A huge palm oil project in Cameroon's rainforest, led by a U.S.-based agribusiness, Herakles Farms, is stirring up controversy. Environmentalists warn it will destroy precious forest and displace local people from their land, while others, including some village chiefs, say it will boost development.
Palm oil, one of the cheapest edible oils, is being used increasingly by the commercial food industry, and is a key ingredient in some biofuels. As a result, global demand has rocketed and agricultural corporations are buying up large tracts of forest land to expand production.
According to a report from the U.S.-based Oakland Institute in collaboration with Greenpeace International, Herakles Farms' local subsidiary, SG Sustainable Oils Cameroon, Ltd (SGSOC), signed an agreement with the government in 2009 to establish a 73,100-hectare (180,600 acre) palm oil plantation, one of the largest on the continent, in Cameroon's Southwest Region under a 99-year land lease.
"Being developed without the consent and adequate consultation of many local communities, this project exemplifies how the scramble for land in Africa threatens sustainable development and human rights," said the report, released on Sept. 5.
Herakles Farms, an affiliate of investment fund Herakles Capital, will pay only $0.50 to $1 per hectare per year under a contract which amounts to "ripping off Cameroonians", Greenpeace campaigner Frederic Amiel said in a statement.
"This palm oil plantation would wreak environmental havoc and dislocate communities who rely on the forests," he added.
SUSTAINABLE SMOKESCREEN?
Herakles Farms plans to partner with All for Africa, an NGO headed by Herakles' own chairman and CEO Bruce Wrobel, to channel palm oil revenues into development projects that will benefit local communities.
But campaigners, including WWF and Cameroonian civil society groups, have said the investor's promises of sustainable development projects to help feed the world without damaging the environment are little more than a smokescreen.
The Oakland Institute report said local farmers - who grow cocoa, millet and cassava, among other crops - fear they will lose their land and livelihoods to the U.S. company and its local affiliate.
"SGSOC has not presented any maps indicating the inner boundaries of the proposed palm oil concession, leaving villagers in the dark as to how much farmland they actually stand to lose," the report said.
The company began operations by establishing tree nurseries in 2010 without a presidential decree granting the land lease and in spite of two decisions by a local court ordering the company to cease work, "making recent activities of the U.S. company in violation of national laws", the report added.
Back in April, Cameroon's forestry ministry declared SGSOC's operations in the area to be illegal. After carrying out an inspection, it issued a report saying the company "has not respected the administrative ethics regulating such activities". It recommended "a strict follow up of the illegal activities of SGSOC by the competent administrative authorities in the region".
COMPANY DEFENCE
Herakles Farms has also been criticised for withdrawing from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in August, after several NGOs and researchers complained the Cameroon project breached the certification scheme's criteria.
Herakles' Wrobel said in a statement released shortly after the Oakland Institute report that many of the comments made about the project under the RSPO application process were "subjective" and "difficult to respond to as not enough of the area was studied".
"Our concession in Cameroon was provided with the expectation that our investment would quickly generate employment in a region with some of the poorest demographics and that our efforts would eventually help eliminate the importation of palm oil from Asia," Wrobel said.
"We have yet to plant a single tree into the field," he added, blaming the lengthy RSPO approval procedure.
Herakles left the RSPO because the body is too young and lacks the technical expertise needed to vet palm oil projects, Wrobel said. Nonetheless, the company intends to meet or exceed the RSPO standards, as well as the World Bank's International Finance Corporation performance standards for commercial agricultural projects, he added.
Wrobel noted that Herakles had committed to preserving stands of virgin forest inside its concession, and is developing only secondary degraded forest that had already been logged.
LOCAL CHIEFS HAIL PROJECT
The Oakland Institute report includes letters from some local chiefs saying they do not have enough forest land to contribute to the project, which covers Ndian and Kupe-Manenguba divisions and is surrounded by protected nature zones. But not all share the concerns of environmentalists.
Chief Norbert Mbille of Batanga in Ndian believes opposition campaigners are acting out of their own self interest.
