Liberia

The Garwula District, in Grand Cape Mount County, is one of the areas affected by the 63-year lease agreement signed by the Malaysian giant oil palm producer Sime Darby with the Government of Liberia in 2009. When the company established large scale export-oriented oil palm plantations the livelihoods of the local residents were disrupted, and women have had to cope with many difficulties.

“Live or drive, a choice has to be made”, a case study of Sime Darby operations in Liberia, basta! and Friends of the Earth France, athttp://www.bastamag.net/IMG/pdf/Rap_LiberiaEN.pdf

Under the slogan ´Our Future is Now´, more than 150 people – men, women, youth and elderly - from communities inside oil palm concession areas in Liberia gathered between 27 and 29 November in Bopolu City – Gbarpolu County - to discuss the expansion of export-oriented oil palm plantations in Liberia and the impacts of this expansion on their livelihoods. Two big oil palm companies are active in Liberia: the Malaysia-based company Sime Darby with a 311,187 ha concession area, conceded through a 63-years contract with the Liberian government, signed in 2009.

Liberia, a small West African country with a population of approximately 3.5 million people, has a predominantly agrarian economy, with high dependency on land and land based resources. The majority of the population lives in rural areas and is engaged in subsistence agriculture and forest-based trade for income generation. Healthcare facilities are poor and in some places non-existent, and the majority of children lack access to safe drinking water. They also lack decent education. The country ranked 182 out of 187 countries on the UNDP Human Development Index in 2011.

By Silas Kpanan’Ayoung Siakor Media Brief Large-scale land grant to Sime Darby to grow oil palm in Liberia threatens the rights of local communities, their food security, and puts their wellbeing at risk.

The Swedish state-owned multinational Vattenfall is Europe's fifth largest energy producer. Its affiliate Vattenfall Europe, based in Berlin, is one of the four biggest companies in the German energy market. Vattenfall's energy production there is primarily fuelled by coal (65%) – it has its own lignite mines in east Germany – and uranium (26%). But the company has also branched out into the use of supposedly “clean” energy sources, like wood.

Liberia’s forests hold great promise for its people, but that promise is quickly evaporating as the Liberian government mismanages this valuable resource. The government is awarding flawed logging contracts, community rights are being trampled underfoot, and civil society organizations are under threat of censorship (1) for speaking out.  

Oil palm and rubber plantations occupy extensive areas in many countries in tropical Africa. In spite of their social and environmental impacts, until now they have received scant attention both at the national and international level.

In 1926, Firestone Tire & Rubber Company signed a 99-year contract with the government to lease one million acres [approximately 405,000 hecatares] of land for the establishment of a rubber plantation. The total concession area of Firestone represents 4% of Liberia’s territory and nearly 10% of its arable land.

Liberia has just emerged from a civil crisis. The sanction on the exportations of Liberian Timber was lifted in 2006 by the United Nations Security Council UNSC. The timber industry, which provided substantial revenue for government, is closed pending the completion of a forestry reform process.

Similar to what has happened in several Southern countries harassed by centuries of colonialism, the wealth of Liberia has also been its curse. Tropical forests account for 47 per cent of Liberia’s land. Between 1989 and 2003, revenue from forests was used to fund a brutal conflict fuelled by the pillaging of forests. Timber was a key resource for Liberia's armed factions. Wood flowed out; money and arms flowed in. So many concessions had been corruptly awarded that they totalled more than the land area of Liberia.