Category Archives: Land-grabs

Herakles Farms releases public statement: Operations suspended

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Herakles Farms, known in Cameroon as SGSOC, has issued a public statement regarding the suspension of its operations.

The 73,000 hectare Herakles Farms project has been extremely controversial since communities first became aware of its existence. As numerous reports and observers have documented, the initial contract (the September 2009 “Establishment Convention”)  was the result of secret negotiations between the company and Cameroonian officials. Communities were only “consulted” after the fact and although the company has been negotiating directly with villages in recent months, its consultation practices — often involving gifts and other incentives — have been widely criticized.

For several weeks rumors regarding Herakles Farms have been circulating on the ground and the company has finally responded with this statement:

HERAKLES FARMS SUSPENDS CAMEROON OPERATIONS IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE RECENTLY ISSUED STOPPAGE ORDER FROM THE MINISTRY OF FORESTRY &WILDLIFE (MINFOF)

May 18, 2013 ‐ Herakles Farms (also known as SG‐SOC in Cameroon) (“Company”), a United States‐based agriculture company with operations in Ghana and Cameroon, today, announced that it has suspended work in Cameroon in response to an order it received from the Government of Cameroon’s Ministry of Forestry & Wildlife (MINFOF).

The order requests that the Company cease preparing land near its Talangaye nursery, the resumption of activities “being subject to a declaration of public usefulness made to the zone where your entire project is located.” The order comes at a time when the Company’s main activity is the transfer of young trees from the nurseries to their permanent places in the field near the village of Talangaye. The Company had obtained permission to proceed and always has and will comply fully and transparently with government regulations in force.

The Company hopes to understand and resolve these actions by the MINFOF.

Given the uncertain timeframe for resuming development, SG‐SOC is reducing and furloughing its workforce of 690 full‐time employees. Herakles Farms’ management reaffirms their commitment to the successful development of their operations in Cameroon. The Company is diligently working with Cameroonian Government officials to resolve the matter as quickly as possible.

The Company is deeply distressed to see so many of its committed Cameroonian employees being left without jobs for an uncertain period of time. In addition, the Company’s community and work force development programs will remain in doubt until a resolution with the Government of Cameroon can be found. The company finds these events especially tragic and will do all it can to achieve a positive outcome.

About Herakles Farms

Herakles Farms is an agriculture company that identifies and implements solutions to important food security concerns in Africa. The Company has had operations in Ghana since 2008 and in Cameroon since 2009. Herakles Farms is guided by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Performance Standards and Equator Principles. www.heraklesfarms.com

End of statement

Note: The company’s statement raises many questions  about the project and its future. The company makes no mention of the sale of its seedlings to Pamol. The number of employees of Herakles Farms has not been independently verified. Herakles Farms states that it has had operations in Cameroon since 2009. This is misleading. The company signed a contract in September 2009, but as the December 2010 minutes of an inter-ministerial commission show, as of late 2010, the boundaries of the proposed concession were still disputed.  At that time, a representative of the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife indicated that, “SG SOC did  not respect the procedure for submission of files and other ministries concerned were not included in the project.” More than 11,000 hectares of land included in the Herakles Farms concession were already attributed to others (community forests, council forests).

Customary land ownership must be recognized

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Hevea (rubber) plantations stretch for miles across parts of Cameroon. Most of the country's large plantations were established during the colonial period -- the first land grabs.

Hevea (rubber) plantations stretch for miles across parts of Cameroon. Most of the country’s large plantations were established during the colonial period — the first land grabs.

By Clemence Tabodo Martiale, translated by Jaff Napoleon Bamenjo, RELUFA

In Africa, land is considered a precious resource of divine providence. It is collectively owned and systematically inherited or handed down to branches of each family. As a God given good, land is considered inalienable by most local communities. But since the advent of colonization and the introduction of written laws regulating land in Africa, local communities have become more and more vulnerable to land deals.

In Cameroon, the decline in full customary land ownership status started during the German colonization and has worsened over time. In 1896, the imperial decree erected all the unoccupied lands as belonging to the German crown. This piece of legislation ushered in the beginning of conflicts between customary land ownership and the written state land laws in Cameroon. This resulted in the promotion of a system where individual land rights are guaranteed only by the State. According to the imperial decree of 15 June 1896, when Cameroon was still under German protectorate, unoccupied or unexploited land was termed “vacant land without masters” with the crown assuming ownership.

This approach ignored the scope of customary rights, ignoring local land uses beyond agriculture such as hunting and gathering that takes place on unoccupied lands.  After independence however, a quasi-denial of the rights of local communities to full ownership of customary land was enacted.  In 1974, with the creation of the national domain, land registration became the exclusive channel for land ownership, negating customary land ownership. Although land registration carries with it the advantage of facilitating the identification of land and proof of land ownership, its existence as the only mode of access to land, denies local people their customary land rights.

This situation is setting a disturbing precedent in Cameroon, where multinational companies are rushing to purchase parcels of land for their investments from governments, and coming into conflict with local communities who consider the land to be their own.  The governments are ready to sell the land without the informed consent of the local communities.

