Getting to Mundemba in Cameroon from the highway intersection in Kumba requires a four- hour (or more) drive on a dusty – or impassably muddy – road through sun-seared hamlets and then kilometer after kilometer of oil palm plantations set up decades ago by state-run palm oil companies Pamol and the Cameroon Development Corporation Despite the signs of modernity on the outskirts of Mundemba offering air conditioned accommodation and cold beer it still has its roots firmly planted in agriculture Crammed into any free land between the mud- and cinderblock houses in the town center are bananas And just beyond Mundemba’s main road sit fields that in February had just been burned in preparation for planting once the rains came The town has also played a central role in a well-publicized row since the American company Herakles Farms first tried to set up a palm oil plantation nearby a jewel of biodiversity that’s home to rare apes Mundemba embodies the struggle to protect people’s livelihoods and safeguard valuable forest habitat and carbon stores while also using the land to grow the country’s economy There are signs that oil palm, currently expanding at an unprecedented clip in Africa, is making headway toward a compromise. Experts say that Olam, for example, has engaged with local communities in Gabon and worked very closely with the government to identify and set aside priority areas for conservation But the Herakles Farms story in Cameroon has become something of a fable for what not to do “There was nothing done properly in Herakles – no technical plan no proper [environmental and social impact assessment] prior and informed consent of local communities] at all,” said Laurène Feintrenie an agronomist-geographer with the French agriculture and development research organization who has previously worked in Cameroon studying oil palm it did show what can happen when local residents get involved “The only positive thing was the illustration of Cameroonian social power,” Feintrenie said “The national NGOs were very efficient in drawing the attention [to] the abuses of the government and company.” Herakles Farms began to assert its claim on some 73,000 hectares of land that they had been given in a contract with the minister in charge of lands in Yaoundé a schism occurred based on the way the company acquired and began developing the land such a large piece of land should only have been given out by a presidential decree Nguiffo is an attorney and the founder and director of the Center for the Environment and Development According to land laws in Cameroon dating back to 1976 a minister-signed contract is only permissible for areas of land smaller than 50 hectares and not for the 99-year lease the contract stipulates Herakles did eventually get a decree signed by President Paul Biya 2013 for 19,843 hectares giving Herakles three years – in this case until November 2016 – to develop its holdings Heading toward the November showdown this year Herakles seems to have all but pulled out of the plantations around Mundemba even those who have backed the company’s presence in the area say only a skeleton staff remains to tend the nursery “They will come back,” said Chief Philip Wangoe of Fabe village less than 15 kilometers from Mundemba Wangoe has defended the company’s presence and argues that it will boost the economy of the Mundemba area Herakles has only prepared a small proportion of the land for an oil palm plantation All together – this is in six years’ time – they were only able to clear 600 hectares,” he said Olam planted 32,000 hectares of oil palm in four years in Gabon according to a representative of the company And one thing that Herakles did do right early on was to hire good lawyers it’s a perfect contract,” Nguiffo told Mongabay “Everything is set for a legal battle that they can win.” was convinced that Herakles was “scrambling for land,” with little regard for the consequences to local communities or the environment His first thought when they arrived was “they will chop down all the forests.” What work on the plantation did occur seemed to be happening without local communities’ knowledge director of the Mundemba-based NGO Struggle to Economize our Future Environment said he found the same thing when he traveled through the area Besingi founded SEFE in 1996 to address environmental justice issues He said that to “cut off” local people from their land could be disastrous who owns 10 hectares of land near Fabe village where he grows oil palm “The village belongs to all of us,” Arong said Besingi said he saw little willingness on the part of the company to engage with the people who would be most affected by its plantations Besingi said he invited the company and local community members together for an “information-sharing meeting” so that Herakles could explain their project “We were trying to dialogue with a company that has refused to dialogue,” Besingi said “We were trying to negotiate with a company that had closed the doors of negotiation.” What Besingi and his collaborators have been fighting for is the free It’s a component of the requirements for certification by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil it’s time to make some changes to Cameroon’s 40-year-old land tenure laws and population densities in Cameroon were much lower putting less pressure on scarce land resources While Cameroon has a population density of 47 people per square kilometer the Southwest region where Mundemba is located is more than 12 times that “We really need to look at these types of provisions in the law if you want to avoid conflicts.” Part of the problem is that who owns what land isn’t always clear at least to those outside of the communities where families have worked the same land for decades They think it’s theirs because they live there,” Nguiffo said “They inherited the land from their ancestors The state can grant property or a lease on them,” Nguiffo added “We have to change [land tenure laws] and make sure that communities are better protected.” Besingi said that Cameroon needs more than new laws there are protocols in place,” Besingi said “The only issue is that these laws and conventions are never respected.” the best approach for all involved – including the company – is to engage the communities from the start “It should be left for the community to develop a sustainable ecological agricultural system and they should be supported in that by companies or government or organizations,” he said from its embattled public image owing in part to campaigns from watchdog groups like Greenpeace and the Oakland Institute to the loss of more than 70 percent of the land the company originally hoped to develop and then cried about having a stomachache,” he said “All the problems they’re having are caused by themselves and nobody else.” The “fortress conservation” model is under pressure in East Africa as protected areas become battlegrounds over history and global efforts to halt biodiversity loss Mongabay’s Special Issue goes beyond the region’s world-renowned safaris to examine how rural communities and governments are reckoning with conservation’s colonial origins and trying to forge a path forward […] 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Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience Food shortages and price hikes have been witnessed in Mundemba in the South West Region as elephants rampage farms Smiles are rare these days on the faces of farmers in Mundemba Subdivision in the Ndian Division of the South West Region elephants have gone on a rampaging spree eating and destroying food crops in areas like Manja Village You have selected an article from the AllAfrica archive, which requires a subscription. You can subscribe by visiting our subscription page. 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To address comments or complaints, please Contact us Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox By submitting above, you agree to our privacy policy please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you There was a problem processing your submission Tucked amongst the hilltops of Yaoundé are the signs of a country and an economy on the move often spilling out onto the street in the capital city streets to watch the traffic and people pass by while enjoying the tropical capital’s surprisingly temperate weather with a glass of beer and a grilled fish But it’s not all rosy economically for Cameroon with growing pains evident in cities throughout the country: Poverty still abounds as the seams of cities like Yaoundé and Douala stretch beyond their infrastructures’ capacities Cameroonians living abroad sent more than $150 million in remittances back to their country in 2013 an indication that many of the country’s highest earners reside outside the country And while the unemployment level sits at around 4 percent it’s almost double that for young people under 25 years of age the government is resettling residents along roadways razing their homes and shops to make way for presumably sturdier and more attractive dwellings leaders have set their sights on income sources that they hope will buoy the economy – or at least bring more money in – and one of the founts they hope will pay off is oil palm Cameroon in many ways is a microcosm of the surge in oil palm investment set to take much of tropical Africa by storm The country has a history with the crop dating back more than six decades to colonialism under the French Many Cameroonians today produce palm oil for themselves and for sale on the local market and a few international companies have begun to test the waters developing large-scale industrial plantations often with the blessing of key government officials who see the crop as a critical rung on the ladder toward Cameroon becoming an emerging nation But along with that development has come signs of the issues that have arisen with oil palm’s industrial application elsewhere in the world Poor coordination and opaque land laws have led to disenfranchised local populations who have seen their forests appropriated by big companies and promises from those corporations often going unfulfilled One of the big questions that arises with any sort of agricultural development is where to put plantations that can be tens of thousands of hectares in size and the one espoused by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) – thus far the only international sustainability certification system – is to select degraded land for development Cameroon’s people haven’t been spared from the conflict that so often accompanies huge land developments for agriculture a minister in Yaoundé quietly awarded a 99-year lease of more than 73,000 hectares of land – an area larger than Singapore – in the country’s southwest to Sithe Global Sustainable Oils Cameroon The move touched off a firestorm of controversy in the communities around the proposed plantation The concession has been contentious from the start a minister should not have signed a contract for that amount of land According to land tenure laws dating back to 1976 the “Minister in charge of lands” can only temporarily grant areas of land smaller than 50 hectares in size and the grant must be done by presidential decree which did happen in 2013 – four years after Herakles arrived in Cameroon Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees and forest elephants among them And environmental groups cried foul when the Cameroonian government lifted an earlier suspension of Herakles’ activities in mid-2013 it had become clear that the company didn’t plan to meet the requirements of the RSPO – the world’s primary international