Cameroon

We are 40 participants who have united in Mundemba, Cameroon, for an international workshop on the tactics and strategies of oil palm companies, from 28 to 31 January 2016. We have gathered to share our experiences from Cameroon, West and Central Africa, Asia and South America, and to understand the realities of the local communities in Ndian Division, Southwest Region of Cameroon.

Women resist industrial palm oil (Photo: JVE-Cameroun) Considering that the aspiration to human dignity is a common ideal for humankind, and that the United Nations Charter asserts this aspiration in its preamble and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

November 9, 2015 Oakland, CA—Cameroonian authorities must stop the harassment of Nasako Besingi, environmental human rights defender, according to an international coalition of civil society organizations including the Oakland Institute, Forest Peoples Programme, Grain, Save Wildlife Foundation, Cultural Survival, Greenpeace Africa,  WRM, and the Environmental Investigation Agency.

 

Peasant farmers deprived of their lands launch a series of occupations on Socfin’s plantations in Cameroon, Liberia, Cambodia and Côte d’Ivoire between the end of April 2015 and the annual shareholder meetings of the Socfin group (27 May) and the Bolloré group (4 June). The Bolloré group is the biggest shareholder (39%) of Socfin, which has industrial oil palm and rubber plantations, among others in the countries where the protests are taking place.

Aljazeera’s People and Power TV program released a video on the social and environmental consequences of oil palm plantations in Cameroon, where the government has been trying to attract the palm oil industry by offering a number of incentives.

Local communities affected by the oil palm plantations from the Société des Palmeraies du Cameroun (SOCAPALM) are waging an all-out battle to defend their rights, which are being trampled on with impunity. This giant agro-industrial palm oil production company, controlled by the Bolloré Group, has planted vast plantations in the coastal, central and southern regions of the country. Moreover, Bolloré also owns SOCFIN, the company responsible for destruction of villages and human rights violations in Nigeria.

By FPP. While focusing in particular on the German financing of rainforest protection in Cameroon, this report also covers the broader issue of how Cameroon’s forest policies are shaped by the REDD process. It takes a case study approach, examining the way such forest protection policies impact on local communities by focusing in on the specific example of those communities whose land has been overlaid by the Takamanda National Park

Korinna Horta, in UNRID, The Politics of Resource Extraction.

Press release by GRAIN | Oakland Institute | World Rainforest Movement Contacts: Nasako Besingi, Struggle to Economize Future Environment (SEFE) +23775136000 nasako.bondoko@gmail.com