Every year, grassroots activists, scholars, students and youth from different countries in Southeast Asian come together for an exchange forum during the Mekong ASEAN Environmental Week (MAEW). The seventh forum took place in September 2025, with the theme “The Fake Green: from Green Lies to Peoples’ Power”. (1) Representatives of the Kham Pa Lai community in Thailand were among those sharing experiences of what it means to be affected by ´green lies´. They also shared experiences from their struggle against such green projects.
Over the past ten years, the residents of Kham Pa Lai organized themselves in the Nam Sap Kham Pa Lai Conservation Group. Through collective organization, they were able to stop the first of the ´green lies´ that affected them: a government reforestation program that threatened their territorial rights. This community opposition to the reforestation programme built on their earlier resistance against a sandstone mine that resulted in the cancellation of the mine’s license in part of their community. More recently, Kham Pa Lai has been facing a new ´green´ threat: the installation of a windmill park by Thailand's state energy company (EGAT). The windmill park project risks destroying forest areas in part of their territory.
These threats have a clear timeline: they reached the Kham Pa Lai community after the military coup that took place in Thailand in 2014. The military regime came with a proposal to increase Thailand’s ´green areas´ to 40 percent of the country. (2) So-called ´renewable´ and ´clean´ energies are promoted to allow extractive industries to continue expanding, claiming to be ´carbon neutral´ or ‘climate-friendly’. (3) In reality, they produce harmful and wide-ranging impacts on communities.
As a spokesperson for the Nam Sap Kham Pa Lai Conservation Group said during the MAEW meeting: “We first struggled against the mining, then against the reforestation, and now against the windmill park - and we are starting to connect the dots. At the global level, they want to increase forest cover, they want to increase the carbon credits, so we are affected by this global policy of greenwashing as well. It is coming down to the country and then here to the community”.
The Kham Pa Lai community is located in Mukhadan province in Northeastern Thailand with the Mekong river flowing through this province on the border with Laos. The territory provides food, water, cultural and spiritual needs of the people of Kham Pa Lai, and whose families have lived on the territory for many generations. The community has been seeking legal recognition of their territorial rights over the land, a demand that state institutions have been ignoring, resulting in a state-led land-grabbing situation, like in many areas across Thailand.
“Our story is not simply one of resistance, but of endurance, adaptation, and the quiet determination to protect our way of life, which is deeply rooted in the forest”, explains the spokesperson.
In the conversation below, the Nam Sap Kham Pa Lai Conservation Group talk about their struggle.
The Nam Sap Kham Pa Lai Conservation Group was formally established in 2019, though our struggle began several years earlier.
We had already mobilized to oppose a proposed mining project, but without an official name or structure. We chose the name “Nam Sap” — meaning spring water — because the area under threat contained a natural spring that provided water year-round and is essential to the community’s survival.
When we first learned of the sandstone mining exploration in 2016, we began organizing local resistance in that same year. Initially a loose alliance of ordinary residents, the group grew to nearly 300 households at its peak.
Years of conflict created by the mining proposal and the extractivist projects that followed, gradually reduced that number to around 60 families — yet those of us who remained stood together, united by shared purpose.
For us, organizing as a group created strength and visibility. When traveling to district or provincial offices, we no longer felt small or invisible. Standing together gave us courage — and made officials more willing to listen.
In 2016, the Three Mothers Trading Company Limited applied for a concession to mine 34 hectares of our community forest land. The following year, the Kham Pa Lai Subdistrict Municipal Council approved the proposal after a local hearing and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
We opposed the decision and submitted petitions to multiple state agencies — even traveling to the capital, Bangkok, to demand accountability. After persistent campaigning, the municipal council revisited the issue in 2020 and reversed its decision, with 11 members voting against the mine and three abstaining.
The reversal was hard-won. We cited Section 7, Paragraph 4 of the 2017 Mineral Act, which prohibits mining in watershed or groundwater recharge areas. Our petitions forced the authorities to acknowledge that the mine site indeed violated this law — a small but significant victory for our community advocacy. (4)
Yet the threat remained. Supporters of the mine sought ways to re-activate the concession, while we began pushing for removal of the mineral zone from the national geological map. We feared that as long as the area was classified as a mineral reserve, new companies could apply for licenses in the future.
Our long-term vision was to turn the land into a collectively managed community forest— though we were wary that such status could later invite carbon credit schemes that again excluded local control.
For us, the forest must remain a place where people live with and care for the land, not one managed for profit.
The next challenge came through the state’s Forest Reclamation Policy, under the military government’s Order 64/2014. Officials targeted parts of Kham Pa Lai land for ´reforestation´, claiming the forest was degraded. In reality, it was a thriving forest — a seasonal pantry for our local communities.
