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The Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL) concession agreement was concluded on 16th August 2010 and provides a lease for 220,000 ha of land to GVL in Liberia's southern counties. Community grievances concerning the loss of land to the company, the destruction of crops and water sources, the lack of respect for communities' rights to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) in land acquisition and associated allegations of intimidation, arrests and harassment directed at community leaders, led to several complaints.

This is the twelth chapter of 'Conflict or Consent? The oil palm sector at a crossroads'.Introduction:Sime Darby’s oil palm and rubber concession in Grand Cape Mount county in northwest Liberia has come under sharp national and international focus after a complaint was submitted under the RSPO New Plantings Procedure (NPP) in November 2011. The complaint, submitted by communities affected by the concession, claimed that their Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) had not been sought, and that the destruction of their farmlands by the company in order to plant palm oil was leaving them destitute. Sime Darby’s concession also includes land in the neighbouring counties of Bomi, Gbarpolu and Bong.This case study, based on field research conducted in February 2012, assesses the nature and extent of community involvement in the acquisition of land for Sime Darby’s concession in Grand Cape Mount, in particular with regard to whether the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent was respected.1 See page 315 for Sime Darby’s own map of the new plantings area and affected towns in Grand Cape Mount county.

In this report, it is argued that national REDD readiness planning activities in Cameroon, including activities involving the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), lack effective actions to ensure the participation of indigenous peoples and local communities, miss solid data on the drivers of deforestation and gloss over critical land tenure, carbon rights and benefit sharing issues.The nine sub-national REDD projects currently underway lack transparency, meaningful participation or free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) and disregard issues of land tenure, customary rights and benefit sharing.This document has ‘open access’, you are free to print a copy from our website.You may also reproduce the text with appropriate acknowledgements to FPP.

Part of FPP's series on:Land rights and the forest peoples of Africa - Historical, legal and anthropological perspectivesA series of five country studies, plus a broad overview, examining indigenous peoples' land rights in the forested countries of Africa.

This report reviews the activities and main findings generated during a participative consultation by the Forest Peoples Project (FPP) with members of Bagyeli 'Pygmy' communities in south-west Cameroon affected by the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline project.

The Batwa of south west Uganda number only a few thousand people and are one of the hunter-gatherer and ex-hunter-gatherer peoples collectively known as the forest peoples (or ‘Pygmies’) of the Central African rainforests.