One glaring example is the Herakles land concession in Ndian and Kupe Manenguba divisions of the South West region of Cameroon, where 73,000 hectares (180,386 acres) were purchased for a palm oil project. The Herakles project has generated a lot of attention, controversy and resistance from the local communities in the project area for a variety of reasons.

Not only is the contract signed between Herakles and the government of Cameroon, granting Herakles a 99 year land lease, flawed on most of the contract details, but it also fails to respect the provisions of the law on the competent authority to sign such a long term land lease; the concerned population was inadequately consulted for their approval of the project and the project deprives the population of the only available customary land left for their livelihood activities.

RELUFA and other Civil Society Organizations both locally and internationally have been actively participating in advocacy campaigns to raise issues around this project and engage and influence policy makers in taking appropriate decisions about this and similar projects. The rationale for such campaigns is not only to influence this single project, but it is geared at influencing the entire land legislation so that customary land owners and local communities are expressly recognized and protected by the law.

So far, this is not happening because the government of Cameroon seems to paradoxically believe that foreign agro industrial investment presents the best option for national development. Hence, the government is focusing on promoting land reforms that makes it easier for foreign companies to obtain land leases. This is reflected in recent moves by the government to make land expropriation for industrial investment easier. Currently, land registration requirements are difficult for local communities to meet so as to assert full ownership because of the inhibitive cost and lengthy nature of the procedures involved. Advocating for recognition of customary land ownership is our greatest ambition and the campaign will continue unabated.

In sum, land rights of local communities remain precarious in Cameroon, especially now that the rush for land by multinational industrial plantations is on the increase. We are engaged in this struggle so that future land reforms take into account the rights of indigenous and local communities and implement a coherent land policy and management of the national territory which gives customary land ownership its rightful recognition and protection. This is a battle that must be won.

Customary Land Ownership Increasingly in Jeopardy: Monitoring Trends in Cameroon originally appeared in the Joining Hands newsletter.

The Impact of Land Acquisition on Food Sovereignty: Herakles Farms in Cameroon

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Entrance to cocoa farm in forest, Southwest Region, Cameroon. This land is earmarked for the Herakles Farms plantation.

Entrance to cocoa farm in forest, Southwest Region, Cameroon. This land is earmarked for the Herakles Farms plantation.

This article is reprinted from the Spring 2013 issue of the PHP Post, a publication of the Presbyterian Hunger Program

By Jaff Bamenjo, RELUFA, JH Cameroon and Nasako Besingi, Director, Struggle to Economize Future Environment in Cameroon (SEFE)

Herakles Farms is a New York based company which obtained 73.086 hectares (172,912 acres or 270 square miles) of land through its Cameroonian subsidiary SGSOC in some villages in the Ndian and Kupe Maneguba divisions of the South West region of Cameroon for an oil palm plantation project. The case of Herakles Farms is one of RELUFA’s (PHP’s Joining Hands Cameroonian partner) campaign foci within its Land and Food justice platform.

Large-scale land acquisition in Africa by foreign agriculture multinational companies is on the rise. This phenomenon represents a huge cost to local farmers as it takes away from them the land, which is their most important wealth.

Herakles Farms and five other multinational companies are currently applying for a total of almost 1-million hectares of land for industrial palm oil production in Cameroon despite the fact that there are already five industrial palm oil producing companies in the country. But these industrial palm oil companies provide only about 30 percent of the local market with palm oil and the rest coming from smallholder producers.

Small holders can produce enough palm oil, which is used for cooking as well as soaps and lotions, to supply the local and international market if there is adequate government support. Industrial palm oil plantations are problematic because they take away agricultural land from the local population in a context where food security is already a concern. The 2008 hunger strike that affected many parts of Cameroon is one clear indication of the precarious food security situation in the country.

Farmers in villages where Herakles Farms projects are planned have a firm belief that the land earmarked for lease to Herakles belongs to them. Their perception is that their ownership of the land they have occupied for time immemorial is unshaken, considering that the preamble to the Land and Native Rights Ordinance of West Cameroon recognizes customary land ownership. But the 1974 Cameroon land law (enacted after the unification of the French and English parts of the country) only recognizes ownership when land is legally registered and titled, which is hardly the case in most rural communities.

A lot of momentum is being generated by national and international partners against the Herakles Farms oil palm project in Cameroon. The campaign, as a matter of principle, constitutes an effort to preserve human dignity by averting starvation or malnourishment of people living in the project area. This message must be spread far and wide.

Some villages like Fabe, Masaka, Mbimaand Mundemba, have sent letters to local administrative authorities protesting against this project. Concrete scenarios feared by the population of the project zone are that they will lose land for cultivating their staple foods like cassava and cash crops like cocoa, and that they will lose forest area for harvesting non timber forest products like spices, njansa, bush mango, bitter kola, and medicinal herbs.

Becoming laborers for a multinational company gives them no time to work on their own farms to provide for their families. At the same time, the plantation may lead to the emergence of a local market economy with higher food and oil palm prices, disrupting the independent subsistence way of life villagers have known for ages.

