Tag Archives: palm oil

by | March 29, 2013 · 12:00 pm

Sinar Mas firm to invest $1.6 billion in Liberian palm oil

By Mariel Grazella, March 26 2013. Source: The Jakarta Post

SInar Mas plantations in Indonesia. Photo: Reuters

SInar Mas plantations in Indonesia. Photo: Reuters

Sinar Mas Group says it will invest US$1.6 billion in the Liberian palm oil business to expand operations overseas.

Franky Oesman Widjaja, the CEO of Golden-Agri Resources Ltd. (GAR), a key Sinar Mas Group business unit, said that the company would disburse the funds over eight to 10 years.

“So far, we have put in about $100 million,” he said during a meeting with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on Monday in Jakarta.

Franky said that the investment was appealing and would boost the company’s image.

Golden-Agri Resources has been seeking to become a virtual king in the market as it attempts to acquire to 40,000 hectares of new concessions, mostly in Kalimantan. Continue reading →

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by | March 19, 2013 · 11:00 am

World Bank must end support for Honduran palm oil company implicated in dozens of murders

Note: Global Justice Ecology Project joins several other NGOs calling for an end to funding palm oil giant Grupo Dinant, which is implicated in murders and human rights abuses in Honduras.  GJEP is the North American focal point for the Global Forest Coalition and works closely with BiofuelWatch.  Jeff Conant, quoted in the article below, is the former Media Coordinator for GJEP.

-The GJEP Team

March 19, 2013. Source: Global Forest Coalition

Photo: Jeff Conant

Photo: Jeff Conant

Today several Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) condemned a statement by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, IFC which defends the record of a Honduran palm oil company, Grupo Dinant, implicated in dozens of murders as well as other human rights abuses. The IFC statement explicitly admits to supporting training for the company’s armed security guards.

The NGOs are : Friends of the Earth International, Global Forest Coalition, Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Urgewald, Rights Action, Rettet den Regenwald/Rainforest Rescue, Global Justice Ecology Project, and Biofuelwatch.

A World Bank Ombudsman  is currently investigating an IFC loan of $30 million for Grupo Dinant which was approved in 2009, at least half of which has already been disbursed.

This month, an Open Letter by 17 NGOs  and an international petition signed by over 63,000 people  have protested the loan and called on the World Bank to immediately cease their support for Grupo Dinant.
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by | February 21, 2013 · 12:00 pm

9 dead this year in Honduras land fight

Note: For more information on the ongoing struggle for the land in the Aguan Valley, check out the trailer for the upcoming film Resistencia below.

–The GJEP Team

February 19, 2013. Source: Associated Press

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – A Honduran land rights activist says nine farmers have been killed since the beginning of the year in a region of northern Honduras torn by a land dispute.

Rafael Alegria says the latest person to be killed was a farmer shot to death Saturday in the Aguan Valley, a fertile farming area plagued by violent fights between agrarian organizations and land owners. Alegria says the farmer’s brother was killed in September.

The activist said Tuesday that 89 people have been killed since December 2009, when farmworkers in the Aguan Valley took over land to demand ownership of about 25,000 acres (10,000 hectares) of privately held oil palm plantations.

The dead are mostly farmworkers but include plantation employees and police officers.

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by | February 16, 2013 · 9:30 am

Ethiopians ‘driven out in land grabs’

February 8, 2013.  Source: UPI

Photo: Brent Stirton/Getty Images

Photo: Brent Stirton/Getty Images

Thousands of Ethiopians are being driven off ancestral lands that the government’s selling to foreign investors buying vast swathes of farmland, a U.S. watchdog reports.

Amid a new rash of land grabs in Africa by foreign governments or business groups seeking to produce food for export, the Oakland Institute of California says that Ethiopia, one of the world’s poorest states, has leased 1.5 million acres of prime farmland to companies from India, Malaysia and elsewhere.