From April to May, the first rains bring krachiew flowers and hed phor mushrooms. Between May and August come hed rongok, hed din, and hed khai mushrooms, bamboo shoots, beetles, and countless edible plants. It is a living food system, rich and self-renewing — what we call “the forest that feeds”.
The upland forest (pha khok) covers about 16 hectares, divided between the spring area that supplies water year-round and mixed farmland at the forest edges. Our families gather firewood, graze cattle, and collect food daily; the forest sustains both livelihood and culture.
When the ´reforestation´ campaign arrived, officials cleared villagers’ fields, planted trees on the land the ‘reforestation’ campaign occupied without consultation with the community. They even filed criminal charges against villagers who have been using the land for agriculture, planting crops on areas now claimed by the government as “national forest” land. This is how the authorities are seeking to seize community land. For us, it felt like state-sanctioned theft: land seized under the false claim that it belonged to companies while we, the poor, were displaced. In total, roughly 480 hectares were designated for planting — including about 112 hectares of village farmland and 11.2 hectares that overlapped with the proposed sandstone mine.
By October 2016, legal actions against villagers who are accused of ´illegal´ use of state land had begun; by 2018–2019, we were evicted and the land bulldozed for planting. Ironically, just a month after the first charges against community members, a mining application was submitted for the very same site — reinforcing our suspicion that the forest was reclaimed for mining.
The proposed area overlaps with forest land and watershed recharge zones that sustain residents in more than three villages and are used at the sub district level during periods of drought.
Today, the charges against villagers remain classified as a ´dry case´ (kha-di haeng) — a case with ´no offender found´. About 40 plots involving 45 people from our villages are still under dispute.
Because officials treated the land as uninhabited, they drew broad circles on maps, declaring as illegal the community use of whole areas. Some of our families lost entire plots; others lost half.
After years of petitions, a provincial inquiry found the operation unlawful. The Royal Forest Department later confirmed mistakes: most of the land had been cultivated long before 2014.
Eventually, we reclaimed our fields and resumed farming, though we lost nearly five years of income. Working with P-Move, a national land-rights network, we continue to push for case dismissal and fair compensation. The investigation has been suspended but not closed; the case now awaits Cabinet consideration.
Our families have lived here for many generations. We are not outsiders. Our parents lived and died on this land. We are not wrong — we are home.
In November 2022, as we planted cassava, red survey markers appeared across our fields. At first, we thought this signalled long-promised land titles that would recognize the community’s right to use this land – something the community has been requesting for many years. Months later, we learned the markers were for a wind farm project.
When the company held a meeting in Village 5, all of us from Kham Pa Lai community — young and old — united to petition the municipality to reject the plan. Despite our protests, officials approved it, claiming the Royal Forest Department had already consented. We responded by blocking access roads and confronting company staff. Police were called.
Municipal officers defended the project, saying it would bring “tourism and development”, citing another wind farm site in Nikhom Bang Soi as an example. But some of us who visited that area saw noise, lightning strikes, and restricted access — not progress or ‘development’.
Though the company sought permission only for Village 5, its actual operations spread into Villages 6 and 13.
The Royal Forest Department acknowledged that large numbers of trees would have to be removed, violating government regulations for siting of wind turbines in dense forests. An investigation found irregularities and possibly false reporting of forest conditions. The project has been temporarily suspended, but it has not yet been cancelled.
The company, named 555 Green Energy Co., Ltd., justified the project as part of Thailand’s Bio-Circular-Green (BCG) Economy Model, claiming it was ´clean´ energy. To us, it was greenwashing — destroying 48 hectares of fertile forest to build 14 turbines and roads that would erase our foraging grounds.
The company was granted permission to use the land inside the national forest reserve from 2023 to 2053. The project overlaps with villagers’ agricultural land and has caused conflicts in the community.
Wind energy is good, but not when it destroys communities. When a project labelled as ‘green’ ends up destroying a place that sustains community life, it turns into an injustice.
We calculated what would be lost even just in money terms. Each mushroom season, about 300 people gather hed phor mushrooms — at least 3 tonnes a day, worth 500 baht (US 15 dollars) per kilogram. That’s more than 1.5 million baht (US 46 thousand dollars) in natural value every day. It also provides hed rongok (US 12 dollar/kg), hed din (US 1,5 to 3 dollar/kg), edible roots, bamboo shoots, and small forest animals — the basis of local food sovereignty.
People come from Roi Et, Kalasin, and Sakon Nakhon Provinces to forage. The forest is our shared market.
The wind turbines would be less than a kilometer from homes, near the village temple and cemetery. Even monks have voiced opposition, fearing the constant noise would disturb the sanctity of the place.
Through these overlapping struggles, we have become stronger. From people who once knew nothing of law or policy, we have built networks and alliances — with P-Move, EnLaw Foundation, and young environmentalists who now visit to learn from us.