As Nasako Besingi, a farmer and civil society activist at the forefront of the campaign against the Herakles Farms project in Cameroon, declared in his award ceremony speech in December of 2012, “We have to work to put an end to this type of project in order to prevent a looming crisis.”

Communities explore alternatives to industrial palm oil development

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Large-scale oil palm plantations have existed in SW Cameroon for decades, but have brought little in the way of development.

Large-scale oil palm plantations have existed in SW Cameroon for decades, but have brought little in the way of development.

 

In forest communities across Cameroon and the Congo Basin people want development — quality roads, clean water, electricity, the ability to earn a decent living and access to education, among other things.  Promoters of palm oil projects would like people to believe that ceding their lands to corporations for large-scale industrial plantations will put them on the road to development.

What communities don’t get are the facts.  They hear little about the true costs and benefits of giving up their land for industrial plantations. Nor can communities easily get information about the alternatives to plantation agriculture. Although communities may get the impression that they must choose forests or development, industrial agriculture or poverty, this is not true. Nor is it clear that industrial palm oil development will lead people out of poverty or increase food security.

Greenpeace Africa and Cameroonian NGO ACDIC (Association Citoyenne pour la Defense des Interêts Collectifs) are working together “to assess how small-scale farming can offer a responsible development path” and on April 16th close to 100 community representatives attended a workshop “to share ideas on how to ensure food security and forest protection…and identified technical support for farmers, access to land, and producing food locally for local consumption as some of the key factors in achieving this.”

Read more about the initiative here: Food Security and Forest Protection in Cameroon and on the Greenpeace Africa blog.

 

A fact-finding mission to Herakles Farms

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Mokango community gathered around food and beer provided by Herakles Farms (SGSOC) to settle land negotiations. Photo: PSMNR. To outsiders, beer and food may look like nothing more than a kind gesture. But in a region where a bottle of beer is an unaffordable luxury for many, providing beer and food during negotiations is a questionable practice.

Mokango community gathered around food and beer provided by Herakles Farms
(SGSOC) to settle land negotiations. Photo: PSMNR. To outsiders, beer and food may look like nothing more than a kind gesture. But in a region where a bottle of beer is an unaffordable luxury for many, providing beer and food during negotiations is a questionable practice.

 

If you want to understand the problematic nature of palm oil development in Cameroon, there’s a must-read report now available online.

The Programme for the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources (PSMNR), a German government-supported program of Cameroon’s Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife, has published the results of its February 2013 fact-finding mission to the Herakles Farms palm oil development area.  The team’s findings paint a damning picture of the so-called “sustainable” and “environmentally benign” project. The report details illegality, corruption, inadequate community consultation and insufficient environmental protection across the concession area.

The report is available on the Cameroon Veritas website. Cameroon Veritas is the go-to source for reports and documents related to the Herakles Farms project (including a leaked copy of the project’s Establishment Convention).

Greenpeace has published several reports on the project, including one in collaboration with the Oakland Institute. The Center for the Environment and Development and RELUFA, two Yaounde-based organizations, have also published reports on the Herakles Farms project. The company has attacked these reports, dismissing them as uninformed and biased. This latest report, prepared by recognized experts on behalf of a governmental program, will be hard for Herakles Farms to dismiss out of hand. This is not the work of “activists,” but a detailed account of an official mission.

The report describes the fact-finding mission’s methodology, which included open discussions with community representatives in villages throughout the concession area (the villages and participants are included in the report):

The team explained that PSMNR wasn’t against Herakles Farms (SGSOC) project but wanted to ensure that the community was fully aware of what they were negotiating. These sessions were organized to enable communities to reflect and take a better informed decision towards the Herakles Farms (SGSOC) project and better negotiate with the company. For those who have already entered into the negotiation process, the team provided recommendations on what bases to re-negotiate the agreement which can better contribute to their development and to the conservation of their natural and social environment. 

Some of the report’s findings:

In Nguti Sub-Division, Herakles Farms (SGSOC) is currently opening the first 2500 ha plantation block…. About 600ha of this first block already falls outside Herakles Farms (SGSOC) proposed concession limit covered by their Environmental Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) 

The negotiation is not transparent and also differs from one village to another. SGSOC negotiation methods are clearly not respecting “Free Prior and Informed Consent” process (FPIC) principles. “FPIC implies that communities have the right to decide whether they will agree to the project or not once they have a full and accurate understanding of the implications of the project on them and their customary land”. Communities should be informed on what is a large scale plantation, on the positive and negative impacts of Herakles Farms (SGSOC) project in the short, medium and long term. Communities should also be made aware of other development models and on the contribution of the forest to their livelihood.

During the negotiation sessions the Communities are convinced to concede as much land as possible without taking into account their own future development needs. The agreed maps showing the surface area conceded are then signed by the village Chiefs on behalf of the traditional council and later on by local government officials. The Communities are obviously neither prepared nor equipped for such technical negotiations with Herakles Farms (SGSOC) experts since they don’t master land use mapping and land negotiation processes. Some chiefs have declared that they did not realize what they were getting into and are now trying to renegotiate with SGSOC.

