EJOLT | November 2012
Silas Siakor: landgrabbing in Liberia 1
In this podcast we dig into one of the poorest countries in the world: Liberia. Huge landgrabs are taking place above the heads of people that own and farm the land. The government allocated some 350.000 hectares to Sime Darby, a Malaysian multinational. But people only came to know about this deal when the company showed up to take their land. “Even though only 20.000 acres have now been taken for oil palm plantations, signs of widespread resentment and conflict are already rising”, according to Silas Siakor
Silas Siakor is a campaigner on human rights and environmental issues for the Sustainable Development Institute in Liberia – which received a Goldman Environmental Prize for outstanding environmental achievements in Africa (2006). He was also awarded by the Alexander Soros Foundation for Extraordinary Achievements in Environmental and Human Rights Activism in 2012.
This podcast is part of a series produced by Firoze Manji for EJOLT, in collaboration with EJOLT partner CCS. All podcasts will be aired on his program AfrobeatRadio, broadcast by WBAI in the US to around 500.000 listeners
http://farmlandgrab.org/uploads/attachment/Firoze_Siakor-Part-1_Mix.mp3
Silas Siakor: landgrabbing in Liberia 2
In this second podcast with Silas Siakor we dig further in the dirty deals of landgrabbing in Liberia. Women have been put out of jobs and the jobs that the oil palm plantations are providing are not getting people out of poverty with a 40 dollar a month income. “The oil palm is used for biodiesel so while people in Europe are trying to be green they are actually damaging the environment here.” And there is more: the eadible local palm oil is replaced by a variant from Malaysia that is only eadible after a long and difficult process … which is currently done in Malaysia. There’s also an article from Silas here.
Silas Siakor is a campaigner on human rights and environmental issues for the Sustainable Development Institute in Liberia – which received a Goldman Environmental Prize for outstanding environmental achievements in Africa (2006). He was also awarded by the Alexander Soros Foundation for Extraordinary Achievements in Environmental and Human Rights Activism in 2012.
This podcast is part of a series produced by Firoze Manji for EJOLT, in collaboration with EJOLT partner CCS. All podcasts will be aired on his program AfrobeatRadio, broadcast by WBAI in the US to around 500.000 listeners
http://farmlandgrab.org/uploads/attachment/Firoze_Siakor-Part-2_Mix.mp3