We have discovered that unity is our greatest strength: sharing food, news, and encouragement keeps our spirit alive.
Women have become our leading voice — they speak in public meetings while men stay home to care for farms and families. Their calm but firm words often carry more power than anger. “We speak for our parents, our children, our community”, they say. “Because if we don’t, who will?”.
Investors and supporters of the projects do not live here; they don’t depend on this land. Their money divides the community — some take it, but most refuse. We do not want compensation, but the right to live with the forest as our ancestors did.
The natural spring — the heart of our livelihood — provides water all year for two villages and even for municipal use. If mining proceeds, that water, and the life it sustains, will be lost forever.
We have faced intimidation: officers visiting leaders, stolen protest signs, surveillance. But fear has not stopped us. We continue to resist — because, as we say: “This is our home”.
You eat at restaurants and hotels, while we find our meals in the forest.
When the mushrooms bloom, we gather mushrooms.
When bamboo shoots sprout, we dig bamboo shoots.
Please think of us when you speak of green growth or clean energy.
The forest you call “unused land” is our kitchen, our water source, our school.
If you fence it off for mines, carbon credits, or wind farms, how will we live?
We ask the state to cancel these projects and drop all charges against villagers.
Investors already have thousands of hectares; we have only one or two.
Why must the small people always pay the price?
Elections promise that “the people come first”,
but after every election, it is always the investors who come first.
We know these projects are not truly green.
When turbines come, birds will vanish.
When mines come, dust will cover schools and homes.
When forests are seized in the name of reclamation, the poor lose everything.
Every government brings a new scheme —
a mine, a wind farm, now rare-earth extraction —
and we remain here, still fighting, still hoping,
because this land is our life,
and we will not give it up.
References:
(1) MAEW 2025: The Fake Green
(2) WRM, 2024. Thailand’s offset-based ‘climate policy’: more climate chaos and injustice.
(3) WRM, 2022.15Years of REDD: A Mechanism Rotten at the Core.
(4) The video reports that the Kham Pa Lai community submitted a petition about the mine to Mukdahan Province, and the governor’s decision to investigate ultimately led to their victory.
Costa Rica was the first country in Latin America and the Caribbean to receive World Bank payments for a national program called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, better known as Jurisdictional REDD+. Indeed, the country presents itself to be a leader in this. (1) In its official propaganda, the government claims that a percentage of the funds are distributed among indigenous communities who protect forests. (2) However, the reality is different. In the last decade, the state has reduced investment in health, housing, education, and other basic rights for the population. And in indigenous territories, it has made these resources conditional based on communities' acceptance of REDD+. In other words, if they do not accept REDD+, there would be no funds to guarantee their most basic rights – including the right to their territory.
There are eight Indigenous Peoples in the country – Gnobes, Huetar, Chorotegas, Borucas, Broran, Maleku, Cabécar y Bribri – spread across 24 territories. Most of their territories are forested. The Cabécar and Bribri peoples have the largest territories in terms of both forest area and proportion of the country. The Bribri Indigenous Territory, spanning 43,690 hectares, is located in the southeastern part of the country, between the Atlantic coast and the La Amistad International Park.
In this article, we hear from Emmanuel Buitrago Páez of the Kólkuák Indigenous clan of the Bribri of Talamanca. He is a coordinating member of the National Front for Indigenous Peoples (FRENAPI, by its Spanish acronym), a collective that represents eight Indigenous Peoples from at least 15 territories. He talks about their struggle to resist pressure from the state, which seeks to subjugate forests and their communities to the interests of the polluting companies that are behind REDD+ and carbon markets.
I am Emmanuel Buitrago Páez, from the Kólkuák Indigenous clan, in the Bribri Indigenous Territory of Talamanca. In this area we have 32 communities, distributed into clans that are family units, and more than 80 percent of them are farmers. We produce organic bananas, plantains and cacao to sell, and we also produce many other products for exchange and consumption. Being on the border with Panama, the five most important rivers in the border region flow through our territory: Coén, Lary, Tlírí, Urén, and Yorki, which together form the Sixaola river that marks the border between the two countries. Due to our close relationship with spirituality Sibö/God and Iiria/Earth, more than 70 percent of our territory has forests or is used for organic production.
We have taken a strong stance against REDD+ in this territory. We denounce the Costa Rican government for imposing conservation and financing models that threaten Indigenous Peoples, and for moving forward with its plans to commodify and privatize ‘common goods’. It does this through coercion and structural violence against those of us who are fighting to defend the earth, rivers, coasts and forests, and to reaffirm our rights to health, education, and housing.
