Certified weaknesses: The RSPO’s Liberian fiasco (commentary)

It’s late March and the latest news about the future of communities’ traditional lands has yet to reach the towns and villages in southeastern Liberia. On February 13, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, the industry certification system for production of conflict-free palm oil, confirmed what many in rural Sinoe County have been saying all along: Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL), a palm oil company operating since 2010, did not properly receive the consent of local communities to acquire their traditional lands. A letter issued to GVL by the RSPO Complaints Panel says that the company coerced and intimidated community members into signing agreements ceding their lands, did not conduct adequate participatory mapping, destroyed communities’ sacred sites, and continues to develop disputed lands, all in violation of RSPO Principles and Criteria. The charges against GVL and its parent company, Golden Agri-Resources, are not new. The first complaint filed against GVL with the RSPO came in 2012. Over the years, multiple civil society reports have documented GVL’s land grabbing, human rights violations, and environmental degradation. In 2015, a riot erupted on GVL’s plantation. Six years and various investigations by the RSPO later, the situation for these communities is largely the same. A bulldozer lies in Golden Veroleum’s palm oil plantation. Photo by Gaurav Madan. Across Sinoe County, many villagers have long decried the impacts of GVL on their lives. They claim that despite the company’s promises, GVL has destroyed their sacred sites, polluted their drinking water, and curtailed their access to their…

from Conservation news https://ift.tt/2qzdV3B
via IFTTT