…Demand UN binding treaty on business operations.

The African Peoples Tribunal organised in Lagos by Friends of the Earth Africa (FoEA) ended on Friday November 27, 2020, with a call on governments of 10 African countries to urgently ensure that the human rights of freedom of speech, expression, and association of citizens and persons who brought cases of abuses before the tribunal are respected and protected.

The three-day event which started on November 25 witnessed testimonies on cases of human rights violations and environmental degradation connected with monoculture tree plantation expansion from ten countries across Africa was attended by affected communities and civil society. Among the accused companies are Socfin, Green Resources AS, Golden Veroleum Liberia (controlled by Golden Agri-Resources), SIAT SA, OLAM and PZ Wilmar.

The Tribunal received and reviewed ten (10) cases from ten (10) countries. The companies found wanting are SOCAPALM (Cameroon), SIAT (Cote D’Ivoire), GOPDC – SIAT (Ghana), OLAM (Gabon), SOCFIN (Sierra Leone), and Golden Veroleum Limited, GVL (Liberia). Others are Green Resources (Mozambique), Okomu Oil Palm PLC, PZ Wilmar, Green Resources, and Wilmar, Green Resources

In all of the ten cases, international financiers, including development banks, private banks, investment funds and pension funds from all corners of the world, are found to be controlling and financing controversial rubber, palm oil and timber plantation companies.

The jurors who heard the cases are Nnimmo Bassey, director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) from Nigeria, Ikal Angelei from Kenya who won the 2012 Goldman Environmental Prize for Africa and is involved in campaigns against dams, and Prof. Alfred Apau Oteng-Yeboah – a Professor of Botany at the University of Ghana.  Makoma Lekalakala, a South African activist and Executive Director of Earthlife Africa who has long been active in social movements tackling issues from gender and women’s rights, social, economic, and environmental justice issues was also one of the jurors.

On landgrabs perpetrated by the companies, the jurors concluded that in all the cases there was connivance between governments and transnational corporations to grab community lands. They cited Ministry of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency (of Ghana) which they alleged, allowed the complete destruction and conversion of 13 villages into an oil palm plantation. Destroyed along with the communities were schools, markets, churches, and other social facilities.

They noted that in Cote d’Ivoire, government took community land, abandoned it after some years and then returned to hand the land over to a transnational corporation without recourse to the communities who had reclaimed their land. In the case of Sierra Leone, government leased land from the community and handed the land over to the transnational corporation, SOCFIN, on the same day.

On Violation of Rights, they said there is general reign of systemic oppression and use of state security forces against the affected peoples, in all cases brought before the APT. Cases of threats, denial of labour rights and the right to protest, arrests, imprisonments and murders were heard.

The APT heard cases of labour exploitation with a high level of casualization of labour. In the case of Wilmar (Nigeria) they said evidence showed that the company pays workers less than $2 for 12 hours work.

Inhuman and discriminatory work and housing conditions were recorded in most of the cases (Cameroon, Nigeria). It was also revealed that workers, including pregnant women, are ferried on tractors to work locations, with accidents and deaths recorded. Injured workers are sacked without compensation and others are sacked for speaking up at public hearings thus sending chilling signals to workers and organisers.

On Socio-Economic Dislocations they said that the grabbing and conversion of community lands into plantations directly deprive communities of fertile lands. Companies make false claims of using degraded and non-forested lands while they grab fertile lands and forests and valuable water sources that the communities depend on, they insisted.

“In Gabon, when the corporation (OLAM) designates forests and territories as having High Carbon Value (HCV), they effectively cut the communities off the use of such forests or resources. In this manner, community forests including sacred ones are now valued as carbon sinks for carbon credits in false climate marketization.”

The APT also received disturbing reports of industrial tree plantations building ditches as deep as 16 metres (50 feet) and with a width of 13 metres (40 feet) in the case of Wilmar (Nigeria) around the plantations. These ditches pose danger to humans and to wildlife, but significantly block communities from having access to their farms, to forests, to fishing and water sources and forces them to only use roads policed by these companies. Community members are required to obtain passes (visas) to gain entry to their communities and only within certain time slots (Gabon).

“These ditches or moats have damaged water bodies that communities depend on (as in the case of Gabon) thereby exposing them to avoidable stresses. Heavy burdens are placed on the women as the struggle for water, fishing and fuel woods”.

The use of harmful chemicals, including those made with glyphosate (a carcinogen) in the plantations have caused damage to soils, water sources and the health of both communities and workers who are often not provided with personal protection equipment (PPE).

