Papua New Guinea Communities successfully resist palm oil land grab

Indigenous communities in Collingwood Bay in Papua New Guinea are celebrating a victory over Kuala Lumpur Kepong Ltd (KLK), which had acquired two controversial Special Agricultural Business Leases to 38,000 hectares of their customary lands without their consent and planned to develop the area as a palm oil plantation. KLK, a Malaysian company and member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), is one the world’s largest palm oil operators, said to control about a quarter of a million hectares of lands.

Last year, with the help of the Rainforest Action Network, the communities filed a complaint with the RSPO asserting that they rejected the palm oil plantation, that the company was operating on their lands illegally and that their representative institutions had not given their Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) for the proposed development. The communities also filed their objections to the plantation with the PNG courts. In January 2014, the RSPO Complaints Panel called on KLK not to develop the plantation unless FPIC could be demonstrated to have been given and the court had ruled on the legality of the operation.

The National Court of Papua New Guinea has just ruled that the two leases which make up the concession are indeed null and void.

Lester Seri, one of the plaintiffs on the case and a landowner in Collingwood Bay said:

The people of Collingwood Bay have spoken clearly through the voices of our chiefs that we are against large scale palm oil development on our lands. The chiefs of our nine tribes have spoken. Tens of thousands of our international allies have spoken. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil has spoken. And now the National Court of PNG has agreed: these permits are illegitimate. KLK must leave Collingwood Bay immediately and not return.

For RAN Press Release and PNG exposed blog click here