Planet

Palm oil, Philippines report

March 27, 2018

Abuse and devastation in the Philippines at the hands of ‘palmocrats’. Dario Novellino’s report, interviewed by Dario Dongo

The investigation into the

palm oil

, to the roots of evil. After analyses of Indonesia and Malaysia, whose territories alone express 85 percent of global production, (1) we now look at the Philippines. Thanks to the testimony of a friend, Dario Novellino, an Italian anthropologist who has dedicated his commitments to supporting indigenous peoples, in the fight against the land grabbing, the land robbery.

An Italian activist alongside the indigenous peoples of Palawan. Dario, how does this story begin?

In 1986

, at the age of 23, I was traveling and documenting as a

freelancer

the lives and issues of various indigenous groups, especially in Southeast Asia. Then, having arrived at Palawan, in the Philippines, I was enchanted by the pristine beauty of those places and began living with very isolated tribes learning their language, hunting and gathering practices, and shamanic rituals. After about a year I became a ‘blood brother’ of Timbay, an indigenous Batak. They are a group of nomadic farmers and hunter-gatherers on the verge of demographic and cultural extinction (fewer than 300 remain today!)..

My connection

with the indigenous Batak people

, thanks to Timbay, allowed me to be fully accepted within their group. Later, when the logging companies began to penetrate those thousand-year-old forests, I was faced with an unthinkable choice: stay there or return to my country. I obviously chose the first option and, using all the tools at my disposal, I began organizing the Batak community, teaching them legal defense tools they were unaware existed, such as preparing a simple petition to send to the government, requesting the cancellation of timber concessions in their territories.

After several months of hard work, the Department of Forestry granted our requests, revoking the timber company’s permit. That forest was spared and that was the first victory! However, for stepping on the toes of very influential businessmen, I soon became ‘persona non grata,’ which forced me to return to Europe in search of an academic identity’ that would allow me, later, to return to Palawan in the guise of a researcher. Today, my PhD in environmental anthropology from the University of Kent (UK) allows me to express a more authoritative voice, especially in dialogue with institutions. However, I never pursued an academic career, and I continue to support the peaceful resistance of the indigenous peoples of Palawan against the senseless exploitation of their territories.

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Coalition Against Land Grabbing (CALG), where and when is it born?

A few years ago I began traversing the southern island of Palawan far and wide, together with a group of indigenous volunteers, a computer powered by a car battery, a small projector and a screen. We showed, in every village we encountered on our way, small films about the environmental and social impact of mining and monocultures of the oil palm. We carried with us the audiovisual testimonies of other indigenous communities who had already lost much of their territories and natural resources. Then in the evening I would edit those films in the forest, adding the newly collected testimonies, until I created an absolutely co-participated product. A truly effective tool that made many indigenous people aware of what could befall them as well in a matter of months or weeks.

Some of the people we met on the way joined us, and a bond of true brotherhood was born with them, as well as the idea of forming a legally recognized indigenous association that would counter the advance of oil palm monocultures. Thus was born the Coalition Against Land Robbery (

Coalition against Land Grabbing

, CALG

) which currently provides para-legal assistance to indigenous communities, helping them defend their rights and demarcate ancestral territories.

On 9/29/2014, we submitted a petition to the Philippine government., signed by 4,200 members of communities besieged by plantations, calling for a moratorium on any future expansion of oil palm plantations. At the international level, in collaboration with the organization

Rainforest Rescue

we have collected online

over 170,000 signatures, to stop the advance of monocultures in Palawan

. However, the government’s answers and assurances to date are vague and insufficient.

What is the situation with palm oil in the Philippines, how has it evolved in recent years?

The expansion of oil palm monoculture in the Philippines must be framed in an extremely fragile ecological context. Suffice it to say that only 5 percent of the country’s surface area benefits from some form of legal protection, while-according to the FAO-already in 2005 just over 11 percent of the country was still covered by primary forest. Palawan is considered the last ecological frontier and therefore became a UNESCO ‘Biosphere Reserve’ in 1990. Currently about 60,000 hectares have been converted to oil palm plantations, mainly in Mindanao

and Palawan

.