The report also notes that 1000 ha of oil palms in Cameroon will generate approximately 3.75 billion FCFA per year (approximately US$ 7.5 million), but that the company will give less than 3 million FCFA per year (approximately US$ 6,000) to communities that are ceding thousands of hectares of their lands.

The report adds that, “most of the villages would obtain more money with REDD+” than what the company will pay. And, of course, “with REDD+, those villages would still enjoy their customary rights and would still benefit from the environmental services provided by the forest.”

Read the full report online here: Fact finding mission on Herakles Farms (SGSOC) oil palm plantation project, February 2013

Cameroon Veritas provides a valuable public service in a country where land and extractive industries deals are notoriously opaque.

Land giveaways: “quick-fix” development?

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Forest clearing, Herakles Farms development, Southwest Region, Cameroon.

Forest clearing, Herakles Farms development, Southwest Region, Cameroon.

There are certainly many paths to economic development, but as Samuel Nguiffo points out in a recent Al Jazeera opinion piece,  signing away vast expanses of land to foreign investors — the “quick-fix” approach — is a high-risk “development” plan.

Nguiffo, Founder and Secretary General of the Center for the Environment and Development (CED) in Yaounde, Cameroon, is a tireless advocate for the communities who are rarely consulted — and sometimes not even informed — before their lands are taken away for logging, mining or large-scale agricultural projects. Nguiffo’s work, like that of Marc Ona in Gabon, has been recognized and honored internationally. Nguiffo was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1999 for his efforts on behalf of Cameroon’s rainforest and forest-dwelling communities. (And, like Ona, Nguiffo also faces lawsuits and intimidation at home.)

In the 1990s Nguiffo focused his attention on logging and the proposed Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline project (the pipeline has been operational since 2003). Today, the threats are multiplied, with numerous mining and palm oil projects in development.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with mining or large-scale agriculture, but as Nguiffo writes, the reality today is that “governments are giving away land that belongs to the people who live on the land, determining their future with neither consultation nor consent.”

Like all get-rich-quick schemes, there are lots of dollar signs and promises that dazzle local decision makers. Of course some people do get rich. Unfortunately, though, it’s not those whose lands are seized by the state and handed over to foreign investors.  And, more often than not, the host governments sign away land for far less than it’s worth, and agree to deals that they later regret, but can’t change as their negotiating teams were no match for multinational corporate contract attorneys.

In the case of the Chad-Cameroon pipeline, for example, Cameroon signed a deal with Exxon Mobil that allowed the company to build an offshore marine loading terminal and a pipeline across 900 kilometers of the country, including hundreds of kilometers of fragile forest zones, for nothing more than a transit fee — of less than 50 cents a barrel. The government has tried several times to renegotiate that bad deal, to no avail. Some people got rich; most people just live with the threat of spills.

 

Samuel Nguiffo is currently being sued by the government of Cameroon for tarnishing the state's reputation when he advocated against an oil palm plantation concession.

Samuel Nguiffo is currently being sued by the government of Cameroon for tarnishing the state’s reputation when he advocated against an oil palm plantation concession.

‘Quick-fix’ development gives away more than it gets back

The “land grabbing” in Africa and elsewhere often triggers conflict, an underreported financial risk.

by Samuel Nguiffo
In Cameroon, as in many African countries, the question of economic development is not just an abstract concept. Rural communities, mostly consisting of subsistence farmers struggling to feed their families, welcome the possibility of brighter prospects.

But instead of leading to greener pastures, economic development too often consists of large-scale projects that take away property and community land, leaving farmers with little compensation. Their governments – often the ones who sold the land – either look the other way or play the role of enforcer. If the communities are compensated, it is hardly adequate, and the few resulting jobs do not pay enough to make up for the permanent loss of livelihood and way of life.

In Southwest Cameroon, for example, New York-based Herakles Farms plans to clear 73,000 hectares for an oil palm plantation that the local communities are protesting. Once the land is cleared of their crops and the surrounding forest, they will have nothing – and nothing to lose by contesting this development.

Yet the financial media is full of reports of new large-scale land transactions. An aluminium mine in Northern Cameroon, supported by a hydropower plant and two railroads, would bring the country $4bn in investment from companies in the US, Dubai and India.

An iron mine in Southeast Cameroon, being bought by a Chinese firm planning to build port facilities and a railroad, would bring $4.7bn into the country.

And an even bigger oil palm plantation, developed by an Indian conglomerate, is expected to transform the landscape of over 200,000 hectares, a development worth more than $1.7bn.

The desire for these projects is understandable: the world needs more minerals and food, governments need revenues, and local people want jobs. But by encouraging such investments and thousands more like them around the world, governments are giving away land that belongs to the people who live on the land, determining their future with neither consultation nor consent.

Giveaways trigger land-based conflicts 

This has become known as the “land grab”, but it might be better called the “great land giveaway”. Governments, eager to capture the cash promised by large-scale agriculture, timber, or mining operations, all too willingly hand over their only resources to large multinational corporations to catalyse development. But in reality it is not the “quick-fix” they were hoping for.