"The fear of these environmental NGOs is that without forest they will have no project to execute in our country, and that will mean an end to their mission here," Mbille told Alertnet in Yaounde. "We have given our blessing to the palm oil project because we want development that will eradicate poverty in our community."
Chief Atem Ebako of Talangaye village in Kupe-Manenguba dismissed claims that locals are against the project.
"We are not opposed to any project that brings development in our land. Local indigenous people are sometimes offered drinks and T-shirts with anti-palm oil plantation project slogans written on them, to give the impression that there are protests coming from the local community. This is false and we know the people behind such gimmicks," Ebako told a press briefing in the capital.
Constantine Chienku, a Cameroonian doctor from Ndian who practices medicine in the United States, recently questioned in Cameroon's press why environmentalists want his country to remain an undeveloped nature reserve.
"The World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), Greenpeace and other environment protection NGOs are blocking access to healthcare and education in one of the poorest countries in the world," Chienku wrote in op-ed.
"It is an interesting phenomenon that every time a big development project is announced in Cameroon or anywhere in Africa, a large phalanx of environmental movements rears its collective head and starts protesting about the dangers such a project would pose to the environment. Their primary concerns are in the following descending order: the forests, the animals, and at the tail end, the local populations," he argued.
Either way, environmentalists urge local communities not to underestimate the role of forests in their survival, and to be aware of how cutting them down contributes to climate change by releasing the carbon they store.
"People need to know the importance of trees and forest around them," Samuel Njem, an environmentalist who works for the government, told AlertNet. "They help to regulate our climate by absorbing the huge amount of carbon dioxide we exhale, as well as that coming from charcoal burning, car engines, fossil fuels and other industrial activities."
Elias Ntungwe Ngalame is an award-winning environmental writer with Cameroon's Eden Group of newspapers.
You can also watch a documentary, The Herakles Debacle, by Paris-born filmmaker Franck Bieleu who grew up in Cameroon, on the Oakland Institute website.
Read more at AlertNet Climate, the Thomson Reuters Foundation's daily news website on the human impacts of climate change.
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So herakles creates an NGO led by the CEO of the company in order to "help the poor Africans". This is the best example of the illicit relationships between foreign companies and NGOS in Africa. The NGOs are simply fronts for the same companies stealing the land and resources of Africa. The NGOs are the ones putting the articles all over the web talking about how they want to "help Africans". The NGOs are the ones claiming that the issues in Africa are due to "climate change". But the reality is that the problems stem from the companies taking all the land and resources for themselves and leaving Africans as landless peasants. But you wont hear that on the news. And the Africans are supposed to fall down and praise these clowns for "helping" them? How is that any different from what has happened over the last 200 years of colonization in Africa? It isn't. NGOs are simply modern day missionaries and PR agencies designed to cover up and hide the continued exploitation and slavery of Africans. And the most sinister part is that the PR is purposely designed to represent these foreigners and Europeans as "saviors" of Africa, when the reality is just the opposite.
All development starts with the land. You cannot have development without land ownership. All economics and trade starts with land ownership. Without land ownership you cannot make a profit. You cannot legally buy and sell. You cannot make decisions on what to grow and how much. You cannot get a loan and you cannot start a business. This is exactly why these foreigners and their government lackeys will never ever support Africans owning their own land and producing their own crops for their own consumption. The governments give away the land and allow the NGOs to come in and become surrogates for true independent African economic development, while the real economy is based around foreigners paying Africans pennies on the dollar and exporting the wealth and resources out of the continent. It is simply the colonial plantation model of economics that was begun hundreds of years ago and it has not changed.
And those "tribal leaders" who say this will bring development are either sellouts or just plain ignorant.
I mean how on earth is it that in the year 2012 Africans need foreigners and Europeans to provide them the basics of life? Seriously. If Africans are the oldest humans on the planet then how on earth is that? They have survived every climate and every time of environmental condition on earth for all this time but now suddenly cannot feed themselves? Are you serious. Africans should be ashamed of themselves. By that logic, Africans should have been dead a long time ago because no foreigners and Europeans were there to give them food and clothing....