The Philippine government aspires to meet domestic demand for palm oil (20 million tons per year), with the additional ambition of becoming one of Southeast Asia’s leading exporters. In live competition with Malaysia e Indonesia, whose plantations already cover an area five times the size of Switzerland, up to 85-90 percent of global palm oil production, more than 55 million tons. There is a free trade agreement-signed by Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines-that provides for the expansion of industrial trade and the exploitation of natural resources in the respective signatory countries, with almost no protocols in place to protect the environment and people.

The so-called BIMP-EAGA

–

the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area.

– is making Palawan increasingly vulnerable to the entry of foreign investors, especially in the oil palm sector.

The policies of President

Rodrigo Duterte

, as far as the agricultural industry is concerned, do not differ from those of Benigno Aquiño, his predecessor. The Aquiño administration had proposed the expansion of oil palm cultivation on about one million hectares, particularly in Palawan and Mindanao. Similarly, Duterte approved the additional conversion of 128,000 hectares in Agusan del Sur (Mindanao), while also signing an agreement with Malaysia that includes $200 million in oil palm investment.

In Palawan since as early as 2006

two jointly owned palm oil producing companies have been operating in tandem, the

Agumil Philippines Inc.

. (75% controlled by Filipinos, with 25% Malaysian participation) and PPVOMI (Palawan Palm and Vegetable Oil Mills Inc.., 60% controlled by a Singaporean group, with the remaining 40% in Filipino hands). They are joined by other groups active in agribusiness such as San Andres, and the newest addition Alif, a large trading group with regional offices in the Middle East, Bangladesh, India, the U.S. and a subsidiary in Malaysia. The environmental and community rights violations committed by Agumil and San Adres are well known and extensively documented by CALG.

What is of most concern is Duterte’s recent decision to open to the Corporation ancestral indigenous territories, sacrificing traditional subsistence economies and food sovereignty of local peoples in favor of environmentally high-impact projects, such as oil palm monocultures. ‘With the promise of jobs they want to steal our land, our resources, our future. What the president should do instead is to enhance our subsistence economy that does not devastate the environment but protects it, preserving the varieties of cultivated plants that resist climate change better and ensure, since time immemorial, a steady livelihood for our families’

, explains.

John Mart Salunday of the Tagbanua ethnic group and founding member of CALG.

Duterte’s ambition of wanting ‘developing indigenous territories‘ is in opposition to the mandate of the National Commission on Indigenous Populations (NCIP)., the government agency responsible for implementing a 1997 presidential decree (The Indigenous People’s Rights Act), better known as ‘IPRA law‘. This law in fact recognizes, protects and promotes the rights of Native communities. But Duterte has called for drastically cutting the

budget

government budget available to NCIP, as well as that allocated for the Philippine Commission on Human Rights

.

In addition to believing that plantations of oil palm constitute a driving force for the rural economy, the President believes that the entry of the Corporation represents the best deterrent against communist guerrillas (New’s People Army) that, for nearly half a century, has been rampant in the country. ‘Duterte wants to deploy soldiers inland to defend the Corporation’s infrastructure and investments. Militarization of our territories will only bring new human rights violations’, Salunday states. Jerome Aba of the organization is of the same opinion.

Sandugo

, according to which ‘

at least 30 indigenous people have already been killed since the beginning of Duterte’s regime in an attempt to defend their lands from the Corporation’.

If laws to protect indigenous people exist, why is it so difficult to implement them?

In addition to the IPRA law

(

Indigenous People’s Rights Act

), the Philippines has other basic laws that protect the environment. Suffice it to say that Palawan’s preservation is entrusted to a very complex environmental management plan, the ‘

Strategic Environmental Plan (SEP)

‘

which has received significant support – including financial support – from the European Union. The Plan was incorporated into a special law (Republic Act 7611) and its implementation was entrusted to the government agency ‘The Palawan Council for Sustainable Development‘ (PCSD). This law requires that all projects with environmental impacts must obtain a preliminary permit, called ‘SEP Clearance‘, before proceeding to their implementation. It therefore leaves one stunned by the observation that at the Corporation of oil palm was instead allowed to operate without the aforementioned permit. The only ‘

SEP Clearance

‘ issued to the palm magnates covers an area of only 13 hectares-which includes infrastructure for palm oil extraction and a nursery-while the area converted to plantations now exceeds 9,000 hectares!

