahili).

Only available in French.

The Société Financière des Caoutchouc (Socfin) group is one of the world’s biggest plantation companies. In Cameroon, a bitter land rights struggle has unfolded between villagers and Socfin’s local subsidiary Socapalm, which owns six palm oil concessions in the country. In this Fern report and photo story women give testimony on the impacts that the Socapalm plantations have over their territories and lives, how the company has expanded its plantations onto community land, polluted the environment, and prevented villagers from processing their own palm oil.

We said it in Mundemba, Cameroon, we reiterated it in Port Loko, Sierra Leone, we re-affirm this in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire: the abuse against women in and around industrial oil palm plantations must STOP!

Download the declaration (pdf) “Yesterday is gone, live today wisely and since tomorrow cannot be assured, the struggle starts now…” Hajaratu Abdulahi from Nigeria No to abuse against women in industrial oil palm plantations

In 2016, a TV station in France (Channel 2) aired a report that told the story of Vincent Bolloré, a businessman who heads the oil palm plantation company, Bolloré, a subsidiary of the multinational company, Socfin. The television report showed the social and environmental abuses committed in Cameroon by the company, Socapalm, another subsidiary of Socfin. Vincent Bolloré owns 38.7% of the shares of Socfin. In a clear intimidation strategy, the businessman decided to take the journalist to court on charges of defamation.

In solidarity with the International Day of Peasant Struggle. A day to remember, emphasize and mobilize together against the persecution and violence that peasants suffer on a daily basis around the world.

The oil palm company Socapalm in Cameroon plans to renew its ISO 14001 certification, which expired in 2017. We expose the company's attempts to cover up the destruction caused to the communities and the environment

International Press release. March 7, 2018. Women demand that oil palm companies stop violence and give back community land

This bulletin, on International Women's Day, is a call for direct and radical solidarity with those women who suffer, resist, organize and mobilize against the daily violence and abuse that industrial plantations cause.

From rapes, forced body searches and searches of private spaces, to the risk of losing their lives: this article calls on us not to be accomplices to the violence women living around tree plantations in Cameroon suffer.

A woman from the village of Mbonjo 1, Cameroon, which has witnessed the impact of industrial palm oil plantations and the constant presence of the military, calls for international solidarity and protection of right to life and freedom.