The biggest issue here is how a so-called "independent" Afican country with millions of people in the population does not guarantee a right to land ownership to its people. How on earth is that? NGOs, environmental groups and foreign companies own more land in Africa than Africans. And the government acts as custodian of the land and seems to act as if the only time land can be used and allocated is when foreigners come in. As long as the Africans are just there without foreigners, they don't see a need to allocate land for them their own people to develop it. You cannot develop without land ownership. Land is wealth and from land ownership all development takes place. Which is why foreign companies, NGOs and environmentalists all demand proper deeds and titles of land ownership when they go to Africa, because that guarantees them the right to profit and trade off the resources therein.
While we want development in that part of the country which i happen to come from, we cannot and must not do so on the backs of poor villagers who see their futures and that of their children threatened. More-so, some of the so called chiefs are mouth pieces for the present CPDM ruling oligarchy that does not represent the aspirations of many in Cameroon. If they have been paid their THIRTY DIRTY PIECES OF SILVER,then they should enjoy it quietly and not claim to speak for every one of us from that area. Chief Mbile Nangia and the other chiefs can NOT and MUST NOT claim to speak for every one of their subjects in the Batanga or other clans clan without consulting with all, even those in the diaspora. If the say the planatation is good for their people,then they must be speaking for themselves only. What have the people of the area gotten from the other oil palm plantation companies established in the area? Nothing! Ndian Division and Orokoland is not the preserve for oil palms. We can diversify our economy and not by investing in jobs that pay slave wages such as plantations but by attracting capital that will explore and exploit the very many natural resources in Ndian for the good of the people by paying good living wages. As for Dr.Chienku or whatever his name is, he cannot claim that he is from Ndian or Orokoland. The name is Bamileke from the West region of Cameroon and he MUST desist from claiming Orokoland as his place of origin. The purpose of such deceit is to give the impression that even the elite from that part of the land are in favor of the project. He is not OROKO and NEVER will be. To end, once again Oroko-land is NOT THE PRESERVE FOR OIL PALM PLANTATIONS.
It is crazy and sadden how Africans still cannot for one reason or the others understand how the world they need to support and manage their lives and lives of their African brethren for eternity. Instead we act so foolishly that we sold ourselves and resources for nearly nothing. This is what happend in Liberia, its happening in Nigeria, in papa new Guinea and other parts if not throughtout the continent. In libraria an American company name firestone rip that country for its land for Rubber and other minerals with a 100 years so call landlease. Why? because we are stupid. but they called it ignorance, and the governments they come from, says they have nothing to do with it. What are we left out with? Stupid Black Man with selfishness not only sold their land for nothing but also offered themselves as labourers/slave workers too. The companies not only produce what they licence for but also dig for diamonds and golds since they ignorant selfish africans did not make clear what aspect of the land is for lease. They don't give themselve a minimal ownership of the land.Cameroonian locals please resist their ply, its a plan to overcome you don't sale your land for nothing, a dollar a an hecter, you must be joking! and for two generations African in life expectance. I believe we are intelligent than that. what is happening in New Papa Guinea, is very insane and sympathetic that i cryed when i saw it. Again an American old company call Taxaco is taken advantage of the Color blindness of African. By God African leaders are the worst Human Beings in the universe. They don't care about us and we are too forgiven. This Company is taking all oil and whatelse from this company without any form of document, no contract believe it or not. Nothing absulutly, they just invite the President of that Country for their annual parties and give him couple millions and done deal. A total insult and test of an African intelligence. Wake up Africa! Wake up. Stand up for yourselves, Dignify brethren and do not entrust your tomorrow with feeble minded individuals, and do it now. The time is now. We all have one shot at this living in this world. We are entalgle and blame pretty much for all our miseries. First our enslament, then our colonization, now all of that, but we can't see.