President Duterte, elected in 2016, had announced that he wanted to reform the Constitution in a federalist direction to remove power from the political dynasties of the so-called ‘‘Imperial Manila’, but is in fact selling out the country to the Corporation foreigners, such as those of Malaysian ‘palmocrats’. And it is clear how it is not the law that controls policy, but the exact opposite. Powerful families and influential businessmen systematically cripple the implementation of laws to protect the environment and the weaker classes. The succession of six different presidents-since the fall of dictator Marcos in 1986-has failed to pull the country out of socio-political stagnation. The entire electoral system is totally controlled by oligarchies fighting to grab the last natural resources, undermining the future of millions of Filipinos.

Complicating matters is an inefficient and opaque legal system incapable of ensuring credible and transparent administrative and judicial procedures. CALG reported the

Corporation

of oil palm on a variety of occasions, but court cases proceed very slowly, legal fees become unaffordable, and trials tend to end without any convictions toward those, like Agumil, who have committed environmental crimes.

What does ‘palm’ mean for the environment, indigenous communities and small farmers?

The cultivation of oil palm

involves the systematic removal of pre-existing vegetation and consequently also the animals that reside there

.

The natural landscape of southern Palawan has been fragmented, monoculture areas alternating with areas of primary and secondary forest interrupting the natural corridors that various species need to move from one ecological niche to another. The impact on the river and marine ecosystem is equally serious; every ton of refined oil corresponds to at least 2.5 tons of sewage, much of which is discharged into the rivers, which, reaching the sea, contaminates coral reefs and coastal environments (mangrove forests, etc.).

Also disappearing are wild plant species

– such as rattan, bamboo, Licuala palms

and Coripha

, which indigenous people employ for both domestic and work purposes (hut roof construction, medicinal plants and many other uses). The entire cultural repertoire is threatened. Emblematic is the case of the Palawan community of Sarong, whose forest has been entirely destroyed by oil palm companies. Today, indigenous people not only can no longer find plants to heal themselves with, but not even plants to build ritual and everyday objects.

Equally dramatic is the disappearance of animal-prey of hunters, such as wild boar, and the drastic reduction in wild honey caused by the collapse of the bee population. In addition, plantations also replace fields planted by natives, causing the loss of local varieties. Suffice it to say that, in Palawan, indigenous people have selected over 70 varieties of upland rice, and many of these are now unobtainable. Rice, according to indigenous people, has ”

‘a human nature

‘, is an integral part of their foundation myths and occupies a primary role in many shamanic rituals and rites.

Some indigenous families, despite the invasion of palm companies, have not abandoned their land and try to resist the threats. But when cultivated fields are encircled by plantations they soon become unproductive, encouraging the reproduction of some pest species. ‘Ever since they planted oil palm our fields have been infested with rats destroying crops’, says Sweede Taiban community elder from Palawan’s Iraray II. ‘Insects we have never seen before are ravaging our coconut palms. Copra (dried coconut for oil extraction) production has declined by 50 percent and thousands of coconut palms have died. We no longer know how to feed our children’, Taiban adds. Le Corporation, for their part, deny that there is a causal relationship between infestations of Brontispa longissima, red weevil (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus) and oil palms.

