{"id":430,"date":"2016-08-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/uncategorized\/430\/unesco-fails-to-protect-cameroons-dja-reserve-from-multiple-threats-including-the-sudcam-rubber-plantation\/"},"modified":"2019-11-06T08:23:26","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T08:23:26","slug":"unesco-fails-to-protect-cameroons-dja-reserve-from-multiple-threats-including-the-sudcam-rubber-plantation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/blogs\/430\/unesco-fails-to-protect-cameroons-dja-reserve-from-multiple-threats-including-the-sudcam-rubber-plantation\/","title":{"rendered":"UNESCO fails to protect Cameroon\u2019s Dja Reserve from multiple threats including the Sudcam rubber plantation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\tCameroon\u2019s Dja Faunal Reserve, created in 1950, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 due to its outstanding plant and wildlife biodiversity. The Reserve constitutes habitat for fourteen species of primate including Western Lowland Gorillas and Chimpanzees. Nomadic Baka forest peoples have inhabited the area for hundreds of years, possibly longer.\n<\/div>\n
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For the last decade the Dja’s biodiversity<\/a> has been under severe pressure. Threats identified by UNESCO<\/a> include wildlife poaching, the construction of the M\u00e9kin hydroelectric dam north of its boundaries, the prospect of a nickel-cobalt mining project currently owned by Geovic to the East, and, above all, the development of the giant Sud-Cameroun Hevea (Sudcam) rubber plantation as close as a few hundred meters from its western border. (1)<\/a><\/p>\n

In late 2015, UNESCO and the IUCN conducted a joint field mission to monitor the impacts of these threats on the Dja. Its report explains in detail the serious negative impacts<\/a> of each of these pressures, but inexplicably, lists only the M\u00e9kin dam and poaching as \u201cAscertained Dangers\u201d to the reserve\u2019s \u201cOutstanding Universal Value\u201d. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Last July 7 Greenpeace wrote to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee<\/a> to express our alarm about the lack of attention paid to the threat created by the Sudcam plantation<\/a>. A recent Greenpeace analysis of satellite images shows that since 2011 the company has clear-cut 5,930 ha of forest, 42 % of it over the past one and a half year. That\u2019s over 5,000 ha more than the clearing at the SGSOC palm oil plantation<\/a> in Cameroon\u2019s South West Region, a project which has been the object of massive NGO and media scrutiny since 2010.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Sudcam was established in 2010 as a joint venture company between the Singapore-based GMG Global Ltd (GMG), a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned company Sinochem (80% of the shares) and the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de Productions de Palmeraies et d’H\u00e9v\u00e9a (SPPH) (20% of the shares). (2)<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Sudcam plantation is located only kilometers from the Mvomeka\u2019a mansion and security compound of the Cameroonian president, Paul Biya. In a paper published last year, researchers from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) wrote that \u201c[the] allocation of a temporary concession to Sud-Cameroun Hevea SA without taking into account the criteria specified in land regulations seems to have been motivated by the personality behind the Cameroonian who holds 20% of the company\u2019s share.\u201d <\/em>They added \u201cAccording to a local representative of the Ministry of the Environment, the President of the Republic’s family owns the company. However we have learned only that an influential member of the Cameroonian political elite, whose identity we do not know, apparently owns 20% of the company\u2019s shares<\/em>.\u201d (3)<\/a><\/p>\n

Sinochem and the Singapore-based rubber company Halcyon Agri Corp \u2013 one of the top five largest natural rubber suppliers globally – are currently in the process of merging their rubber operations. (4)<\/a> In its annual reports GMG claims that the 45,198 ha it was awarded in April 2013 is a freehold. (5)<\/a> Yet, Greenpeace understands that Cameroonian law does not provide for freehold allotment of national lands, and then wonders why GMG uses this term in an official publication. (6)<\/a><\/p>\n

