Palm Oil
The oil palm tree is native to West Africa. It is an important tree for forest-dependent communities, their cultures and their economies. However, large-scale oil palm monocultures for industrial production (oil and agrofuels) have been driving deforestation and land grabbing in Southeast Asia. More recently, oil palm monocultures are also driving destruction in Africa and Latin America.
Patriarchal oppression is inseparable from the industrial plantation model, and it is at the base of how companies generate profits. Companies target women, including due to their fundamental role in community life.
Why haven't Africa's post-colonial governments dismantled the colonial plantation model of exploitation and extraction, returned the lands to their people and emboldened a resurgence of Africa's diverse, local food and farming systems?
European development banks have financed a plantation company in DRC that is built on injustice and violence dating back to a colonial-era land grab. When the company went bankrupt in 2020, the banks chose to uphold the plantation model.
More than 100 years ago, lands were stolen from communities in DR Congo for industrial oil palm production. Since 2009, those lands are under control of the company FERONIA.
Groups call for the immediate release of villagers in the DR Congo imprisoned for over 5 months on false charges related to a land conflict with the Canadian oil palm plantation company Feronia Inc. Sign the letter!!!
Community leaders and traditional chiefs in areas affected by the plantations of Canadian company PHC-Feronia in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continue to suffer all kinds of massive human rights violations.
A new report on the state of industrial oil palm plantations in Africa shows how communities are turning the tide on a massive land grab in the region.
In a statement released on 14 August 2019, RIAO-RDC and support organisations call on DRC authorities to immediately find and arrest the murder suspect. Weeks have passed since the killing of Joël Imbangola Lunea without an arrest of the murder suspect.
A letter signed by over 140 organizations and social movements from different countries around the world and by over 110,000 individuals has been sent to the President of the DRC and the Governour of Equateur province, where the killing took place.
We ask for your urgent support. Please sign on to the Action Alert. It is important to send the letter as soon as possible.