Large-Scale Tree Plantations

Within the framework of September 21, International day of Struggle against Monoculture Tree Plantations, women affected by OLAM’s oil palm plantations, during a meeting in the village of Fera, in Gabon, decided to send a letter to FAO denouncing the impacts they are suffering.

We invite organizations to sign on and support the statement, which denounces that the RSPO, since it was created 14 years ago, has been a tool that served the corporate interests of the oil palm sector

Nine communities from the DR Congo took a historic step this week by filing a complaint with the complaints mechanism of the German development bank (Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft – DEG)

We invite organizations to sign on and support the statement, which denounces that the RSPO, since it was created 14 years ago, has been a tool that served the corporate interests of the oil palm sector

On this September 21st, a message of solidarity and homage to the communities, community-based organisations and activists who are fighting in many different ways and places to stop monoculture tree plantations.

A song by By Ajele Sunday, Nigerian artist. His community suffer land grabbing from oil palm companies. Listen to the song.

Over the last ten years, through organization and struggle, families in northeast Argentina have managed to recover land monopolized by multinational corporation Arauco. Now, they are growing food there.

This web report shows the complex dynamics involved in land use and how a consultation over a plantation company's access to land was interpreted totally differently by the two sides. The web report also documents how local officials and community leaders attempting to promote what they see as "development" but which has negatively affected local people. Access the web report “Land of plenty, but of only a few” here: http://terradealguns.divergente.pt/en/

The documentary recounts the recovery of land the cooperative of Independent Producers of Piray (PIP) in Misiones, Argentina, reclaimed from the multinational plantation company Arauco. After 14 years of struggle, the cooperative demonstrates that another production model is possible. Organic family farming produces food where some years ago, large-scale pines and eucalyptus plantations degraded land and jeopardized local livelihoods.

The Société Financière des Caoutchouc (Socfin) group is one of the world’s biggest plantation companies. In Cameroon, a bitter land rights struggle has unfolded between villagers and Socfin’s local subsidiary Socapalm, which owns six palm oil concessions in the country. In this Fern report and photo story women give testimony on the impacts that the Socapalm plantations have over their territories and lives, how the company has expanded its plantations onto community land, polluted the environment, and prevented villagers from processing their own palm oil.

A song by By Ajele Sunday, Nigerian artist.

We said it in Mundemba, Cameroon, we reiterated it in Port Loko, Sierra Leone, we re-affirm this in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire: the abuse against women in and around industrial oil palm plantations must STOP!