The opacity and questionable legality of the Sudcam project \u2013 by far the Congo Basin\u2019s most devastating new clearing of forest for agriculture \u2013 has been encouraged by donors\u2019, media\u2019s and NGOs\u2019 near total indifference to it. (7)<\/a>\u00a0Yet this has apparently not stopped the French publicly funded research institute Centre International en Recherche Agronomique pour le D\u00e9veloppement (CIRAD) from providing technical advice to the plantation, as part of what GMG’s CEO calls a \u201clong-term collaboration\u201d. (8)<\/a>\u00a0(The current CEO of GMG International SA, CEO of Sudcam from 2010 to 2014, is French.) And, for its part, the European Union Delegation in Cameroon has been a key cheerleader: in an official June 2013 report the EU-financed Independent Observer of Forestry Control recommended that the company continue clearing 11,300 ha (on land it is likely illegally occupying). (9)<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Greenpeace also deplores the unbelievably racist and neocolonial language used by Sinochem to describe its project in Cameroon. In one English language release, published under the heading \u201cEmployee’s Stories\u201d, one can read:<\/p>\n

\u201cLocal staff felt inspired to work hard with their Chinese partners as a united team for a shared goal. This was really in great contrast to the casual working attitude widely seen in Cameroon, a country that mainly depends on the mercy of nature for living.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The author describes the project area as a \u201cwasteland overgrown with weeds\u201d, adding:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn spite of shortage in machines and staff, the former barren scenes were quickly taken over by lush and endless nursery garden of rubber seedlings lined in great order after more than one year of painstaking efforts by such pioneers. Such extraordinary development speed totally astonished and convinced Cameroon government. \u201cOnly your pioneering squad from China could create such a magic \u2013 to blaze a road of hope among the bleak wilds.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The border of the Dja Reserve is certainly not an overgrown wasteland, but a forest of major biodiversity and the traditional land of local communities. Rainforest Foundation UK has been conducting participatory mapping with local communities<\/a> inside and around the rubber concession. Cameroonians depend on the land and forest Sudcam is converting to industrial rubber for fishing, hunting, gathering, and farming. According to Rainforest Foundation UK\u00a0\u201c[The] communities have decried very poor or non-existent consultation by the company, the subsequent clearing of thousands of hectares of forest and demolishing of settlements, graves and farms. Communities say there has been wholly inadequate compensation, provisions to protect their livelihood, and no benefits from the plantations.<\/em><\/p>\n

On 14 July 2016, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee was asked to vote on a draft decision to inscribe the Dja on the List of World Heritage in Danger. (10)<\/a> \u00a0Unfortunately, only Finland voted in favor while all other delegations opposed the measure. You can click here<\/a> to watch the \u201cdebate.\u201d (11)\u00a0<\/p>\n

As in many other cases of agribusiness development in the Congo Basin, land acquisition for the Sudcam plantation is surrounded by opacity. Key information about the project, such as the full set of concession limits, land rent paid, ownership information, effective investment realized so far are not in the public domain, making it hard for anyone to assess legality and impacts and hold government and companies accountable.<\/p>\n

Greenpeace calls upon the Cameroonian government to suspend Sudcam’s lease agreements until clear preconditions and modalities are established, including adequate planning for participatory national land use planning and a due, transparent process to ensure free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of the local communities. Sudcam should immediately halt the conversion of forests inside its concessions and conduct a new environmental impact assessment.<\/p>\n

In the absence of transparency from the authorities and the company, Greenpeace is publishing a series of documents concerning Sudcam which should be in the public domain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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  1. Establishment Convention between the Cameroon Government and Sud Cameroun H\u00e9v\u00e9a<\/a>;<\/li>\n
  2. Sudcam\u2019s Environmental Impact Assessment<\/a>;<\/li>\n
  3. Sudcam\u2019s provisional land lease of 2008<\/a>;<\/li>\n
  4. Sudcam\u2019s freehold land concession of 2013<\/a>;<\/li>\n
  5. Sudcam\u2019s second provisional land lease of 2015<\/a>;\u00a0<\/li>\n
  6. Miscellaneous documents related to Sudcam\u2019s activities:\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n