Land tenure, human rights and palm oil certification in Montes de María, Colombia
FPP spoke to a community leader and environmental human rights defender from the Carmen de Bolívar district in the Colombian Caribbean. Their work is aimed at tackling the social, environmental and climate crises in Colombia and the world. To protect their safety and minimise the risk of reprisals, their identity has been kept anonymous.
The land tenure situation in Montes de María
The situation of land tenure in Montes de María is quite deplorable. According to a 2020 study by the Colombian Commission of Jurists and the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers' Collective, peasant communities in Montes de Maria have been dispossessed of 63% of the land granted to them during the agrarian reform of the latter half of the 20th century.
Another study shows that “the dispute over land in the Montes de María region is reflected in the area's official violence figures. Between 1997 and 2004, there were 56 massacres, 220 civilian deaths (80% of whom were victims of paramilitary groups), and 200,000 cases of forced displacement. Between 1997 and 2007, they were dispossessed of 80,000 hectares of land”.
According to the final report of the Truth Clarification Commission, this phenomenon of violence was closely linked to property interests in the land: “The appropriation of land was more strategic than the mere actions of warlords and opportunists. Large-scale economic projects, such as palm and timber production in Montes de María, were behind it”.
Based on this, we — the peasant and Afro-descendant communities of Montes de María — hypothesised that the violence may have been premeditated in order to grab land. When we were dispossessed, a 20-hectare plot of land cost no more than one million pesos (approximately 250 US dollars), which is how the big companies bought the lands.
Displacement, violence and large-scale land purchases were correlated. In the midst of the violence, we saw that large landowners and companies began to make large land purchases.
This had a serious impact on the economic activity and food sovereignty of peasant, Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities in Montes de María, affecting their livelihoods and way of life. The land has lost its traditional use since oil palms were introduced. Today, the cost of living is extremely high, and there is hardly any space left to grow our own food as we did before, since our lands are now predominantly used for growing oil palm, timber and pineapples.
The amount of tropical dry forest in Montes de María before the land grabs began was very different from what it is today. Deforestation to make way for monoculture plantations led not only to the displacement of peasant families, but also of flora and fauna and the scarcity of wildlife.
Since monocultures emerged in the 1990s and 2000s, they have had an immense impact on the area's tropical dry forests.
Ten percent of the oil palm cultivated in the region was developed on land that was forested in 1990. Of the areas deforested to make way for palm plantations, 89% were cleared between 2001 and 2013 — a period marked by increased paramilitary violence, land dispossession, and monoculture expansion.
Deforestation has not occurred to the same extent throughout the analysed periods. The period during which the greatest amount of deforestation occurred was between 2001 and 2005, when 10,327 hectares of forest were lost — equivalent to 30% of the forest cover in 1990 — in just 5 years.
Entrepreneurs are not just landowners anymore - they are water owners too
Not only did the current owners take our land, but they also took our water. Nowadays, water is managed by big business and agribusiness, and state institutions responsible for overseeing it ignore our demands.
Traditionally, the water reservoirs in the María la Baja Irrigation District were built as part of the agrarian reform for rice production by small-scale farmers, as well as for general community use. During the period of large-scale land purchases, the most sought-after plots were those with access to water. Today, however, these dams are in the hands of large companies and landowners, leaving communities without easy access to fresh water.
Violations of our fundamental right to water are also related to the management of water in our territories. The María la Baja Irrigation District, which is administered by the María la Baja Irrigation District Large-scale Land Improvement Users Association (Usomarialabaja), is effectively controlled by oil palm growers.
Since the expansion of palm monoculture, palm growers have accounted for between 82% and 95% of the Irrigation District's users. The same percentage is reflected in the representation of palm growers on the Usomarialabaja Board of Directors, meaning that they are the ones who make decisions about the administration of the District's water. Several studies, including a report by the Javeriano Water Institute and Dejusticia, state that communities have no effective participation in the administration or decision-making processes of the District.
According to the information we have obtained, Carlos José Murgas Dávila, the current vice-president of the Oleoflores business group and son of the founder of this palm oil company, was the president of the Board of Directors of Usomarialabaja between 2019 and 2021. Members of the Murgas family have been on the Usomarialabaja Board since 2006, when Carlos Murgas Guerrero — founder of the Oleoflores business group and father of Carlos José — was appointed legal representative and chairman of the Usomarialabaja Board. We have not been able to obtain public information about who has been in the presidency from 2021 onwards.
In Montes de María, water resources are essentially being privatised. Today, water management is in the hands of big business, while the relevant state institutions that should be overseeing it are failing to act in good faith.
In defence of our fundamental right to water, we have denounced companies that violate our rights. This has led to significant threats, stigmatisation and legal proceedings against members of our community. We have been falsely accused of crimes such as hindering officials and causing damage to property and the environment in an attempt to deter us from defending our rights. There has never been any evidence to substantiate these false accusations.
Another problem is that we have limited access to fresh water. We used to have access to our traditional wells via roads, and the diversity of surrounding vegetation helped to conserve water.
With the arrival of oil palm monoculture, those wells dried up and the palms blocked the roads, limiting our access to water for daily consumption.
The Ombudsman's Office has documented “testimonies from peasants who have refused to sell their land to agro-industrial companies […] Palm plantations have surrounded these lands, resulting in the closure of access roads and denial of access to water and beaches. These are just some of the mechanisms that pressure the sale of land and affect fundamental freedoms”.