Instead these projects often trigger community resistance, and governments often respond to those standing in the way of these deals with an onslaught of legal harassment, violence and worse. For example, after objecting to the actions of Herakles, the palm-oil producer, Nasako Besingi and four other Cameroonian advocates were jailed for three days in November 2012. Other activists have faced longer prison sentences. Fa’a Embolo, a village leader from Central Cameroon, spent four months in jail; in other countries they have been beaten and killed.

These stories are repeated across Africa, as weak governance and a lack of legal recognition and support for customary rights continue to inhibit any real progress.

Michael Richards, a natural resources economist, authored a report recently for the Rights and Resources Initiative examining 18 large-scale African land acquisitions in the agriculture sector. He concluded that the local communities had been lied to, subjected to coercion or political pressure, or tricked with documents that were either falsified or misleading. In 17 out of 18 cases, Richards said, local communities would have said no to the land transfers, if they had been given the information needed to make an informed decision.

Risks to investors 

But the communities and their defenders are not alone in facing risks. After the inevitable pushback from the communities whose land has been sold out from under them, a growing number of investors have lost more than they have gained. This financial risk is completely underestimated and underreported despite the widespread havoc it can wreak on corporate balance sheets.

One of the world’s largest palm oil producers, Sime Darby, was forced to suspend the development in 2012 of a planned 220,000-hectare oil palm and rubber plantation in Liberia because of protests on the part of local communities that claimed the land under customary law.

In Cameroon, by clearing rain forest and other illegally occupied lands and then arresting protesters who trespass onto the land, palm-oil producer Herakles has become the subject of a global advocacy campaign that has tarnished its reputation. The impact on the company’s bottom line has not been assessed, but the project delays do not come cheaply.

And the story does not end in Africa.

In India, Vedanta’s failed aluminium mining venture led to a negative financial outlook rating from Standard & Poor’s and other agencies. In Chile, a failed hydropower project forced SN Power to write off $23m. And in Bolivia, a failed highway project cost the national government a $332m development grant from a Brazilian development bank.

The assumption behind such investments is that they will provide rapid growth in the host countries. While in some ways effective, this “quick-fix” development exacerbates a growing gap between the rich and the poor and multiplies the risk of conflict.

These land-based conflicts could well begin to take the glow off the investment picture for the companies involved and those that finance them. But the growing appetite for land – and the growing speed of land acquisitions – means that tenure problems and the financial risks associated with them are not going to disappear.

Rather than giving away land and resources to companies to the detriment of their citizens, African governments – Cameroon included – must respect the rights of citizens and let them negotiate with investors on their own terms. And the companies themselves should be asking who owns the land they obtain on such good terms.

To do otherwise is ultimately too high a risk, not just for advocates, but also for investors, communities, and the governments themselves.

Samuel Nguiffo is currently being sued by the government of Cameroon for tarnishing the state’s reputation when he advocated against an oil palm plantation concession.

Growing international support for Marc Ona

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Elected in 2009, Gabonese president Ali Bongo has pledged to fight corruption.

Elected in 2009, Gabonese president Ali Bongo has pledged to fight corruption and protect the environment.

 

Gabon Review reports that a growing number of individuals and organizations are speaking out in support of Marc Ona Essangui and denouncing his March 29th conviction and sentencing on defamation charges. The Review cites excerpts from several letters addressed directly to Gabon’s president, Ali Bongo.

The Goldman Environmental Prize adds that, “The global network of Goldman Prize recipients has also taken up the call for justice for Ona. Over 50 past Goldman Prize recipients are currently working on a collective petition.”

In 2009 Ona received the Goldman Environmental Prize for his efforts to publicly expose the illegal agreements behind the Belinga mining project, a secretly negotiated $3.5 billion deal comprising a massive mining concession, a dam, railroads and a deep-water port facility. Ona’s current efforts to shine a light on Gabon’s palm oil deals are a continuation of his ongoing fight for transparency and government accountability.

In a recent message addressed to the Goldman Environmental Prize, Ona writes:

It’s important to know that my commitment is to stop the destruction of our forest and all biodiversity by Olam, a Singaporean company, to plant palm trees and rubber. The members of the executive [government] are [giving] land to Olam without taking care of the right[s] of populations. The deforestation caused by this activity [has] accelerated since 2009 when Ali Bongo, the new Gabonese President, [gave] all power to Olam to cut trees [and] to plant palm trees and rubber. The denunciation I made is about collusion between the new President, his cabinet and Olam. They make intimidation on the populations to accept all projects by Olam. It’s not normal. The corruption of the executive members [of government] is about influence they make to [pressure they put on] the rest of the people to accept Olam project. I am fighting again the situation and we need all the network of Goldman Prize to join us by denouncing Olam activities in Gabon and the collusion with the members of the executive power in Gabon.

Read more about the Olam deal from Rainforest Foundation here: Case study 3.2 Olam, Gabon

The Goldman Prize also reports that Ona is asking citizens to consider sending messages to their elected officials or directly to Ali Bongo, President of Gabon (alibongoondimba@mac.com) and to Liban Soleman, the Chief of Cabinet (liban.soleman@presidence.ga).

