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Africa, a magnet for palm oil cultivation

2020-09-01T12:00:15.015Z


The African continent has become a new and valuable setting for multinationals that develop large monocultures, often without respecting biodiversity or human rights.


Aromatic sandalwood and jasmine soaps.

Sliced ​​bread, cookies, pre-cooked Chinese noodles, or cocoa butter.

Lipstick and perfumes.

Even, paradoxically, biodiesel that promises to reverse climate change.

Our day to day is full of products with a high content of palm oil, the most consumed in the world, ahead of sunflower or rapeseed, according to the European Palm Oil Alliance.

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Versatile and cheap, two of the main reasons for its success, this oil is orange in color and comes from the

Elaeis guineensis

oil palm

, native to West Africa and exported by Europeans to Latin America and Southeast Asia during the 19th century.

In fact, 80% of current production takes place in Indonesia and Malaysia, although in recent years Africa has become the new target of multinationals in the tropical belt of the continent formed by Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola , Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Consumed by African countries since time immemorial, palm oil is part of the diet and culture of many indigenous peoples and it is these who have seen their crops ruined in recent times by the unlimited expansion of the western giants.

All without forgetting the carbon footprint of deforestation caused by the massive production of the new "orange gold".

Silenced voices against cultivation

Small farmers, who have always produced palm oil locally, are often marginalized by large multinationals or forced to work in conditions deplorable for them.

NGO GRAIN

"The impact of the group you control in our lives is immense," wrote farmer and activist Emmanuel Elong in 2013 in a letter sent to Vincent Bolloré, CEO of the French multinational Bolloré, a shareholder of the Belgian Socfin.

The presence of this company in Cameroon resulted in a lease in 2016 of up to 78,400 hectares of oil palms, among others, around Mbonjo, the town where Elong lived, thus becoming the epicenter.

"We have never had any contact with Socfin representatives, so we contacted you so you can help us solve this," continued the letter, collected by the conservation and environmental news platform Mongabay.

Emmanuel is one of the voices of those most affected by the expansion of palm oil in Africa: the small farmers whose families starve in the tropical furrows, or those employees who work on the plantations under subhuman conditions.

The presence of large multinationals and their control of the land not only separates small farmers from the race of cultivation (and thus, leaving them without a source of income), but also condemns those who are part of this expansion: from the absence from working conditions to mistreatment, lack of access to drinking water or houses that are falling apart.

"In Côte d'Ivoire or Cameroon, the main headquarters of multinationals such as Socfin Group or Socapalm, workers hardly have contracts or social guarantees," says Ange-David Baïmey, an expert in environmental sociology at the NGO GRAIN, from Cameroon.

"In addition, women living around the plantations are subjected to numerous abuses and access to clean water is practically non-existent by these communities."

Socfin, which acquired the Socapalm company in 2000, has responded to the various accusations from the media through a press release in which it claims to "promote responsible tropical agriculture."

But his activity has been controversial for his way of doing neocolonial on several occasions.

Organizations such as GRAIN are in charge of assisting and reporting the activity of those multinationals that, like Socfin, promise sustainable cultivation plans based on what are known as 3 pes:

profit

 ,

people

,

 and

planet

 .

The massive production of palm oil destroys ecosystems, violates human rights and marginalizes farmers

Promises that, however, are soon reduced to ashes among the tropical trees.

A distraction for the media.

This reality is well known by RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil or Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil), a non-profit organization that since 2004 tries to unite local producers, distributors and manufacturers through a certification system of sustainable palm oil (known as CSPO) based on different criteria that respect the labor rights of the communities.

However, the work of RSPO has also been questioned by many entities, especially when some of the companies associated with this organization have been denounced (the most recent case, last July, affected, among others, the super-producer Sime Darby, in Malaysia, according to AP) due to deforestation, abuse and child exploitation in Asian and African countries.

Despite its apparent intentions, RSPO has been accused of being a bogus sustainable certification scheme and has starred in events such as the Wilmar scandal.

This company, a provider of brands such as L'Oréal, Mars or Kellogg's, supplied palm oil through the front company Gama Plantation, which has deforested up to 25,000 hectares of forest in Papua, according to a Greenpeace investigation in 2018.

"We are aware of the problems. We will continue to monitor the situation and we are prepared to help all the parties involved if necessary," the RSPO responded when asked for this report about the different allegations received.

For their part, both Wilmar and Sime Darby have shown their intention to take action through various press releases.

The impact on the world's ecosystems

Collection of oil palm fruits in an industrial plantation in Cameroon, one of the main African producers of palm oil.

Ange-David Baïmey NGO GRAIN

Human rights violations, however, are not the only objective to be solved, but also account for the many effects of palm oil cultivation on the world's ecosystems.

In recent years, the jungles of countries such as Indonesia or Malaysia, where up to 100,000 orangutans have been reported to have died due to deforestation and the consequent loss of their habitat, are the most dramatic examples of this reality.

In the case of African countries, which account for 10% of the planet's biodiversity, the expansion is just beginning.

In nations like Cameroon (the main African producer along with Nigeria) the forecast is to double production by 2035.

Some multinationals operating in African and Asian countries promise to promote different models of sustainable cultivation, but then fail to deliver.


Paradoxically, the carbon footprint finds in one of the main products that require palm oil, biodiesel, the main ally to accelerate the sustainable transition in Western countries.

So much so that in 2019 up to 4.5 million tons of palm oil were marketed for this purpose.

"The cultivation of palm oil is cheaper and is very precious for biodiesel, but this practice is being carried out through large forestry concessions far removed from the local production model of this oil," says Miguel Ángel Soto, an expert by telephone. of the Greenpeace Spain Forests campaign.

"Western countries are transferring the impact of the carbon footprint of our transport to Asian, Latin American and African countries and their current public policies to support agrofuels are behind the expansion of palm oil," he continues.

A reality that could slow down its impact by going back to the beginning and betting on other alternatives: “We need to bet on fourth generation biofuels based on the gasification of waste or the use of other raw materials such as algae, but we cannot continue to expand crops to feed the transportation system transferring our

progress

to underdeveloped countries ”, he continues.

Meeting of different communities and organizations against industrial palm oil plantations convened by the NGO Grain last 2019 in Ivory Coast.

Ange-David Baïmey NGO GRAIN

Beyond the priorities or alternatives to those products that accelerate the demand for palm oil, the need for a sustainable model is based on new integration plans that recognize the work of small farmers: “Palm oil is to the tropical world what Mediterranean olive oil is for the Spanish ”, continues Soto.

“There has always been an organic farming model based on local food consumption, but this is unsustainable if large plantations are required to solve the biodiesel problem or the demand of the food sector.

The financial aid to the multinationals that produce this trend and that are provided by the governments themselves must be suspended ”.

Finally, beyond the most obvious problems posed by the massive cultivation of oil palm, there are many other reasons, perhaps not so obvious until a few months ago, to take into account in light of the excessive demand from the West: “Let's not forget that the The expansion of the oil palm is one of the great doors to new zoonoses, the pathogens that live in wild areas in total symbiosis with the fauna of the jungle ”, says the Greenpeace expert.

"And now, more than ever, we already know everything that a zoonosis like covid-19 can mean for the health of humanity."

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-09-01

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