The cases confirmed a lack of acceptable environmental impact assessments as well as a lack of social impact assessments.

The replacement of rich biodiversity of forest with foreign exotic trees have dramatically damaged the local environments. Although the FAO recognises industrial exotic tree plantations (including those with genetically engineered trees) as forests, communities reject such classifications.

They recommended among others, that governments in the relevant countries should immediately set up a mechanism to review existing arrangements with plantation corporations, openly and transparently engage with communities and revert wrongfully acquired lands and forests to the communities. They also stressed that governments should uphold and protect the dignity of communities and adequately sanction corporations that violate human rights or destroy the environment in their territories.

They also want governments to actively and constructively engage in the current negotiations for the elaboration of a UN Legally Binding Instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises, and ensure this becomes a meaningful instrument to stop corporate impunity.

Distinguished guest, Esteemed Jury, Participants in the 1^st APT, both virtually and in person, Media representatives (local and international), Comrades from FOEA and FOEI, Ladies and gentlemen.

It is our unique pleasure to welcome you to this APT, the first of its kind, but certainly, not the last. Indeed, we are grateful for your participation.

Globally, there is documented evidence that Commercial Agricultural expansion is one of the major drivers of deforestation and biodiversity loss. This is a fact.

It is also a fact that increasing expansion in plantations is likely to result in accelerating environmental degradation in the global context. Surprisingly little attention has been given to the actual impacts of global expansions in palm plantations, Eucalyptus plantations, rubber and other agro-commodities. In fact, corporate lobbyists have made every effort to greenwash these impacts by taking advantage of initiatives such REDD+, RSPO other certification schemes.

There exist cases where such investment exacerbates existing conflicts and create new ones leading to the killing of environmental and human right defenders. Research shows that, about 200 environmental and human right defender killings were reported in 2016 alone, and 207 were reported in 2017. The majority of these incidents were directly linked to contestations over landgrabbing and agro-industrial expansion projects.

We also know that, African governments have agreed to certification schemes alongside other regional policy frameworks, like the ACFTA, which are growth strategies based on aggressive exploitation of Africa’s natural resources. This, clearly, reflects high political endorsements of resource extraction in Africa as a development trajectory despite the evidence that this path will inevitably undermine local community livelihoods and basic human rights across the continent.

Today, there is documented evidence that Aggressive landgrabbing and deforestation is already causing a new wave of oppression and colonialization, with devastating impacts on local communities, especially women across African countries. We know this to be uniquely true.

Therefore, the unique purpose of our coming together in this first APT is to address this regional problem. For the next three days, we will be hearing more about the stark evidence and cases human right abuses, landgrabbing and deforestation led by plantation expansionists across the African Continent.

The intention and the expectation is that this tribunal will serve as a space to give visibility to human rights violations, to investigate and expose human rights abuses connected to profit-driven landgrabbing and deforestation in Africa.

We expect this tribunal to evolve into a regional MODEL to expose the social, gender and environmental impacts of industrial agribusinesses on African communities

We also expect this tribunal to become a regional Template to visibilise at the regional level, the struggles of local communities who are directly in the path of industrial agribusinesses in Africa, to present and testify to cases of human rights violations led by industrial plantation corporations in Africa, and to strengthen national and regional advocacy efforts of CSOs/communities against industrial plantations in Africa.

Distinguished guest, Esteemed Jury, Comrades,

In the context of plantation expansions in Africa, FOEA believes that there is a lot of work to be done. And we believe today we are laying the foundations for that work to begin.

FOEA believes that it’s time to solidify our Comradery and speak with one voice for human rights, gender rights and vulnerable communities in Africa. We believe the APT is setting up template for such collective action.

It is our hope , that this tribunal will soon become an accepted MODEL for regional advocacy, a regional template providing a voice to the voiceless, a platform for speaking truth to power in the times when corporate power and corporate impunity are on the rise in Africa. 

With that I will say, we will like to call on all CSOs, national and regional allies as well as CBOs to seize the opportunity made available through this APT to sow the seeds of change, to expose the corporate capture of our Governments. Let us seize this opportunity to, promote national and regional commitment to the UN Binding Treaty,

Let us seize this opportunity, to support the fight for biodiversity conservation, gender rights, water rights, for basic human rights, and to promote sustainable alternatives over destructive big-business models in Africa.