Greenpeace France asks, “who wants to silence the defenders of the forest?” and reminds readers that the strong-arm tactics of the Gabonese authorities are, unfortunately, typical across the region: “In November, it was Nasako Besingi, an opponent of the Herakles Farms project in Cameroon, whose arbitrary arrest we reported. And in July 2012, Greenpeace, along with Survie and other organizations, denounced Gabonese president Ali Bongo’s visit to France several weeks after Marc Ona and other activists were arrested during a peaceful demonstration.”

Read more about Nasako Besingi here: Land grabbing Looms — New Palm Oil Plantation Threatens Cameroon’s Rainforest

A coalition of human rights organizations in France have made a public statement denouncing Ona’s conviction, which they consider a political manipulation of the justice system and a serious attack on freedom of expression. The NGOs also underline Ona’s ongoing efforts to bring transparency to Gabon’s lucrative – and corrupt – oil industry. After many years of warnings, Gabon was definitively excluded from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in February. Gabon had signed up to be part of this voluntary initiative in 2004, but had never fulfilled the reporting requirements. For years the country was able to call itself an “EITI candidate country,” but that is no longer possible.

The Bongo family is also one of several African political leaders’ families being pursued in France in the “affaire des biens mal-acquis”  (case of ill-gotten gains).

Read more about the “biens mal-acquis” (in English) here: France impounds Africa autocrats’ ‘ill-gotten gains’

Read more about Gabon’s exclusion from EITI (in English) here:  OIL MONEY IN GABON AND SIERRA LEONE: FROM MIRAGE TO REALITY?

Ona’s recent conviction is the latest in a series of run-ins he and other civil society activists have had with Gabonese authorities.

Describing Ona as “a tireless voice protecting the forest and its people,” the Goldman Environmental Prize noted in 2009 that, “Ona faces considerable personal risks in campaigning for environmental and social issues. In January 2008, the minister of the interior suspended the activities of the NGO coalition that Ona coordinates on the grounds that, “local NGOs were interfering in politics.” After much outcry, the suspension was lifted. In March 2008, a break-in at the office of Brainforest resulted in the loss of sensitive information relating to the Belinga mine project. Ona and his family were recently evicted from their home, as the landlord felt the risks of having an activist on his property were too great. Three times during 2008 the federal police refused to let Ona travel out of the country, without explanation.

“In December 2008, Ona and several other civil society leaders were arrested and held without charge and without access to legal representation in deplorable conditions in a basement cell for five days. Ona was later transferred to prison and charged with possession of documents allegedly for dissemination and propaganda with intent to incite rebellion against the state authorities, a charge which he denies. After media reports about the unlawful arrest from outlets in Africa, the EU and the US, the government released Ona, though the charges have not yet been dropped.”

Ali Bongo, president of Gabon since 2009, has pledged to fight corruption and clean-up the Gabonese government. The government of Gabon vaunts the progress it has made in world press freedom rankings. But the violent suppression of democracy campaigners in 2011 and the ongoing legal troubles of Ona and other civil society activists suggest there’s still much progress to be made.

Gabonese activist Marc Ona Essangui sentenced for “defamation”

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Marc Ona Essangui. Photo: Gabon Review

Marc Ona Essangui. Photo: Gabon Review

 

RFI reports today that Gabonese activist Marc Ona Essangui has been sentenced for defamation of Liban Souleymane, the president’s Chief of Cabinet.  Ona Essangui, who received a six-month suspended prison sentence and a 5 million CFA franc fine (US$ 10,000), immediately announced that he would appeal the decision. The case has created shock waves throughout Gabonese civil society where it is perceived as a direct attack on freedom of speech.

Ona Essangui, one of Gabon’s most respected civil society activists and 2009 recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize, has long been a champion for environmental and social justice in his country. Among other things, Ona Essangui has fought tirelessly for transparency in the extractive industries sector and is the Gabon coordinator for the transparency organization, Publish What You Pay. Interestingly, his run-in with Liban Souleymane concerns the palm oil sector, which is completely shrouded in secrecy. To date, transparency initiatives such as EITI are concerned primarily with the extractive industries.

The human rights defense organization, Front Line Defenders, writes that Ona Essangui was in court over allegations of defamation lodged against him by the Liban Souleymane, Chief of Cabinet of the President of the Republic of Gabon. Ona Essangui, Front Line Defenders writes, was accused of making defamatory statements during an October 2012 public event, “where he discussed the activities of Groupe Olam, a Singaporean agribusiness company that invests substantially in Gabon.

“The human rights defender is also accused of making defamatory statements during a televised debate organised by a local TV station, TELEAFRICA, on 9 November 2012.

“It is alleged that, during both events, Marc Ona Essangui claimed that the Chief of Cabinet of the President of the Republic of Gabon, together with the President, hold personal stakes in Groupe Olam’s ventures in Gabon. Marc Ona Essangui, as well as other members of civil society in Gabon, have publicly criticised Group Olam’s ventures for benefiting from land-grabbing practices and for contributing to environmental degradation in the country.

“Front Line Defenders expresses its concern at the defamation case lodged against Marc Ona Essangui and the summons to appear before the Court on 18 January. It believes this represents a new act of judicial harassment against him and an attempt to undermine his peaceful and legitimate advocacy work on environmental and land rights in Gabon.”

