Palm Oil

Bulletin articles 12 September 2022
There is no other crop that has grown faster globally in the last decade than palm oil. This almost uncontrollable expansion leaves a deep trail of destruction and conflicts around its giant areas of plantations from Southeast Asia to West and Central Africa. As companies take over more community land, they also grab the water sources from them.
Bulletin articles 23 March 2022
Many oil palm plantations’ concessions in West and Central Africa were built on lands stolen from communities during colonial occupations. This is the case in the DRC, where food company Unilever began its palm oil empire. Today, these plantations are still sites of on-going poverty and violence. It is time to end the colonial model of concessions and return the land to its original owners.
Bulletin articles 23 March 2022
Colonial and anti-colonial movements’ have deeply shaped the patterns and impacts of concessions in SE Asia. In some cases, communities have experienced dispossession through land grabs dressed as concessions. In others, concessions are part of a re-concentration of land holding. Either way, the concession model fits well with ideologies of modernisation.
Action alerts 11 January 2022

(Only available in French) Polices et militaires tirent à balles réelles sur des ouvriers de la Société FERONIA/PHC en grève à la plantation de Boteka.

Bulletin articles 27 September 2021

Oil palm plantations are one of the most unsafe spaces for women, not only because of their vulnerable working status packed with injustices and precarities, but also because of the potential for sexual violence and harassment. (Available in Indonesian).

Publications 6 April 2021

WRM Bulletin Compilation. Available in English and Indonesian.

Action alerts 10 March 2021

A young man was killed and other people are still in prison. It was after a protest against the failure of the PHC company to provide local communities with any benefits after 100 years of illegally occupying their land.

Bulletin articles 9 March 2021

The Korindo Group cleared Kinggo’s Indigenous People’s forests for its industrial oil palm plantations. Petrus Kinggo and other community leaders were persuaded to give up customary forest land with misleading and false promises. Now they are fighting against the FSC-certified Korindo. (Available in Indonesian).