The institute, an independent policy think tank that specializes in food and land issues, says the crisis is likely to worsen as the foreign companies move in and start operations.

It said the Addis Ababa government plans to lease as much as 15 percent of the land in some regions of the land-locked East African country, which has long been beset by drought, famine and war.
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by | February 12, 2013 · 9:10 am

Corporations, investors grabbing land overseas

Note: More evidence that a switch to biofuels will lead to land grabbing, human rights violations and increased corporate control across the world.

-The GJEP Team

By Brian Bienkowski, February 12, 2013.  Source: Environmental Health News

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As a growing population stresses the world’s food and water supplies, corporations and investors in wealthy countries are buying up foreign farmland and the freshwater perks that come with it.

From Sudan to Indonesia, most of the land lies in poverty-stricken regions, so experts warn that this widespread purchasing could expand the gap between developed and developing countries.

Investors from seven countries – the United States, United Arab Emirates, India, United Kingdom, Egypt, China and Israel – accounted for 60 percent of the water acquired under these deals.The “water grabbing” by corporations amounts to 454 billion cubic meters per year globally, according to a new study by environmental scientists. That’s about 5 percent of the water the world uses annually.

Most purchasers are agricultural, biofuel and timber investors. Some of the more active buyers in the United States, which leads the pack in number of deals, include multinational investors Nile Trading and Development, BHP Billiton, Unitech and media magnate Ted Turner, according to the study published last month.
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by | February 5, 2013 · 3:00 pm

Palm oil: fueling landgrabs and climate change, not development

Note: Jeff Conant is the former Communications Director of Global Justice Ecology Project.

–The GJEP Team

By Jeff Conant, February 4 2013. Source: Friends of the Earth

Photo: Friends of the Earth

Photo: Friends of the Earth

Just a few years ago, palm oil entered the spotlight as one of the best and brightest options for a “drop-in” biofuel feedstock (a type of biofuel that can be “dropped into” existing transportation infrastructure) to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, cut back on climate emissions, and bring economic development to marginal lands in developing countries. But a growing body of evidence shows that reliance on palm oil not only fails to reduce global warming, it increases it. And a growing movement of peasant farmers in the developing world is casting doubt on the industry’s promises of economic development, arguing that the palm oil hype is merely cover for a rash of often violent landgrabs.

A study published in Nature last week shows that growing palm oil trees to make biofuels is likely accelerating the effects of climate change. In the Nature study, an international team of scientists examined how the deforestation of peat swamps in Malaysia to make way for palm oil trees is releasing carbon that has been locked away for thousands of years. Continue reading →

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by | February 1, 2013 · 12:00 pm

BREAKING NEWS: Land grabs and human rights violations exposed in Liberia ahead of global development summit

Note:  Liberian NGOs are calling for comprehensive agricultural reform in the face of human rights abuses committed by agribusiness giant Sime Darby, which produces 6 % of the world’s crude palm oil.  Sime Darby is accused of failing to protect the rights of communities, allowing involuntary replacement of communities that impede their palm oil plantation operations, and violating several international processes and guidelines.  Visit Friends of the Earth International for more information.

-The GJEP Team

February 1, 2013.  Source: Friends of the Earth International

Screenshot-MVI_2127.MOV-1

Palm oil companies are grabbing more than 1.5 million acres of land in Liberia and are violating human rights of local communities, warn Liberian NGOs including Friends of the Earth Liberia (SDI – Sustainable Development Institute), Save My Future Foundation (SAMFU) and Social Entrepreneurs for Sustainable Development (SESDev).

On the eve of a United Nations meeting in Liberia, that will discuss a new global development framework, Friends of the Earth International is backing the local NGOs’ demands – including renegotiation of contracts for land concessions and a reassessment of the Liberian agricultural development strategy on which these concessions are based.

