“Our concerns lie in unjust land concessions and human rights abuses surrounding the industry”

The issue of land rights is both substantial and critical in Liberia, where I live and work as a programme manager and senior researcher at national NGO the Sustainable Development Institute.

When Liberia emerged from civil wars in 2003, president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf launched a campaign to attract investment into the country. As a result of this, between 2005 and 2011, the government signed land contracts obligating more than 40% of the country’s land area to foreign investors for agro-plantations, logging and mining, on the premise that they were unclaimed and unused. This is not the case; Liberians have long-standing customary claims over most land in Liberia. 

Oil palm itself is not the problem; our concerns lie with the unjust land concessions and human rights abuses surrounding the industry. In many cases there is no community consent for companies to move in on people’s land, and where there is consent, sometimes it is coercive, with communities either not understanding the implications of the changes or being intimidated into signing agreements.

Take as an example, a village where plantations have been developed on land previously used by communities to farm. These communities have lost access to their farmland, and so cannot grow food to eat or to sell. How are they to make a living? The use of fertilisers and pesticides by the plantations means their water source is now polluted. This is also killing off wildlife in the area. In this village, people used to spend 30 minutes a day fetching water for their household use. Now, the nearest clean water supply they can access is two hours away. This is a job that traditionally falls to women, and these women have now lost substantial time every day to collecting water. It means they cannot do other jobs during this time, which is affecting their relationships as well.

This isn’t just happening in one village. Currently, around 17,000 hectares of land in Liberia are planted with oil palm, and concessions have been granted for more than 700,000 hectares of land. In Liberia, 70% of the population is dependent on agriculture for survival. Take the land from the people, and they have no way to make a living. This causes food insecurity, impacts on livelihoods and social cohesion, and of course has long-term consequences for the country’s economy, security and development.

As time has passed, of course, the government has realised its mistake, but it is too late, in many areas, to rectify the damage done – environmentally, socially and from a human rights perspective. Currently, however, there are no legal mechanisms to protect people in this situation and the draft Land Rights Act, which for the first time establishes strong community rights over customary lands and natural resources, has lingered in the legislature since 2014.

Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) has been campaigning for change on a national level, and are pleased by the changes being made to out-dated laws through, for example, the 2013 Land Rights Policy. As part of SDI’s efforts, we joined the tour of the EU and EU member states with Forest Peoples Programme and delegates from Colombia, Peru, and Indonesia in April. It was an opportunity to discuss the issues further along the supply chain. Some of the solutions after all have to come from there.

While it is true that there are no significant palm oil imports into Europe from Liberia at present, the government has named the EU as a target market in its Oil Palm Export Strategy 2014-2018. The reality is that Liberia’s concession agreements contain government-approved tax breaks, exemptions and deductions, and astonishingly low land rental fees – developing oil palm plantations in Liberia is a very attractive financial prospect for big companies – so now is the time to make changes to make sure the developments are properly regulated. 

The European Commission is currently developing its Action Plan on Deforestation and Forest Degradation, which must address social and land tenure impacts in forest-risk supply chains. Regulations about free, prior and informed consent and human rights in business should be in both national and international law. Visiting Belgium, we had positive responses from MEPs and policymakers, including Seb Dance, Renata Briano and Paul Brannen; we hope to have made a significant impact; our testimonies were of common human rights stories seen across the world; we hope the EU realises it has a responsibility in addressing these. SDI and allied networks in Liberia are now preparing to follow up on the tour. We are keen to take up offers by European decision makers to make inputs to European and member states stakeholder consultations on sustainable development, forests, food security and energy.

By Ali Kaba, delegate from Liberia