Indigenous and Human Rights Organisations Call On UN to Investigate Palm Oil Investments that harm the Peruvian Amazon

Irresponsible Investments 

The complainants allege that the activities of Ocho Sur P (since 2016) and its predecessor Plantaciones de Pucallpa (between 2012 and 2016) are contrary to their responsibility to respect human rights under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and to act with due diligence to ensure that their actions or omissions do not undermine the rights of the Community.

The letter details how multiple international investors, including the Anholt/Kattegat group and Amerra Capital Management LLC, have been driving the activities of these companies over the past ten years. This is despite the fact that they knew or should have known about the serious human rights and environmental problems associated with Plantaciones de Pucallpa both at the time of investing, and subsequently at the time of acquiring the plantation behind the new legal mask of Ocho Sur.

Therefore, the authors of the letter point out, these investors also acted, and continue to act, in contravention of their own responsibilities to respect human rights under the Guiding Principles, and without concern for the impacts on the community and the environment, which they have denounced over the past years through letters and public statements.

 

“In this historical sequence of illegal and human rights-violating activities, the common thread has been the irresponsibility and speculation of a succession of foreign investors who have completely ignored their duty of due diligence. Initially the Melka group (behind United Oils Limited SEZC), followed by the Anholt/Kattegat group and Amerra Capital (also behind United Oils Limited and then the current owner of Ocho Sur P, Peruvian Palm Holdings) have ignored the human rights violations and abuses perpetrated by Plantaciones de Pucallpa and then by Ocho Sur P.”

 

- Extract from allegations letter

Furthermore, the complainant organisations point out that the Peruvian State has historically failed, and continues to fail, to fulfil its obligation to protect the community from abuses committed by these companies and their financiers. In particular, the government has failed to comply with its obligation to title all of the community's ancestral lands and has instead approved clearly unlawful land transactions. Nor has it enforced orders issued by its oversight bodies to protect the environment, despite the failure of Plantaciones de Pucallpa and then Ocho Sur P to comply with Peru's environmental laws.

A representative of FECONAU said:

 

"We trust that the Working Group will investigate these abuses of our human rights and ancestral territories, which we have been denouncing to the Peruvian state and international bodies for many years. We are filing this complaint because the State, companies and investors must respect the rights of indigenous peoples, listen to our voices and respond to our demands, instead of discriminating against us".

 

Álvaro Másquez Salvador, legal specialist at IDL, pointed out that:

 

"The company Ocho Sur P, which operates the Tibecocha plantation in Ucayali, currently lacks any kind of environmental certification granted by the Peruvian State. This means that its operations do not have any environmental viability in our country. The logical thing, in a context where there are multiple legal complaints against the company for environmental damage and violations of the rights of Indigenous peoples, would have been for the Peruvian authorities to correct this problem in a timely manner. However, since they have been so slow to do so, we have chosen to request the intervention of the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights to ensure that all parties comply with their international obligations.”

 

Download and read the allegations letter:

Allegations Letter – English

Carta de denuncia - Español

English version updated 29/03/2022 containing a corrected figure on page 9

Additional notes:

- Ocho Sur P SAC, together with Ocho Sur U SAC and Servicios Agrarios de Pucallpa SAC, are part of the Ocho Sur group. The parent company of the group is Bermuda-based Peruvian Palm Holdings.

- The main investors in the Ocho Sur group are the Anholt/Kattegat group and Amerra Capital Management LLC. The former includes Anholt Services (USA) Inc. based in the United States and Anholt Investments Ltd and Kattegat Trust, both based in Bermuda.

- According to data for 2021, international buyers of the Ocho Sur group's palm oil included Louis Dreyfus Company of the Netherlands, the Meiji Group and Nisshin Oillio of Japan, and Lasenor of Spain. 

- In June 2021, Peru adopted a National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights. The Plan is based, among other sources, on the recommendations of the Working Group following its visit to Peru in 2017, and its main purpose is to incorporate the UN Guiding Principles into Peru's public policies.

 

- For further information, see this interactive map: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/286db6c27cad4eefa9c0048b9df1a5c0