Cameroon NGOs ask U.S. government to investigate palm oil venture
YAOUNDE (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Environmental activists have petitioned Washington to open up an investigation into the land acquisition and forest exploitation activities of a U.S.-owned palm oil firm, Herakles Farms, in Cameroon’s southwest. Two Cameroonian civil society groups - the Centre for Environment and Development (CED) and the Network for the Fight against Hunger (RELUFA) - said they handed over a letter to the U.S. government on June 13, following persistent complaints from local people over practices that have deprived them of thousands of hectares of their forest land.
“Our petition to the U.S. government against the corrupt land grab and illegal forest exploitation activities by Herakles Farms is within the framework of the principle of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) relating to the functioning of international enterprises,” CED coordinator Samuel Nguiffo told Thomson Reuters Foundation. “The principle requires that international investors carry out better policies to improve the livelihood of the population, and not destroy it.”
Palm oil is the world's most important vegetable oil, used in everything from margarine and soap to biofuel, with annual global production worth about $20 billion. But critics say the industry is participating in a land grab in developing countries that reduces local food production in favour of crops for export, often stirring community opposition. Nguiffo said reports from the CED, Cameroon’s Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MINFOF), the U.S.-based policy think tank Oakland Institute and Greenpeace International have revealed corrupt practices by the Cameroonian unit of Herakles Farms in its attempt to acquire more than 73,000 hectares of land in the Southwest Region to grow oil palm.
“We have ample proof that the authorities of Herakles Farms bribed local chiefs (and) some influential elite and intimidated the local population, promising them jobs with huge salaries to acquire the land they now have,” said Nguiffo. The evidence was gathered by the CED and the forestry ministry from local people in 20 villages, as well as higher-level officials, he added. CED investigations and a mission sent to the region by the ministry also discovered that locals were paid as low as 350 francs ($0.50) in annual leasing fees for the land, Nguiffo said. Some villagers around the Talangaye nursery, where Herakles has begun growing saplings, have warned the company’s activities would leave them without land for hunting and farming. “We no longer get any catch from hunting since this project started, because the forest is fast disappearing. Even our land for cultivation has been given away and we cannot expand or increase production of our crops,” Henry Tayim, a 45-year-old farmer in Talangaye village, told Cameroon state radio.
http://www.trust.org/item/20130709090129-hxdkr/?source=hpeditorial
American corporations think they can get away with this crap because they are in Africa but they are already distrusted.
= new reply since forum marked as read