Indigenous Peoples do not need REDD+ to protect forests. We have extraordinary experience taking care of forests, because forests are linked to our very lives and spirituality. Nonetheless, some indigenous leaders who have been pressured by the state's budget cuts, ended up accepting the funds offered through REDD+. Meanwhile, the communities still do not know the truth about the program; they have not been told where it comes from, who finances it, or how the financing arrives and under what conditions.
This initiative, therefore, caused divisions in several indigenous communities in the country due to disagreements over criteria and the position to take in negotiations. This has destabilized community governance and weakened its credibility.
In 2008, Costa Rica was selected by the World Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) to begin preparations to implement the Jurisdictional REDD+ program. (3) Since then, many indigenous communities have questioned the state's actions, given that our participation and representation were not guaranteed, nor were we informed. There was also no strategy implemented to ensure transparency in the use of funds.
As part of this process, state representatives – through state institutions and associations – began visiting indigenous communities throughout the country, supposedly to inform them and consult with them about the REDD+ program. However, these meetings, which lasted no more than three hours on average, were not intended to let communities decide, but to merely provide superficial information about the REDD+ project. In our Bribri Territory in Talamanca, there are about 10,000 of us. However, there were no more than 100 people at that meeting, which is very low representation. Additionally, instead of informing and consulting with us, the state representatives asked people to present a list of needs in the territory. And in response to the demands that were listed (a bridge, an aqueduct, a school, etc.), the state representatives said that they would be covered by the REDD+ fund. This is how they take advantage of communities' needs.
In response, indigenous communities throughout the country began to hold demonstrations and, in 2014, we managed to halt the implementation of REDD+. (4) The main reason was the government's unwillingness to consult with communities through a free, prior, informed, and good-faith process (as required by Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization – ILO – to which Costa Rica is a signatory). (5)
In this process, we, the Bribri of the indigenous territory of Talamanca, sent the "Declaration of the Bribri Territory Free of REDD+", to several authorities, including the government of the Republic of Costa Rica and the Board of Directors of the Association of Integral Development of the Bribri Indigenous Territory (ADITIBRI, by its Spanish acronym). In the document, which was drafted in 2016 and signed by more than 300 people, we were emphatic: "Exercising our right to hold our own consultation, we decide to reject the REDD+ project, its consultation protocol, and any modification of the project's name, and we declare the Bribri Territory of Talamanca to be free of REDD+, from this day forward". (6)
However, some time later, the REDD+ implementation process began to move forward again throughout the country. The state's strategy of using people's needs to justify the program and pressure them to accept it in their territories was instrumental in this.
As part of that strategy, in 2019 the government approved and implemented laws such as the law to 'Strengthen Public Finances', which allowed it to freeze budgets and contracts every year, including those allocated to indigenous territories. This was used as a way to pressure communities to accept alternative sources of income, such as REDD+.
In this context, the state began to suspend contracts for Payments for Environmental Services (PSA, by its Spanish acronym), one of the few funds that communities receive collectively. These are resources that the country collects through taxes, which it then uses to pay communities for forest conservation. The Indigenous Bribri Territory of Talamanca went from having seven contracts in 2019 to three in 2023, which restricted support for the most vulnerable and dispossessed communities in the territory.
At the same time, the government has significantly cut investment in educational plans and programs, infrastructure, school meal services, administrative services, transport scholarships, and regular study scholarships. This leads to greater inequality, and it constitutes a failure to guarantee the right to education. In light of this reality, some indigenous representatives think that the limited REDD+ funds could provide a solution for this lack of resources, when in fact this has been a programmatic action by the state. This situation has become the justification to advance REDD+ in indigenous territories; REDD+ is presented as a palliative measure to provide resources to address the educational needs of communities. And with that, the state moves forward with REDD+, while limiting investment in education to the purchase of school furniture – such as chairs, tables, desks, etc.
The same thing happened with health care. The public health system is implemented by the Costa Rican Social Security Fund – where there have been cases of corruption, underinvestment, and failure to respond to health care needs. For example, in Talamanca – including in indigenous Bribri territory – part of the REDD+ funds are now going to support the Health Boards, something that is the state's responsibility to finance. (7)
Similarly, low investment in public water services, such as those provided by Acueductos y Alcantarillados (AyA), has been another argument to justify REDD+: according to its proponents, REDD+ would supposedly provide solutions for the lack of water infrastructure.
The state and its institutions believe that REDD+ funds and other carbon trading businesses will solve problems that should really be addressed by the state. The truth is, nothing that REDD+ supposedly provides will solve the underlying problems; rather, it just offers palliative, temporary or superficial measures. It is the state's responsibility to provide funding for the public policies that its institutions develop to respond to the needs – and guarantee the rights – of indigenous communities.
As for land rights, the state also lacks a plan developed with and by communities to restore territories, that is, to return to Indigenous Peoples all the lands that legally belong to them. On the contrary, the state imposes carbon businesses and defunds public policies that would address the needs and guarantee the rights of peoples.
