KLK

Sinoe County’s Superintendent Peter Wleh Nyensuah is backing an oil palm company’s illegitimate operations against a local community demanding its rights and holding the firm accountable.

Many rural communities affected by agricultural concessions in Liberia have seen their ancestral gravesites leveled in some of the worst land-grabs in human history.

But more than four years after signing a deal, five communities allege they were cheated. They say the company still owes them, and they demand retroactive payment.

A new report by Traidcraft Exchange finds that the UK-listed company Equatorial Palm Oil violated local townspeople’s right to their land in Liberia and are pushing them further into poverty.

Several communities say that Equatorial Palm Oil is continuously intimidating, threatening and dividing communities into signing away their land.

Friends of the Earth Africa member groups visit the Joegbahn clan community in Liberia, which is facing threats from the Equatorial Oil Palm (EPO) Company to cede their remaining land to allow the company to expand its plantations.

Residents of Kahnkaye Chiefdom in Nyorwein District have selected new chiefs to lead a rejection of Equatorial Palm Oil (EPO) from expanding its plantation on their land.

KLK announce withdraws from customary land in Collingwood Bay, but has not clarified overall plans for its total land bank of 44,342 ha in the region or its 37,000 ha plantation deal in Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea.

PNG’s Minister for Trade, Commerce and Industry sign a Heads of Agreement that would make KLK an equity partner in development of 37,000 ha oil palm project in East Sepik’s Special agriculture Economic Zone(SEZ).

Equatorial Palm Oil has announced that its 50% owned joint venture company, Liberian Palm Developments, has entered into a $20.5m loan agreement.

Communities in the Collingwood Bay area of Oro Province, Papua New Guinea are fighting plans for mining on their customary land after winning a court victory against illegal leases for logging and oil palm held by Malaysia's KLK.

There’s little doubt that the use of palm oil is expanding rapidly throughout the world, and with it the need for millions of hectares of land to grow oil palm trees. The results can be devastating for local communities.