In a decidedly pro-government story in the online publication, Koaci.com, Ona Essangui is accused of having “no proof” to back up his allegations, making them “completely baseless.” In an industry with zero transparency, it’s ironic that a publication can be so confident in its defense of the “defamed” politician.

RFI reports that Ona Essangui stands by his statements and insists that if he had to do it all again, he wouldn’t change a thing.

Find more reporting (in French) on this case from Gabon Review: Le cas Marc Ona – Liban Soleiman (one of several stories on the case)

Read the case study on Olam in Gabon from the Rainforest Foundation (in English): Case Study 3.2: Olam, Gabon

Read pages 29-31 of the report (in French), Les populations gabonaises face a l’insecurite fonciere, from Brainforest, the NGO founded by Marc Ona Essangui. This report details the financial relationship between the Gabonese government and Olam.

 

Cameroon’s forest dwellers lose out as land handed to developers

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Bagyeli girls in the village of Bandevouri, near Kribi, Cameroon.

Bagyeli girls in the village of Bandevouri, near Kribi, Cameroon.

 

Source: Alertnet // Elias Ntungwe Ngalame

KRIBI, Cameroon (Alertnet) – Forest dwellers forced off their land in southern Cameroon after it was leased to private companies have been allowed to return by the government, but many still fear for their livelihoods and the future of their homes.

“Our lands have been taken away from us (and) our forest, which is our main source of living, destroyed, forcing us stay in poverty,” said Medjo Marcel, the village chief of Adjap, one of several villages affected by land takeovers.

“We (still) have no right to possession,” Marcel added. “We cannot invest on the land for fear that foresters and other land grabbers may flush us out at any time.”

Over the past decade Cameroon’s government has leased more than 42,000 hectares (104,000 acres) of forest in the country’s South region alone to companies like HEVECAM, a rubber production business, and ONADEF, a timber firm. It is part of a trend that has seen forest land in West and Central Africa made vulnerable to the kind of deforestation more commonly known in Indonesia and Brazil.

Critics say that lack of proper consultation and weak legal processes leave local communities displaced and impoverished, while the environmental effects have been devastating.

PYGMY COMMUNITY DISPLACED

The 5,000 or so inhabitants of five affected villages in the South region, as well as the Bagyeli pygmy community, were offered settlement on other land but say they cannot grow food or practise their traditional occupation as hunters there. Much of their former leased forest land is being cleared for planting.

After an outcry from the affected communities and pressure from civil society organisations, the government has returned 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of forest to the villagers, but with rights only to use the land, not to have full possession of it.

“In the classification of forest in Cameroon, the rights of the forest inhabitants are not respected,” insisted Jean Calvin of Cameroon Ecology, a nongovernmental organisation.

The community members are not entitled to own or transfer the land, nor to veto potential investors, Calvin explained. This allows businesses to take forest land from its inhabitants, he said.

“We have been forced to move from our forest habitat to the village of Adjab where we have difficulties earning any income,” lamented Mbah Martin, head of the Bagyeli pygmy community.

“(There are ) no animals to hunt, (and) our medicinal plants from the forest have all been destroyed,” he said.

Environmental experts are critical of the government’s welcoming attitude towards land investors and criticise the increasing displacement of forest communities.

“Land grabbing by heavy investors has caused rapid disappearance of resources, triggering massive movement of the population from resource-depleted zones to other areas where resources are available, causing conflict between communities,” said Andy White of the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), an international NGO.

NO BENEFITS FOR FOREST COMMUNITIES

According to a report published by the organisation, forest communities reap no benefits from the transactions that deprive them of their community lands.

“In the case of southern Cameroon, income from harvest and the sale of fruits has disappeared, hunting of bush meat as a source of protein was brought to a halt while sources of firewood and medicinal plants vanished, and land rights were lost without compensation,” said RRI’s Francoise Tiayon .

African governments have been chided for making efforts to protect the land rights of rural people and indigenous communities on the one hand, while rapidly ceding community forests and other lands for development with the other. These conflicting choices were the focus of two new reports by RRI and the 13th Regional Dialogue on Forests, Governance, and Climate Change which took place recently in Yaounde, Cameroon’s capital.

“Some ministries (are) choosing to hand over natural resources to agribusiness and mining, and others seeking to protect the rights of their citizens and respect recent commitments,” said RRI’s White.

Samuel Nguiffo, secretary general of the Centre for Environment and Development in Cameroon said he believed government interest in development and exploiting resources outweighs interest in protecting vulnerable communities.

‘GREED AND POWER’

“What communities on the ground in Cameroon see is no different from what is unfolding in other neighbouring countries in West and Central Africa,” he said. “The slow pace of good intentions—the efforts to protect communities of subsistence farmers who have no wealth except for the land that they cultivate—has been overtaken by greed and power.”

Michael Richards, a natural resources economist and author of the RRI report examining 18 large-scale African land acquisitions in the agriculture sector, noted that, “across Africa, weak governance and a lack of legal recognition and support for customary rights are inhibiting any real progress” in protecting forest communities.

