Palm oil corporations Wilmar International and BIDICO, along with the Ugandan Government and the World Bank, have funded huge palm oil expansion on islands off the coast of Lake Victoria.
A quarter of the islands have already been planted with oil palm. Most of this land belonged to local communities and indigenous peoples.
This is John Muyisa from the island of Kalangala, Uganda. John woke up one day to find bulldozers clearing his land to plant oil palms. John and his community have preserved their forests and lands for generations. They can no longer access their fields, wells, firewood and grazing land. Forests are being destroyed, and pesticides used on the plantations are creating health hazards.
With just one hectare left to make a living, John and his community are now fighting for the right to their land. Support John. Take action with Friends of the Earth International, and send a letter to stop land grabbing in Uganda!
In Europe, our demand for commodity crops like palm oil is rising, driving land grabs like this one in Kalangala, Uganda.
Imports of palm oil have more than doubled in the last decade, and our consumption of vegetable oils almost doubled. EU targets for agrofuels to fuel our cars is one of the main policies pushing up these imports. European countries plan to double our use of agrofuels by 2020, to fulfil 8.5% of transport energy. This will only cause more land grabs and the destruction of nature around the world.
Europe must scrap targets to increase biofuels in Europe, and introduce full carbon accounting for our agrofuels to take account of deforestation indirectly caused by our growing use of agrofuels.