According to the document, 'Costa Rica National REDD+ Strategy,' the state's total investment to reduce emissions between 2018 and 2024 is around 1.177 billion dollars. Of that total, 92 percent (US 1.082 million dollars) corresponds to what the country is already investing in REDD-related policies, such as the National Forestry Development Plan and the Protected Wilderness Areas Policy; these items are included in regular institutional budgets. (8)
As for the remaining eight percent (US 95 million dollars), the Government intends to cover it, in part, with the income it expects to obtain from selling emissions reductions to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), which is managed by the World Bank. (9) This income is calculated to be US 63 million dollars, of which the country has already received US34 million dollars. (10) The government says it will invest this amount in actions to reach its target emissions reductions and to preserve 640,000 hectares of forest. However, the program will allocate most of this money, 69 percent, to landowners and rural producers in the private sector – in other words, to one of the sectors that bears the most responsibility for deforestation and land conflicts with indigenous communities. Meanwhile, 16 percent of the revenue is earmarked for us, the Indigenous Peoples.
Using a forest preservation and conservation policy to benefit the sector that most deforests is a pretty clear indicator of who the government and REDD+ benefit: those who are the biggest threat to Indigenous Peoples' rights to the territory, and therefore, the biggest threat to forests.
Costa Rican law guarantees the right to indigenous reserves exclusively to the communities who inhabit these lands. However, there are landowners who occupy these lands with the complicity of the state.
Landholders with ties to politicians, judges, prosecutors, and municipal governments have set fires in indigenous territories – occupying land, threatening, intimidating, and displacing indigenous communities from their lands, in violation of the law. (11) Indigenous territories are being affected by large producers of pineapple and banana monocultures, which generate pollution due to the use of agrochemicals on the plantations – specifically in the South Pacific and the northern regions of the country.
Many Indigenous Peoples risk their lives fighting against this reality and defending their territories. Since 2019, for example, there have been two murders that have gone unpunished. The victims were the indigenous comrades, Sergio Rojas, from the territory of Salitre, and Jerhy Rivera, from the territory of Térraba. Both were killed by invading landowners. (12)
The impunity of state power structures allows for the consolidation of aggression, discrimination, racism, and the imposition of new forms of colonization of minds, property, spiritualities, structures, and cultural diversity.
Our collective, the National Front for Indigenous People (FRENAPI), holds the state responsible for the attacks and violations of Indigenous Peoples’ rights, since it has failed to guarantee or implement the rights enshrined in the Constitution and in international law for Indigenous Peoples.
Therefore, the Costa Rican state has been irresponsible; it has not upheld its obligation to guarantee life, conservation and the people's right to land.
This vacuum is used as an argument to advance REDD+. This program is presented as an alternative way to finance territorial regularization that would guarantee the full recovery of indigenous lands currently held by landowners or businesspeople; that is, it would guarantee the return of the lands to their rightful owners: the Indigenous Peoples. But beyond whether REDD+ is approved or not, it is the state's responsibility to settle the age-old debt of returning lands to indigenous communities.
There are two proposals and agendas underway. One comes from the state, which is promoting REDD+; intellectual property over biodiversity; expansion of plantations; mining; privatization of public services and assets; oil exploration; hydroelectric exploitation; drug trafficking; corruption; cuts to public funds and investments; and the privatization of forests, coasts and public areas.
And another, very different agenda comes from the Indigenous Peoples of Costa Rica. It is based on spirituality; forests; nature; food; medicine; our own education; language; identity; culture; and our own structures. But above all, it is based on territorial reaffirmation, which implies the total regularization of indigenous territories.
REDD+, through deceitful methods, pawns off forests to supposedly guarantee other rights – such as education, health and land. In this way it restricts the freedom and the good faith of Indigenous Peoples.
The state must guarantee rights unconditionally. An inherent function of state institutions is to respond to public needs, plans and policies. In the case of the Indigenous Peoples in Costa Rica, the state must provide economic resources to communities that respond to the peoples' own agendas – without conditions or the use of blackmail to get them to accept REDD+.
From our villages, we have experienced the dispossession of 'common goods' through cronyism and the imposition of the state's agendas and structure. This reveals the continuation of a murderous colonial model of conquest, usurpation and extractivism of our 'common goods' and of LIFE itself.
We condemn the bad practices of governments – the fiscal, classist, and violent practices that strip peoples of their identity, lands, spirituality, forests, coasts, rivers, and ‘common goods’, based on the peoples' particular circumstances due to customs, language, their economic situation and other social barriers.
We demand recognition of and respect for the critical role that indigenous communities – from their territories – play in maintaining and defending the customs, spirituality and lands of their peoples. We reaffirm indigenous communities' rights to have a voice and influence, and to be afforded respect for the cultural wealth they represent. This must be allowed in all political, social, economic and cultural spaces.