Once again, we are grateful to have you. We are grateful to our distinguished Panel of Jurists, who have agreed to sit on this APT. We are grateful to our community members.  And we look forward to a very fruitful APT.

Thank you very much!

MEDIA ADVISORY

Friends of the Earth Africa

 November 23, 2020

 African Peoples Tribunal to Dismantle Power of industrial Plantation Corporations, Building People Power

 LAGOS, NIGERIA, November 23, 2020 – Friends of the Earth Africa through its Forest & Biodiversity Program organises the First session of the African Peoples Tribunal from 25-27th November 2020 in Lagos Nigeria. Affected communities and civil society will bring testimonies on cases of human rights violations and environmental degradation connected with monoculture tree plantations expansion from ten countries across Africa.

The tribunal’s legitimacy is based on the principle of recognising human rights under natural, national, and international law, and reclaiming and restoring the rights of impacted peoples whose rights have been violated with impunity.

Rita Uwaka, coordinator of the African Friends of the Earth Forest and Biodiversity program says “Aggressive land-grabbing and deforestation for expansion of industrial tree plantations are causing a new wave of oppression and colonization in Africa, with devastating impacts on people, including differentiated and aggravated consequences for women.” Kwami Kpondzo, Human Rights Defenders focal point for Friends of the Earth Africa continues to explain that “In the face of ongoing social, environmental and gender injustice in Africa, defending people’s rights is crucial to dismantling corporate power and challenging the capitalist neoliberal model of industrial plantation expansion.”

In all of the ten cases, international financiers, including development banks, private banks, investment funds and pension funds from all corners of the world, are found to be controlling and financing the controversial rubber, palm oil and timber plantation companies. Amongst the accused companies are Socfin, Green Resources AS, Golden Veroleum Liberia (controlled by Golden Agri-Resources), SIAT SA, OLAM and PZ Wilmar.

Five eminent jurors will be interrogating the case presenters and provide a verdict on day three of the Tribunal.  They include Nnimmo Bassey, director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) from Nigeria, Ikal Angelei from Kenya who won the 2012 Goldman Environmental Prize for Africa and is involved in campaigns against dams, and Prof. Alfred Apau Oteng-Yeboah – a Professor of Botany at the University of Ghana.  The other two are Professor Hamudi Ismail Majamba, an Associate Professor of Law specialising in Natural Resources and Environmental Law and advocate of the High Court of Tanzania, and Ms. Makoma Lekalakala, a South African activist and Executive Director of Earthlife Africa who has long been active in social movements tackling issues from gender and women’s rights, social, economic, and environmental justice issues.

Friends of the Earth Africa is advancing the call for industrial plantation companies to stop their harmful activities across the whole continent. Friends of the Earth Africa urges public and private decision makers to work with civil society and communities to bolster the transition to community based agro-ecology and forest management land-use.

According to the network, the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities including access to and control of their own commons and livelihoods must be respected and protected.

Friends of the Earth Africa will continue to fight alongside indigenous peoples and local communities affected by transnational corporation operations to stop any attempts to expand industrial tree plantations and dismantle corporate power across African region.

 FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

 Please read a summary briefer and ten case studies here: http://africanpeoplestribunal.org/documents/

 You are invited to join an online press conference on November 27, 2020. Please contact Philip Jakpor: +234 803 725 6939 or jakporphilip@gmail.com for the details

CONTACTS IN LAGOS:

Philip Jakpor: Director of Programmes, Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa: +234 803 725 6939 or jakporphilip@gmail.com

Rita Uwaka: FoEA Forests & Biodiversity Program Coordinator: +234 803 455 3503 or riouwaka@gmail.com

OR IN LOME

Ekue Assem, Friends of the Earth Africa Communication Coordinator : +228 93 84 19 30 or darius.assem@gmail.com ;

Kwami Kpondzo, Friends of the Earth Africa Membership Development Team/HRD Focal point : +228 98 22 14 57 or kwadodzi@gmail.com

A global coalition released a liability roadmap: a first-of-its-kind tool outlining how local to global decision makers, including government officials, can hold polluting industries liable for the climate damage they knowingly cause, while unlocking climate finance needed to address the climate crisis and implement solutions.

This roadmap, released just one week before UN climate week, is the next stage in the global campaign to Make Big Polluters Pay.