Certification and the RSPO
The certification processes of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), for example, have not changed anything to date. While palm oil companies adopt human rights policies on paper, in reality, they persecute us for demanding that they comply with their commitments to uphold community rights and ensure sustainable production.
We insist that companies such as OleoFlores adhere to the RSPO criteria. Not only in theory, but in practice as well.
When we question the companies, we find that the stigmatisation, threats and physical and judicial attacks that we face intensify. For example, when we exposed in 2019 that scarce water intended for basic community needs was being used for palm irrigation, the threats and intimidation we suffered in our territory intensified. Almost at the same time, Usomarialabaja's Board of Directors decided to file a legal action against us before the public prosecutor's office.
If the ultimate goal of these certification schemes is to produce sustainable palm oil, it is completely contradictory for these schemes to certify oil palm companies that oppress our community leaders for defending their land, livelihoods and the environment.
We cannot talk about sustainable products when the territory's leaders are stigmatised and persecuted. I really don't understand why they talk about green products when, in reality, they are blood-tinged.
Oil palm certification also requires the identification of areas of high conservation value (HCV). For example, a study produced in 2020 by the Fundemaria Foundation of the Grupo Oleoflores and USAID did not take into account areas of high conservation value for communities. That diagnostic study failed to adequately consider the cultural, social and environmental aspects of our territories, did not rigorously gather the views of the communities, and was conducted without our free, prior and informed consent. This is why we filed a complaint challenging that study with the High Conservation Value Network (HCVN).
Although certifications such as RSPO entail transparency obligations, companies are not complying with them effectively. Information on the suppliers of each mill is unavailable, meaning it is impossible to ascertain whether the certified oil consumed in England or other consumer countries is produced on land that has been dispossessed or is otherwise affected by conflict. For this reason, our community leaders have opposed this certification until they truly comply with the RSPO's requirements and current national and international legal requirements.
What is needed?
Land dispossession, land grabbing and changes in land use for monoculture plantations have caused, and continue to cause, harm to peasant and Afro-descendant communities in Colombia and other communities around the world.
Some of us are afraid to speak out for fear of reprisals, so the true scale of the problem remains hidden.
Things must change. We need binding laws and regulations to ensure that agribusiness companies respect human rights. We also need to enforce these norms more effectively. Sometimes there are good laws and rules, such as the High Conservation Value (HCV) approach or indeed many Colombian laws, but they are simply ignored. Governments, including those of countries whose citizens purchase these products, must enforce regulations that demand respect for human rights. It is not enough to adopt laws if they remain just words on paper.
The same applies to certification. Organisations such as the RSPO, which claim to promote sustainable palm oil, must implement stronger measures to ensure their members comply with RSPO standards.
What we are asking for is a guarantee that human rights will not be violated through these oil palm monocultures, and that normative frameworks require companies to respect human rights. This is what we are really asking for.
About the author:
The author is an activist and advocate of peace in the 15 municipalities that make up the Montes de María region. They lead processes to recover and defend the territory against deforestation and forced displacement caused by monocultures such as oil palm, timber and pineapple.
Further information:
- The Colombian Caribbean contains 55% of the country's tropical dry forests. Several studies have shown that these forests are indispensable to rural communities, providing food, medicines, fibre and timber, among other products. They are also fundamental for hydro-climatological regulation and the conservation of the ecosystem that sustains ecological processes.
- An analysis of satellite images of one sub-region of Montes de María shows that between 1990 and 2019, the area of tropical dry forest decreased from 33,568 hectares to 11,040 hectares, representing a 67% reduction. By December 2019, 11,337 hectares were covered by oil palms in the region, 10% of which were in areas previously covered by forest in 1990. Between 2001 and 2013, 89% (975 ha) of the deforested areas were cleared to make way for palm crops, during the arrival and expansion of the oil palm industry in the area and periods of major land dispossession and forced abandonment due to paramilitary violence.
- According to official data from the Unified Registry of Abandoned Lands and Territories (Registro Único de Predios y Territorios Abandonados), 21,785 hectares (around 40%) of the 54,700 hectares in the district of María La Baja, where the oil palm mill of the same name is located, were forcibly abandoned. This process of forced dispossession was followed by massive land purchases at ridiculously low prices. Much of this land is now used for growing oil palms, teak or pineapples.
- Many companies have been found guilty of land grabbing, including Argos S.A., which has been found guilty in 12 cases. Magistrates ordered them to return 1,023 hectares to peasant families in Montes de María.
- Given the scale of land grabs during Colombia's armed conflict, a court specialising in land restitution was set up to address some of the claims of peasant families who were forced to flee.
- A serious problem in Colombia is the lack of land registry information indicating who owns the land and how it is being used. Pursuant to the peace agreement signed in 2016, a new multipurpose Land Register is being established. If investigations identify peasant families on the land who could benefit from the agrarian reform, the next step will be to grant them titles that formalize their rights over the land.
- In 2014, the Environmental Authorities designated the basins of two reservoirs of the Irrigation District as Areas of Strategic Importance (ASIs) as they are the main source of water for the inhabitants of the district capital and several hamlets in María La Baja.
Overview
- Resource Type:
- News
- Publication date:
- 13 August 2025
- Region:
- Colombia
- Programmes:
- Supply Chains and Trade Law and Policy Reform