Inspired by our people’s LIFE Project, we propose and call for common and collective causes. For the ‘common good’, for LIFE, we will continue reaffirming and staking our dreams, which we have the right to weave with ancestral wisdom.
We call on all Peoples to defend and reaffirm the right to 'common goods', to coasts, forests, rivers, food and water; to our own education and health; to conservation of natural and cultural ecosystems; to traditional structures; and to Indigenous Peoples' governance and autonomy.
Emmanuel Buitrago Páez, from the Indigenous Kólkuák clan, Bribri of Talamanca. Coordinating member of the collective National Front for Indigenous Peoples (FRENAPI). manolpetitan@gmail.com
References:
(1) The World Bank in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2025. Sustaining Forests and Strengthening Communities in Costa Rica
(2) The World Bank in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2025. Forest conservation payments in Costa Rica are supporting indigenous communities (video)
(3) REDD+ Costa Rica 2025. Forest Carbon Partnership Facility.
Documents and legal contracts about FCPF between the government of Costa Rica and the World Bank
(4) Telar Comunicación Popular, 2014. Talamanca dice No REDD+ Estas selvas no tienen precio (video).
(5) WRM, 2016. Bribri: a people never conquered who are standing up to REDD and Protest from the indigenous Bribri territory, 2015
(6) Vozes Nuestras, 2016. Comunidades Bribri de Talamanca piden ser territorio libre de REDD+ https://vocesnuestras.org/comunidades-bribris-de-talamanca-piden-ser-territorio-libre-de-redd/ and Declaration of the Bribri Territory Free of REDD+, 2016
(7) Health Boards are auxiliary bodies of hospitals, clinics and health areas that are part of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund, whose purpose is to improve healthcare, administrative and financial performance, as well as to promote citizen participation.
(8) National REDD+ Strategy Costa Rica.
(9) The lion's hare of those US$95.3 million will be raised through the sale of carbon emission reductions to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF). In total, the FCPF is expected to contribute US$63 million, of which the Costa Rican government has already received more than half at the time of publication of this article. For more information, click here.
(10) The World Bank in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2025. Sustaining Forests and Strengthening Communities in Costa Rica
(11) TV Sur Pérez Zeledón , 2020. Solution sought to the land conflict in the indigenous territory of China Kichá and Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica, 2020. Plenary session mourns death of indigenous leader and calls for investigation.
(12) Cultural Survival, 2024. Dismissal of Land Defender Sergio Rojas’ Murder Case in Costa Rica Causes Distress and Indignation
and Cultural Survival, 2020. Segundo asesinato de defensor Indígena en Costa Rica evidencia la inacción del Estado
Even though it is surrounded by oil palm and rubber monocultures, the nearly 20,000 hectares of tropical forest comprising part of the Joghban territory is a symbol of the Joghban clan’s victory in Liberia against the multinational company, Equatorial Palm Oil (EPO). In 2018, this clan of approximately 7,000 people, spread across 50 villages, secured part of the forested territory they had been inhabiting for centuries, which EPO attempted to seize to plant oil palm. Despite this victory, though, EPO continues to exert strong pressure on Joghban lands.
Originally a British company, EPO is now a multinational corporation controlled by Malaysian palm oil giant Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd (KLK). In 2008, after the end of the civil war that devastated Liberia, EPO acquired LIBINC Oil Palm. Since then, it has claimed control of 169,000 hectares in Liberia, of which it claims to have concessions to exploit 89,000 hectares. However, part of these lands overlap with the traditional territory of the Joghban, in District No. 4, Grand Bassa County.
The conflict between EPO and the Joghban clan intensified between 2013 and 2014, when the company began operating inside the clan’s community lands without their consent. This period was marked by violent repression and strong resistance, leading to the consolidation of the Joghban’s historic victory in 2018. The approval of the Land Rights Act that same year granted communities ownership of their ancestral lands, the right to make demands of companies seeking to exploit their territories, and inclusion in consultation processes such as Free, Prior and Informed Consent.
However, foreign companies have been exerting pressure on the clan’s traditional lands for a long time, and continue to do so today. In the 1960s, two major plantation companies arrived on their land: LAC of the Socfin Group, which holds a concession for rubber plantations covering more than 12,000 hectares near Joghban territory; and the former LIBINC Oil Palm, now EPO. Today, the Joghban are surrounded by both companies' monoculture plantations, and they suffer countless impacts from this on a daily basis. Meanwhile, EPO’s greed for the clan’s territory has not abated.