Liability Roadmap

We, organizations in Friends of the Earth Africa, the African Climate Justice Group, and Friends of the Earth Japan stand in solidarity with the people and Nature of Mauritius. We send our salutes and commend the Mauritian people in their incredible collective efforts, passion and commitment towards containing the spill and its impacts. Nevertheless, we condemn in the strongest possible terms, the oil spill from a Japanese owned ship, MV Wakashio and the demonstrated incompetence of the incumbent authorities in preventing it, and in dealing with the spill’s aftermath .

The Japanese owned ship, MV Wakashio, carrying 4,000 metric tons of oil, ran aground just off the coast of the small island nation of Mauritius on July 25, 2020 and broke apart on Saturday August 15, 2020.

Over 1000 metric tons of the oil in the ship has spilled into the surrounding waters and there are concerns that more oil will spill from the ship. This spill is already and will continue to cause substantial damage to the Island’s ecosystem and local livelihoods. This without mentioning the expected long-term damage to marine environments expected from the disposal of the shipwreck after it is removed.

Mauritius is a biodiversity hotspot and the spill occurred near two environmentally protected marine ecosystems and the Blue bay marine reserve park which is a wetland of immense international significance. Coral reefs, protected lagoons and the nation’s shorelines have already been impacted.

The slow governmental response to cleanup the over 1000 tonnes of oil is adding to the severity of the impact on coral reefs, mangroves, fish spawning sites, tourism as well as fishing livelihoods, some of them tragically considered damaged beyond repair. The growing drive for natural resource exploitation, and track-record of poor management in the extractive and tourism sectors will intensify the range and frequency of such disasters, and conversely reduce the resilience of human populations to withstand them.

The true cost of this will inevitably be borne by all communities within the region.

Incidents like this clearly demonstrate why it is important to have strong laws and regulations in place to protect our ecosystems and local livelihoods. The pressure on African governments to relax the already ineffective environmental and social safeguards that exist in their energy, mining, transport, and agricultural sectors is enormous.

We note that Africa is on the frontlines of the climate crisis, bludgeoned daily by the impacts of the crisis with minimal resources to confront and reduce the impacts. The intensification of the climate crises clearly indicates that we can no longer continue with a global economic and social system that is addicted to fossil energy and other extractive industries. This will invariably lead usto the destruction and desecration of our rivers, lands, air, our common heritage, our home – Planet Earth.

In these uncertain times with the world confronting multiple crises: energy, biodiversity, hunger, indebtedness, unemployment, wars and manipulated extremism, deforestation, climate change, desertification as well as a decayed health infrastructure, to name a few, in the midst of a global COVID 19 pandemic whose roots are intrinsically linked to climate change, a disaster like this oil spill has a way of producing real change. Right now, plunged in this moment of crises, we havewe, the space to apply our collective imagination to build the framework of a new, low pollution, low carbon economic and a social development system in harmony with the dictates of our ecosystem.

The African Climate justice Group, Friends of the Earth Africa and Japan call on Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. (of the Mitsui group), the Japanese company implicated in this unfortunate incident to immediately take steps to contain, cleanup and remediate the devastated ecosystem in Mauritius.

We also call for the solidarity of African and International entities to collaborate for the full restoration of the affected environments, including saving the coral reef on which the ship ran aground as much as possible to the state it was before the spill to enable the people of Mauritius to go back to their usual livelihood practices.

We call for full compensation to individuals and businesses that have lost income as a result of this incident.

We call for clean renewable, community owned and controlled energy to drive low carbon and low pollution development across Africa and an Africa wide framework to achieve this goal

We also call for the international conventions and laws that govern our seas to be tightened, and compensation for Mauritius, for the negative environmental and socio-economic impacts that are still unfolding.

We call on local communities, activists and governments to work to ensure that transnational corporations do not continue to define and drive the development process on the continent, including by supporting binding legislation to regulate these entities at national, regional and international level, in order to put an end to corporate impunity.

Ban Kamarads, pep Mauricien! PAMOJA! We are One with you in mourning the loss, and commit our best to support the recovery!

CLIMATE JUSTICE NOW!

For further comment, contact:

Anabela Lemos: +258 84 447 7081 / anabela.ja.mz@gmail.com
Dipti Bhatnagar: +258 84 035 6599 / dipti@foei.org
Ekue Assem: +228 93 84 1930 / darius.assem@gmail.com
Graca Samo: +258 82 651 9040 / gracasamo@gmail.com
Micheal Keania Karikpo: +234 803 552 6729 / keania2002@yahoo.co.uk
Trusha Reddy: +27 82 795 3135 / Trusha.Reddy@womin.org.za