certification organization it wasn’t just government leaders in Yaoundé who saw the promise of the type and size of investment that Herakles represented we were very happy,” said Chief Philip Wangoe of the village of Fabe He said the workers for the company bought goods and rented living space from people in Fabe The company’s managers came with promises of cash payments scholarships and jobs for the locals – some of which have panned out it has scaled back work on its plantation near Mundemba leaving a skeleton staff in place to tend the nursery But Wangoe said the company’s managers have promised to return Others living in the area have endeavored to stop Herakles’ work completely with some paying a high price for their dissidence which stands for Struggle to Economize Future Environment started holding community meetings shortly after he noticed the arrival of the company in the Mundemba area he has spread the word about the company’s intentions through information-sharing meetings with communities to which he said representatives were always invited His efforts have been supported by Cameroonian and international NGOs including watchdog groups such as Greenpeace and the Oakland Institute Besingi’s activism against Herakles has not been regarded lightly He’s been attacked physically by people he claims worked for the plantation And the government has levied a series of what he says are “false” legal charges against him because his efforts “incite the population.” Stemming from a criminal complaint filed by Herakles’ lawyers in 2012 about Besingi’s “campaign to intoxicate the public and to raise ill feelings and resentment against the project initiated by Herakles Farms,” Besingi was convicted on four criminal counts including defamation and spreading false information on the Internet Their complaint directly referenced an email that Besingi sent to several Cameroonian and international NGOs that Herakles had organized a physical assault by company employees against him on August 28 is in the process of appealing this conviction Besingi was convicted of unlawful assembly that same month requiring him to pay a fine of 25,000 francs CFA ($42) plus about $900 in court costs with a 2-year suspended prison sentence for taking “part in one organization and holding of an undeclared public meeting” in the village of Myangwe in July 2012 But Besingi maintains that his activism against Herakles’ activities in the Mundemba area is not just about his opinions as an individual He says he is providing a voice for the environment and local communities whose voices cannot be raised beyond the horizons of their villages,” Besingi said in an interview with Mongabay in February 2016 The pro-Herakles camp argues that employment both to lift off the yoke of poverty and to keep communities intact (Local leaders often voice concerns that their children will flee hinterland towns and villages for the promise of bigger cities.) whether from the company or the government has been shared with the people actually living on the land “Everything is manipulated in Yaoundé,” Namolongo said attempts to keep local populations apprised of the situation Palm oil creeps closer to critical wildlife habitat In addition to impacting the livelihoods of Cameroonians who depend on the land and the forest for their existence, Besingi has been concerned about the effects that large-scale industrial agriculture will have on the nearby forests, home to a dizzying array of primates, including the rare Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee The original borders of the Herakles plantation would have butted right up against the park’s buffer zones scientists and conservationists are hard at work to safeguard other biodiversity hotspots challenged by nearby oil palm development The 142,000-hectare Ebo forest sits less than 150 kilometers from Yaoundé and even closer to Douala both cities with populations approaching 2 million Ebo is also home to a wide variety of wildlife including the rare Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee and the drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus) a highly endangered baboon-like monkey that And it’s more than just a token population “I’m not talking about small groups of drills I’m talking about herds of a hundred [or] more,” said Ekwoge Abwe the manager of the Ebo Forest Research Project based in Limbe one of the most bio-diverse places I have visited in Cameroon,” he said He saw a gorilla on the first day of his first visit to the park a Cameroonian oil palm company called Azur has begun preparations for an oil palm plantation west of the proposed park that at 123,000 hectares would dwarf even Herakles’ original holdings Abwe said he’s hopeful that a compromise can be struck even as he and his colleagues have done all they can to push through full protection of the forest Based on discussions that he and his colleagues have had with Azur representatives the destruction of important habitat is a real threat And because the Ebo forest is so close to Cameroon’s two biggest cities he is worried about the likely increase in bush meat hunting as incoming plantation workers look for ways to boost their meager incomes “This is forest that is actually is a harbor for all of these primates and these other animals That’s an important issue with industrial agriculture And advocates for communities and the environment say it is becoming clearer that for all involved — from the communities that depend on forests to the plants and animals that live in them to even the businesses themselves — decisions about land use cannot be made solely in offices hundreds of miles away from the territories in question “African governments need to find a better way to address this issue,” Besingi said Greenpeace continued  monitoring the situation and found