Struggles Against Tree Monocultures
Corporate profit drives land grabs to install industrial tree monocultures. Where industrial plantations take root, communities' territories and lives are violently invaded, their forests destroyed and their water polluted. When communities resist, companies tend to respond with aggression. Despite this extreme violence, communities around the world are resisting, organizing and joining forces to defend their territories. Every September 21 the International Day of Struggle against Monoculture Tree Plantations is celebrated.
The Singapore-based OLAM company has secured access to 500 thousand hectares of land in Gabon to set up large-scale oil palm plantations, a country with 85% of forest coverage. How can OLAM then claim to follow a “zero deforestation” commitment?
A new report on the state of industrial oil palm plantations in Africa shows how communities are turning the tide on a massive land grab in the region.
We need your support! We call on organizations, groups, networks and movements to sign this petition in solidarity with Gabonese communities threatened by OLAM / SOTRADER plantations. You can adhere until Thursday, September 19.
Only available in French.
The expansion of industrial oil palm plantations by OLAM hit the village of Sanga in the South of Gabon particularly hard: The community's main water source became so polluted that the water is now unsafe for drinking and not suitable for other daily uses.
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.
Contamination of water sources, deplorable working conditions, and sexual blackmail in exchange for work, are some of the kinds of violence against women living in and around oil palm plantations in Guatemala and Colombia.
(Only available in Spanish). Documental sobre la expansión de monocultivos de palma aceitera y piña en América Latina, realizado por Aldo Santiago, periodista mexicano independiente, y Claudia Ramos, integrante de la organización Otros Mundos A.C./Amigos de la Tierra México. Duración: 35 minutos. Idioma: Español.