What follows is a conversation with Theresa B. Sawah and Isaac G. Banwon. These two Joghban leaders and members of the Africa Informal Alliance Against Industrial Plantation Expansion played an active role in resisting EPO’s invasion of their ancestral territory. They tell us about their victorious resistance, emphasizing that the struggle continues. As Isaac said, “Our victory is not complete yet, because the company has not tired of coming after the land; we need to raise more awareness in order to secure the portion of land we still have.”
WRM – What was traditional life like before oil palm and rubber companies arrived in the region in the 1960s?
Isaac – From before the 1960s to the present day, our traditional livelihood has depended on the land and forest: we cut wild palms, perform traditional farming, hunt, and do cooperative work as a community. Oil palm is the main commodity that has traditionally been grown in the region, and it is our primary means of survival. For example, cutting wild oil palm enabled me to go to school; I paid for my primary education and university tuition with native palm.
WRM – How did the arrival of the oil palm monoculture company, LIBINC at that time, and the rubber company, LAC-Socfin, impact Joghban communities?
Isaac - According to Elders and other sources, the company first arrived in 1962 and began negotiations with the government for land. Later, the Joghban clan and its surrounding territory were chosen for LAC and LIBINC Oil Palm operations. The companies took the lands they occupied by force. The communities didn't know about the agreements the government had made with the company back in the 1960s.
Theresa - They wanted our land for expansion; their people wanted to grab our land. We have learned from our forefathers that they used airplanes to survey the land without our citizens knowing about their intentions. Our forefathers tell us that, early one morning, the government took their men and their machines, and began to cut the forest. They took almost half of our land. Today our families are living on all the little pieces of land that remained.
Isaac - From that time forward, our communities have faced terrible life conditions due to these companies' actions. Such actions have included grabbing land, and employing plantation security forces, the police and the army of the government to burn down communities. In this situation, much violence has occurred, including rape, teenage pregnancy, early marriage, destruction of cultural and traditional bushes, and more (1). Women have suffered sexual violence and early marriages. Meanwhile, there has been forced migration of people from other communities that caused the separation of children from their families, and other abuses.
WRM – What was it like after the civil war in Liberia, when EPO bought LIBINC in 2008? How did the Joghban react to this?
Isaac – In 2008, after the civil war in Liberia, when EPO had purchased LIBINC, the company occupied additional acres of land in our territory without the community's consent. The major abuse at this time was land-grabbing; the company wanted our land to expand its oil palm plantation. We lost our forest, and people in the community were afraid they would be evicted at any time to make way for the company's expansion.
Theresa - They started cutting down the forest. They started throwing those trees almost to the river. Everyone saw what was happening and our elders and our citizens went to stop them. They said ´no´ to this land-grabbing. There we began to put up resistance that indeed no one was going to cross over for the second time because we don't have much land left.
Isaac - By then, the company met resistance from us members of the community, as well as civil society organizations, like Sustainable Development Institute (SDI). Equatorial Palm Oil conducted a survey in 2014, with the goal of delineating the area of their alleged concession. That survey attempt met strong community resistance. Women also played an important role in the resistance struggle. As for the men, they were the lead advocates in protecting the land.
WRM – Could you tell us about your involvement in the community’s resistance process against EPO's land-grabbing?
Theresa - I am a women's rights activist and Director of the Joghban United Women Empowerment and Development Organization in Liberia. The way women organized in these struggles was important, because the women helped the community to come together, to have one voice and understanding, and to work in one direction to bring our group together. Women were afraid at that time, but when EPO came in to grab our land, when they came with guards who were using guns and other things, and grabbing our men and beating them, we women came together. We gathered in the forest and decided to find food for those men who were on the battlefield. At that time, we prepared potatoes, yams, bananas, cassava and rice, so that after a violent encounter, our men would have something to eat. So this showed me that when women organize, it helps us to have one understanding and use one voice to struggle.
Isaac - I got involved in the struggle in 2013 and 2014. We traveled on foot from the community to the city to meet with the county superintendent. We organized a peaceful protest and petitioned the government in 2014. That year, then President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf committed to helping the communities protect their lands from EPO’s expansion. I was one of the delegates who met with the county Senator and petitioned him about our situation. I have organized a lot of meetings to resist the expansion of the company. It was this struggle that encouraged me to establish an NGO – the Institute of Sustainable Agriculture (ISA) – to defend the land through agriculture. I have been involved in this struggle ever since.
WRM – How did the company respond to the Joghban’s resistance?
Isaac - From 2008 to 2014, the company put a lot of pressure on those who resisted; people were beaten, arrested by the police and company security, and later released. I saw my father be treated badly and dragged away in a security vehicle by plantation security and police during one of our peaceful protests in 2014. He and others have their own stories about the struggle.
WRM - Can you tell us about the victory your people achieved after the struggle?
Isaac - I still remember the approval of the Land Rights Act in 2018. The day was very beautiful and special. We celebrated our victory in the Joghban community; there was a great party and we even killed a cow.