The report lists a variety of problems, including a lack of consultation with communities in affected areas, coercion or political pressure, misleading or falsified documents, doubtful legality and poor transparency.

“If a free, prior, and informed consent process had been followed, it seems probable that in 17 out of the 18 cases I looked at, the communities would not have given their consent,” Richards said.

Compared to other forested regions of the developing world, such as those in Latin America and Asia, Africa lags far behind in recognising community and customary rights to forest and land; giving control or ownership of forest areas to local and indigenous communities; and recognising the right of communities to exclude invaders.

Studies show that whereas one-quarter to one-third of forest land in Latin America and Asia is owned by communities and indigenous peoples or is designated for their use, this is true of only 2 percent of forest land in Africa, where almost all the land is managed by the government.

“So much human tragedy could be averted if land rights in Africa didn’t erode so soon after they are established,” said Phil René Oyono, an independent expert and author of the second RRI report.

“Yes, there has been a surge of new laws and reform processes since 2009,” added Samuel Nguiffo, “but these efforts are too slow and do not meet the challenges presented by rapid development and exploitation in the extractive sector. Africans will not sit idly by as our future is handed over to the highest bidder.”

Source: Alertnet // Elias Ntungwe Ngalame

Elias Ntungwe Ngalame is an award-winning environmental writer with Cameroon’s Eden Group of newspapers.

 

Let’s talk about money

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CDC oil palm plantation, Southwest Region, Cameroon

CDC oil palm plantation, Southwest Region, Cameroon

 

There’s a rush on for land in the Congo Basin and palm oil is one of the main drivers of this investment boom.

Palm oil producers talk about global demand for palm oil and feeding the planet, but they wouldn’t be jostling for acreage if the potential profits weren’t so high.

Palm oil, generating US$ 20 billion-a-year in revenues, is the world’s most productive and most lucrative edible oil crop. In Malaysia, for example, palm oil plantations yield an average of 3.5 to 5 metric tons of oil annually. The current market price is hovering close to US$ 800 per ton.

In Africa, a combination extremely cheap land, low wages and tax breaks for foreign investors make palm oil an investor’s dream.

Here’s Gabon’s Agriculture Minister, Julien Nkoghe Bekale, speaking to Ventures Africa on the sidelines of the November 2012 UK-Gabon Investment Forum: “We have a large amount of available land and an attractive environment for investment … What we’re aiming to do is create an attractive framework, whether it be legislative, regulatory or fiscal, for investment. For agricultural enterprises we’re going to have tax exemptions on VAT, on customs and even on companies … At the moment palm oil prices are good, so obviously we will seek to export it rather than focus on local consumption.”

But in their race to the bottom to make themselves “attractive” to foreign investors, what are African governments gaining? Land leased for next to nothing. Produce and profits leaving the country. Little or no tax revenue. It’s really as crazy as it sounds.

The U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier de Schutter, was in Cameroon in July 2012. At a press conference at the end of his mission, de Schutter addressed the problem of land “giveaways.” He stressed that Cameroon desperately needs better contract negotiations, negotiators and transparency. De Schutter said land prices are far too low and that contracts must be indexed to the price of resources. The benefits of investment must be equal or greater than the impacts, he said, also calling on the country to tax foreign investment properly. Today is not the 1980s, de Schutter said. Cameroon is in a position of strength and needs to leverage this.

De Schutter is hardly alone in his assessment. Dr. Mthuli Ncube is the Chief Economist and Vice President of the African Development Bank and is obviously a champion of investment. But in his article, A Global Rush for Africa’s Land: Risks and Opportunities, Mthuli Ncube writes that, “below market level land fees have characterized most land deals in Africa,” seriously undermining their value for host countries.

He continues: “Recently documented cases indicate land fees have ranged between US$4.8 to US$7.1 per hectare in Sudan against US$300 per hectare in Peru. Details of large-scale land leases are often concealed especially in host countries with a poor record of transparency and accountability.  In the Democratic Republic of Congo, close to 50% of arable land is either leased to foreign companies or is under negotiation for leasing, without a clearly defined framework governing these transactions. Some of the land acquisitions are held for speculative purposes given the sketchy details of implied investments (after acquisition) and the low land fees, which make secondary land transfers very lucrative….

“Thus, to obtain value from recent surge in land acquisition, African governments need to undertake institutional reforms that foster accountability, proper valuation of land, and social and environmental sustainability of investments.”

Mthuli Ncube suggests land auction systems as one possible measure to increase investment value: “Land fees in many African countries, for comparable grades of land, are significantly lower than other developing regions of the world. For instance, land lease per hectare in India’s Punjab Doaba region is estimated to be more than 50 times the average land lease in Africa. Land auctions serve the twin advantage of setting prices right and promoting transparency of land deals. Peru’s competitive land auction system is often cited as a global best practice in stipulating strong terms of ‘commitment of investment’. Thus, mechanisms that discourage speculative land acquisitions should be fostered in Africa’s land markets.”

Further information

Read the full report of the U.N. Special Rapporteur’s mission to Cameroon here.

Read more on the palm oil investment from the Financial Times here.

Read Dr. Mthuli Ncube’s full article here.