In early November, a gathering of peasants and indigenous peoples from Mindanao, Bohol and Palawan, denounced the government’s plan to devote eight million hectares of land to oil palm by 2023. Oil palm plantations in the Philippines cover almost 55,000 hectares. The Philippine Coconut Authority’s (PCA) 2014 to 2023 road map has identified about a million hectares for potential oil palm farms. A participant from the gathering, held at a makeshift tent in front of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, criticized the Department for “pimping agricultural and ancestral lands to oil palm plantations and mills under the guise of reforestation.”
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http://bulatlat.com/main/2015/11/05/farmers-indigenous-peoples-thumb-
down-expansion-of-oil-palm-plantations/