The farmers are not doing any better. and owners of small plots, grouped into agricultural cooperatives, who were made to sign bogus agreements by the palm companies. Contracts in English, which local farmers do not understand, of a completely different meaning than what they were promised. ‘Agumil told us that the Agricultural Bank of the Philippines(Land Bank) would finance the conversion of our land to oil palm 80% and that we would have to pay for the remaining 20%. Having no funds to invest, Agumil decided to cover our 20 percent herself, without telling us that this was also a loan at an interest rate of

14%

cumulative’,

tells Manong Benjamin of the village of Calasaguen (Municipality of Brooke’s Point). Who adds ‘we were told that after the first palm date harvest we would have enough money to buy a motorcycle and within a year, a ‘Pajero’. Today we are in debt up to our necks with both Agumil and Land Bank and we don’t even have wood for cooking’.

Desperation and poverty

have led some farmers, like Nestor Madumay in Aborlan Municipality, to resort to the extreme remedy of cutting down and uprooting oil palms from their land, facing all possible retaliation from Agumil. ‘

We tried to kill them by making a hole in the stem to burn the pith, but the palms did not dry up. Even cutting them is not easy because the inner stem is oily, and therefore pasty, and blocks the chainsaw blade. Using the axe requires strength and a lot of time. In the end we desisted’, Madumay tells. Another thing that worries many farmers is the future conversion of the plantations to arable land, when-after about 25 to 30 years-the palms will have completed their production cycle and companies may abandon the plantations. Indeed, many companies are better off acquiring new land to grow palm than reclaiming land that is already under intensive cultivation and now depleted after nearly three decades of constant use of agrotoxics (pesticides and fertilizers). In addition, the root system of the oil palm is very invasive and colonizes both the superficial and deeper layers of soil. Certainly root removal will require mechanical means, which small farmers lack. It is therefore plausible to assume that, due to the inability to reclaim fields now subject to oil palm cultivation, many farmers will be forced to leave the countryside in the future.

In such a difficult context, do you think the battle for Palawan can be won sooner or later?

To paraphrase Edmundo Aray

, Venezuelan poet and storyteller, ‘

battles are not lost, they are always won.

‘. However, I am not optimistic; on the contrary, I often feel a deep sense of sadness and feel almost like a ‘war veteran,’ when I return to the places where I lived and find no trace of the environments and those people, the cries of the children diving into the crystal-clear waters of the rivers, the shamanic chants, the village life. All swallowed up into thin air, only to achieve an extra half-notch on the GDP scale!

There is no doubt, in the Philippines

we are witnessing a progressive

democratic drift that is ill-matched with environmental preservation and the protection of the dir

itts of natives and peasants. There are many challenges ahead, and the final battle will have to be played out simultaneously on various fronts, global, national and local. It will be necessary to create a synergy of purpose and constant coordination between those working in the field and those who have direct contact with policy makers and international institutions. That is why in January 2018, thanks to the support of one of France’s largest trade unions (

Confédération française démocratique du travail.

, CFDT),

we went to Paris with some CALG members to expose the problem to both consumers and the industries that buy the fateful tropical fat. As well as members of the government and international organizations. (2)

The only hope of salvation – for Palawan and other green heritages of mankind, which are being devoured at the rate of 1-2 million hectares per year – is a drastic cut in global demand for ‘palm oil’. Keep in mind that palm oil is not only used in food and cosmetics, but also in the production of so-called ‘biodiesel‘ and now constitutes 17 percent of all agrofuels placed on the global market, with 1/3 of total production going to Europe. It should also be mentioned that Italy’s partly state-owned ENI produces biodiesel from palm oil in Marghera (VE) and has invested 200 million euros to convert this oil refinery into green refinery. The conversion of another oil refinery in green refinery, in Gela, is now nearing completion. Raw materials will come from food production waste, such as waste oil (UCO,

used cooking oil

), animal fats (

tallow

) but also by-products related to palm oil processing (PFAD). Serious environmentalists explain, however, that PFAD, although a by-product, has significant market value. Therefore, it should not be used as a pretext, by ENI and other ‘greened’ oilmen, to justify hypothetical commitments to reduce palm oil consumption. The Italian Parliament had introduced a bill to ban the use of PFADs in the past legislature, (3) which, as was easy to predict, was not followed up. Europe in turn is still unable to land responsible and shared policy choices on the ‘palm oil’ issue, (4) and is far from a radical change in its energy policies.