that while outwardly the project was in tatters the SGSOC project  (the local name of the plantation more famously known as Herakles Farms) quietly regrouped and is now destroying more forest and local community land than we has been lost since the project began Herakles Farms appears to have sold its palm oil project to new investors Reports from local workers and villagers pinpoint this transition to the summer of 2015 it was not until November that a British man was named the new Chairman and General Manager of the SGSOC plantation Jonathan Johnson Watts is no stranger to taking over struggling palm oil projects Watts was also involved in the purchase of a struggling palm oil project in Ghana was also sold to him by its previous owner is growing and palm oil production has begun Greenpeace wrote to Watts and his business associates in early 2016  but have not received a response While all materialization of the Herakles Farms name has disappeared in Cameroon, the new owners are making up for lost time by rapidly clearing forest, planting new palms and orchestrating a public relations campaign to get the SGSOC plantation land lease extended later this year But our research reveals that they have failed to engage in any meaningful way with the local communities that oppose the project or implement environmental safeguards Satellite monitoring of the rainforest and traditional community land inside the SGSOC concessions shows this dramatic turnaround more forest has been cleared under Watt’s new management from May 2015 to January 2016 than had been cleared by Herakles Farms since the start of the project around the time when Herakles Farms first took over the land just over 354 hectares of forest were lost Greenpeace gathered firsthand account of what was happening and confirmed this acceleration in operations we joined local organizations and met with over 50 workers ex-workers and village chiefs throughout the plantation while visiting the traditional land of the Babensi II village in particular the scale of the active forest clearance and palm planting was clear The traditional lands of Babensi II  and Ebanga communities have been the most impacted to date by clearance for this project Forest clearance near Babensi II village inside SGSOC plantation from December 2015 In addition to capturing eyewitness accounts of this forest destruction talking to local community members and ex-workers revealed the ongoing broken promises stemming from this project including widespread reports of lost jobs without compensation Roughly 200 complaints were filed with the labor law delegate in Mundemba while others wrote and filed complaints with the Senior Divisional Officer We spoke with some community members who walked more than three hours to Mundemba from their local villages just to have their complaint heard Very few have seen any of the past wages owed to them One local villager explained that  “…before SGSOC I had enough money to live and even enable me to send my child to school What SGSOC brought was promises of security and monthly paychecks many of the chiefs of the local villages also speak of broken promises spoken of their plantation with the promise of development we were overwhelmed with emotion to hear that none of the villagers even had electricity despite their village being the location of one of the company’s palm nurseries We left with the renewed resolve for justice The reality for the communities surrounding the SGSOC plantation is that they have been fighting for their livelihoods for several years and now they have a renewed enemy just with a new name And the fate of the vast area of dense natural forest is also grim An African proverb says that ‘words are like bullets; if they escape you can’t catch them again.” This is true of the promises SGSOC continues to break and also true for the forests that have been lost — they too are gone forever the Cameroonian government must make the decision to cancel SGSOC’s land lease or grant it to them permanently Greenpeace will fight to save the local communities’ lands and the intact forest by showing how the SGSOC project is bad for Cameroon In the meantime please share this story to ensure that the name of Jonathan Johnson Watts the man behind the SGSOC plantation – formerly known as Herakles Farms- is known around the world Letter from Greenpeace Africa to Jonathan Johnson Watts Cameroon’s Far North is already facing significant challenges and is one of the regions most affected by climate change Food insecurity remains a persistent issue The population of Campo in the south region of  Cameroon have taken to the streets to express their dissatisfaction with the companies CAMVERT A breakdown of the recent flooding events across Africa and the course of action we must take to minimise their frequency Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" Please select which cookies you are willing to store These cookies will provide you a better experience of our website You will be able to hide the cookies acceptance banner and use the website features better The non-acceptance of these cookies will give you a cookie-free experience These cookies help improving the performance of Greenpeace.org/africa They are set to collect data such as how long users stay on a page or which links are clicked This helps us make better content based on your experience navigating the website Most web browsers allow some control over cookies through browser settings (e.g Click your browser type below to go directly to the browser user guide to learn how to disable or erase cookies The Military elite force is being hailed in the South West Region for taking over part of the abandoned road for construction to cost CFA 40.6 Billion Наслаждайтесь азартом на любом устройстве! 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