Malaysian palm oil giant Sime Darby and Indonesian Golden Veloreum have entered into long term land leases with the Liberian Government. Investigations into Sime Darby’s operations reveal that communities located in the areas allocated to the company had little warning or consultation of this land grab. Many of the inhabitants, especially women, say they have lost their farms and food sources, livelihoods, as well as culturally sacred sites to oil palm plantations. 

An analysis of the contracts between the Liberian Government and the Asian companies demonstrates they are likely to be violating several Human Rights conventions ratified by Liberia. 
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by | January 15, 2013 · 12:00 pm

Deadly conflict over Honduran palm oil plantations puts CEO in the spotlight

By Jennifer Kennedy, January 10 2013. Source: CorpWatch

Photo: CorpWatch

Photo: CorpWatch

Months before he was killed this past September, Antonio Trejo-Cabrera reportedly sought protection from Miguel Facussé, the owner of Dinant Corporation, a major Honduran snack food and agricultural company. Trejo had good reason to be afraid – he was a lawyer who represented peasant movements fighting palm oil plantations in the Honduras in the last three years – many of whom were subjected to violence and other human rights abuses.

A recent profile of Facussé in the Los Angeles Times describes the 89-year-old businessman as “a symbol of the old style of patriarchal power” that has “ruthlessly developed the country over the decades from a hot and dusty backwater to an international producer of bananas, cheap clothing and, more recently, biofuels.”

Facussé joined the biofuel rush by planting African palm trees, backed by funds from bilateral and multilateral loan agencies like the World Bank. The palm trees yield a fruit which can be processed to produce biofuels that is in high demand by governments who want industry to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels like coal and petroleum in order to meet international obligations to mitigate global warming under the Climate Change convention. Continue reading →

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by | January 10, 2013 · 1:30 pm

As biofuel demand grows, so do Guatemala’s hunger pangs

Note: For more photos and video coverage see the original New York Times article (link below).  –The GJEP Team

By Elisabeth Rosenthal, January 5 2013. Source: The New York Times

José Antonio Alvarado and his family harvested corn in November on a highway median in Guatemala, where farmers struggle to find land. Photo: Richard Perry/The New York Times

José Antonio Alvarado and his family harvested corn in November on a highway median in Guatemala, where farmers struggle to find land. Photo: Richard Perry/The New York Times

GUATEMALA CITY — In the tiny tortillerias of this city, people complain ceaselessly about the high price of corn. Just three years ago, one quetzal — about 15 cents — bought eight tortillas; today it buys only four. And eggs have tripled in price because chickens eat corn feed.

Meanwhile, in rural areas, subsistence farmers struggle to find a place to sow their seeds. On a recent morning, José Antonio Alvarado was harvesting his corn crop on the narrow median of Highway 2 as trucks zoomed by.

“We’re farming here because there is no other land, and I have to feed my family,” said Mr. Alvarado, pointing to his sons Alejandro and José, who are 4 and 6 but appear to be much younger, a sign of chronic malnutrition.

Recent laws in the United States and Europe that mandate the increasing use of biofuel in cars have had far-flung ripple effects, economists say, as land once devoted to growing food for humans is now sometimes more profitably used for churning out vehicle fuel.

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by | December 21, 2012 · 10:30 am

Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil orders palm oil firm to stop clearing Indigenous territory in Muara Tae

By John Ahni Schertow, December 20 2012. Source: Intercontinental Cry

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is finally taking action against First Resources Ltd., a Singapore-based company company that has spent more than 12 months clearing the ancestral lands and abusing the human rights of the Dayak Benuaq community of Muara Tae in Indonesia.

According to the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA)–a London-based NGO that works with Muara Tae–the RSPO has ordered First Resources to immediately cease and desist all development activity in the effected region until the conflict with Muara Tae is resolved.

It’s about time, too. Until now, the RSPO has flagrantly refused to take action against First Resources and several other abusive companies, including the world-bank financed Dinant Corporation of Honduras. Perhaps now that will change. Continue reading →

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