The New Snake Oil?
Publisher: Global Witness
Date: 2015
Topics: Governance, Land, Renewable Resources
Countries: Liberia
Liberia is on the brink of a land grabbing crisis, driven by one of the country’s biggest investors and supporters in the Government. This report shows how Liberians are reported to have been violently beaten, threatened, and arrested for protesting the expansion of Golden Veroleum (GVL), a palm oil company that presides over one of the world’s biggest plantations in southern Liberia. The company’s close ties to politicians have allowed it to aggressively expand its operations, protected by state security. During Liberia’s 2014 Ebola crisis, when local community support NGOs were staying at home for risk of contagion, GVL significantly – and suspiciously – ramped up its expansion. The company is propped up by some of the world’s most popular banks – HSBC, Citibank, and Standard Chartered alone hold shares in GVL’s parent company worth nearly US$ 1.5 billion.
These alleged abuses are likely just the tip of the iceberg. Within just a few decades palm oil has moved from relative obscurity to being the world’s cheapest vegetable oil, present in around 50 percent of consumer goods.1 The social and environmental fall-out has been significant. Palm oil companies have chain-sawed their way through 30 square miles of rainforest a day in Indonesia and Malaysia, displacing communities – sometimes violently – and pushing rare plants and animals closer to extinction.2 With much of these countries now covered in oil palms, companies are expanding into new territories, foremost among them Liberia.