Palm oil land grabs ‘trashing’ environment and displacing people
- The Guardian
- 15 November 2021
Growing rush for land is destroying ecosystems and disrupting lives to satisfy global demand for goods, study warns
Growing rush for land is destroying ecosystems and disrupting lives to satisfy global demand for goods, study warns
The High Court in Siaya, Kenya, has suspended the intended allocation of Yala Swamp land by the National Land Commission to Lake Agro Limited. “The land under Yala Swamp is yet to be registered as community land so that community around the area are allocated their share,” petitioners say.
A fifth of oil palm plantations in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of palm oil, are operating illegally inside forest areas that are off-limits to commercial agricultural activity, a new report from Greenpeace shows.
US private equity firm Proterra Investment Partners, which owns significant farmland assets in Australia, says farmland investing is going strong, both among domestic and foreign investors
According to research by risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, which analysed 170 commodities, palm oil and cobalt are at “extreme” risk of land grabs
Cambodian families who were forcibly displaced by Phnom Penh Sugar Company have received a promised payment from Australia’s ANZ bank, which financed the sugar company from 2011-2014
A surge in the purchase of African land by foreign companies and governments to grow food and other crops for export has also set alarm bells ringing on and off the continent.
Microsoft founder is reportedly looking for 741 acres of farmland to invest in within the borders of Muğla and Aydın, and is said to be in touch with businesspeople and companies in Turkey about the purchase.
Institutional investors and foreign countries alike increasingly see U.S. farmland as a sound investment, raising concerns.
The Israeli company has farms in Juba and Jebel Ladu in Central Equatoria State, Bor in Jonglei State, Renk in Upper Nile, and Torit, Eastern Equatoria State, as well as Community Commercial Farming Projects in Wau, Gok and Rumbek towns.
Kiryandongo Sugar Company is using soldiers to carry out retaliatory attacks against community land rights defenders and activists in Kiryandongo district.
The recent arrests of staff of a Ugandan civil society organization, the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO), have been criticized as an attempt to stifle defenders of human rights and the environment in the country. AFIEGO is one of several organizations involved in defending the Bugoma Forest, which Hoima Sugar Ltd. is seeking to clear large portions of it for a sugarcane plantation.