Theresa - Now we can indeed protect this piece of land that belongs to us. It belongs to our forefathers. So from that point, we obtained registration and government approval for our land, and we can use these documents as legal proof and a tool to protect our territorial rights against future incursions by the company. No one will come and authorize land-grabbing in our lands. Whenever anyone comes, at any time, including any stranger from EPO, we can prove to them directly that this land belongs to us. My women will dare to attack that stranger, not to fight, but to ask them some terrible questions and tell them that they have no right to come buy or grab the land. This is our land for the Joghban women and citizens.
Isaac - What has united us in our struggle is having the control of our land today, tomorrow and forever. Even though we lost some communities and forest, our victory is that we still have some of our land. But our victory is not complete yet, because the company has not tired of coming after the land. We need to raise more awareness to secure the portion of land we still have.
WRM - Can you describe your community’s surroundings today?
Isaac - The migration of people from previous communities that were devastated in the 1960s to new communities has brought overpopulation and increased poverty. Our community is surrounded by plantation companies, which has other negative impacts on us. Amongst other impacts, we have suffered water pollution from EPO's production, and from LAC-Socfin washing their chemical containers in the rivers that we drink and get fish from. We do not have freedom of movement due to policies that restrain us from carrying our native palm oil while passing through EPO's plantation.
WRM – Can you give examples of the types of difficulties EPO has imposed on the community?
Isaac - The main struggle with EPO is related to the restriction of movement of people in the community. In 2022, the company created a policy that nobody should pass through the plantation carrying native palm oil; if you are caught carrying native palm oil, you will be arrested and questioned. And there are over 50 communities behind the plantation. So there is no freedom of movement for people living in these communities who get their livelihood from harvesting native palms, or who have their own small farm. This is the daily reality in the plantation.
Before passing through the plantation carrying native palm oil, we need what they call a “pass” from the company. And it can be very difficult to get this “pass” from EPO security. Sometimes, it can take you more than three hours to get it. This can make people impatient and want to pass through the plantation without getting the “pass”. Some days ago, I was traveling through the plantation with five gallons of native palm oil and I was detained. So it is a situation that happens every day.
Last year, a woman couldn’t give birth. She was supposed to have a C-section at the hospital. Her husband lived in the village, so they had to call him to bring money so that she could have the operation. At that time, the only way to get money to pay the hospital bill was to come and sell native palm oil. He was traveling with some gallons of oil from the village coming to the town. He was stopped and had to wait the whole day for the “pass”. Before he was able to provide the money for the operation, she died in the process. The trauma still lives with the man because of the death of his wife. So there are a lot more things that happen when it comes to people's freedom of movement. Every day people complain, and we have sent the complaints about this to the central government, but there has been no redress.
WRM - How is EPO dealing with the expansion of their land, despite Joghban’s victory and opposition to it?
Isaac- The company is not expanding now, but it is making an effort to expand. They are having many secret meetings with chiefs, elders and traditional leaders. This is a threat, because they have these meetings to convince people with money and other items, like rice. They also divide the communities using money and food, and by promising employment to some youth and elders. Their major target is the land, so we see these meetings as a threat to us.
WRM – Has there been any retaliation against the community to make them give up their land?
Isaac - The company is making life hard for community members so that they will give up the land. Additionally, the central government pays less attention to the communities around the so-called concession zone because the government wants to make sure the communities surrender the land to the company. All the surrounding villages are living in fear that at any moment the company will expand on our land; as such, community people are afraid to invest in cash crop agriculture.
WRM - There has been a lot of repression throughout this struggle. What gave the Joghban Clan the strength to fight?
Isaac - Our strength came from realizing that the land is our life, and, as such, it should not be taken away from us by any individual, plantation company, or government. We also came to understand that international organizations were there to provide support if communities were ready to resist the expansion of the company. The land is everything to us; we use it for medicine, food, housing, farming, and more. The land is our life and our natural heritage. We are going to resist, and always resist, because land matters to us and to our future generations.
Theresa - The forest is our life; it is everything for our people. The land is our life. So they will not take the land from us.
WRM – Do you have any message for other communities struggling like yours?
Isaac - To other communities that are in a similar fight, I would say that the first thing to do is to be united, to continue to resist lawfully, and to partner with other communities who have already succeeded in their struggles. And to the international community: your support is needed at all times if any community is to succeed in their struggle against plantation companies.
Reference
(1) Traditional bushes are our secret and sacred bushes where we consult with traditional gods and goddesses. We also get medicine from these bushes.
More information:
- SDI and Friends of the Earth International, 2014. MEDIA BRIEFING -Liberian communities overturn Equatorial Palm Oil (EPO) land grab
- Friends of the Earth International, 2014. The Jogbahn Clan (video)