Secure land tenure: The legal battles of the Bagyeli

After several years of contesting Biopalm’s presence in their forests, the Bagyeli communities discovered, with astonishment, the Presidential Decree No. 2018/736 of 4 December 2018 which authorises “the conclusion by special dispensation of an emphyteutic lease between the State of Cameroon and the Company Palm Resources Cameroon S.A. (Biopalm) on a piece of land in the private domain of the State.” According to the decree, 18,000 hectares will be leased to Palm Resources Cameroon SA, a subsidiary of Singaporean company Biopalm Energy Limited, to produce oil palm in the villages of Gwap, Nkollo and Bella, for a renewable term of 50 years.

The Bagyeli communities immediately organised to defend their forest. To this end, they mandated the civil society organisations Forest Peoples Programme (FPP) and Association Okani to undertake legal proceedings to restore their rights. “We have asked the lawyer to help us so that Biopalm does not take our forest,” explains Virgine. “So, we have to follow up.”

Consistency in combat

On this sunny day in March 2020, Bagyeli men, women and children gathered under the palaver tree to listen to their lawyer. “We have taken action against the presidential decree of December 2018 and another action against the two land titles that the state acquired in 1997 on your land,” said barrister Stephen Nounah, a lawyer at the Cameroonian Bar Association. A round of applause followed, as well as questions about access to land for Bagyeli people.

The Bagyeli, an indigenous forest people, depend entirely on forests for their survival. They wonder why and how the Head of State could decide to lease vast tracts of forest used by the Bagyeli, without asking their opinion. “We were disappointed that we were not consulted. This made us to believe we were not considered as humans. You see, we still live in the forest. But they never even ask for our opinion on whether we agree or disagree with the work they come to do in our forests,” says Mathias Kouma. A young Bagyeli leader from the village of Nkollo, Mathias remembers the actions taken when the first news about Biopalm first circulated in the community in 2012.

At the time, the Bagyeli learned by presidential decree that a Singaporean company specialising in palm oil cultivation had obtained, through its Cameroonian subsidiary Palm Resources Cameroon S.A., a provisional concession in the village of Bella. But the company in fact visited several neighbouring villages as well. They quickly expressed their opposition. “We wrote a letter that we all signed here, men and women, so that the President of the Republic would know that people have been living for a long time in the forest that he wants to give to Biopalm and these communities are not happy with his decision to hand over their forests to Biopalm”, recalls Mathias.

In the same vein, the Bagyeli have mapped their activities in the forest and have taken steps to obtain community forests in the villages of Mounguè, Gwap and Nkollo, which neighbour and share the same forests with their Bagyeli brothers in Bella. “When we were informed about the Biopalm case, we used participatory mapping to show where we were carrying out our activities in the forest,” says Mathias. “We also started the process of creating a community forest in order to have a space that would belong to us, even if we lost part of our forests with the arrival of Biopalm.”

In November and December 2018, they submitted three Community Forest dossiers to the Divisional Delegation of the Ministry of Forests and Fauna (MINFOF). However, the procedure has come up against a wall from the administration. After several investigations, the Bagyeli discovered as recently as 2019 that the State had acquired two land titles (No. 8413/Océan and No. 8414/Océan) on their ancestral lands in 1997.

Questionable land titles

The issuance of the two land titles in the name of the State is also of concern to the Bagyeli families and their Bantu neighbours, all of whom have been living in the locality for decades. But according to their claims, none of them have ever known that the state has registered the land on which they live. According to documentary sources, at the time of the acquisition of said titles in the name of the State, the government relied on the argument that “the State has found that the land is unoccupied and not used by the communities.”

However, five Bagyeli communities have been using the forests of the Bipindi and Lokoundjé sub-divisions for several decades for fishing, hunting, and gathering, as well as for harvesting medicinal plants.

The Bagyeli claim that the State acquired these titles without free, prior and informed consent of the Bagyeli indigenous peoples. “We Bagyeli people don't know what is called land title because when decision-makers talk about it, they never sit down to discuss it with us. They only come to grab our land,” says Mathias Kouma. The reaction is similar in the Bantu villages of Nkollo, Gwap and Mounguè. Here, their elites are involved in legal actions to annul the two land titles, the main blockage to obtaining community forests in the locality for both the Bagyeli and their Bantu neighbours.

To this end, barrister Stephen Nounah, on behalf of the Bagyeli, has initiated proceedings against the two State land titles established in this zone; one for annulment and the other for suspension of their effects. Identical proceedings against the land titles were initiated by the chiefs of three of the affected villages, on behalf of the Bantu. In their case, their elites are handling the legal actions for the annulment of the two land titles.

Today, these land titles in the name of the State are hindering the securing of the ancestral lands of the Bagyeli indigenous communities. At the national level, various actions undertaken on behalf of the Bagyeli are aimed at restoring the land rights of the Bagyeli indigenous communities. Regarding the international aspect, “we have referred the matter to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination,” explains the lawyer.

The Committee responded through a series of recommendations made to the State of Cameroon to ensure respect for the land rights of the Bagyeli, an indigenous people protected by the United Nations.