Why the World Bank Must End Its Support for Palm Oil in Honduras

Published on Friday, March 29, 2013 by Common Dreams

Why the World Bank Must End Its Support for Palm Oil in Honduras

by Jeff Conant

In a recent press release issued by Friends of the Earth International, we asked for cancellation of a World Bank loan to Honduran palm oil producer Grupo Dinant. Here's why:

Around the world, the palm oil industry is fast becoming recognized as a “leader” in ecological destruction and human rights abuse. Some of the companies drawing most attention are huge Indonesian and Malaysian firms, includingWilmar International and Sime Darby. Wilmar has been involved in such repeated abuses that institutional investors like the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund have dropped their stocks from its portfolio, while Sime Darby, whose abuses are equally grave, may be next on the list.

But palm oil is an equal-opportunity market that relies on cheap labor and large expanses of land to turn a profit. As such, small-ish players in small countries are just as capable as the large global firms in wreaking havoc.

Grupo Dinant in Honduras is one such company, whose track record of violence and land grabbing implicates it in some of the most serious abuses of human rights in Central America today. The company, owned by a single wealthy individual, runs a virtual terror campaign to ensure control of a large swath of land in the Lower Aguan Valley near the Caribbean coast of Honduras. I visited the area years ago, and wrote about it in 2011, when a recent surge of killings brought to light the fact that the company was actually receiving Certified Emissions Credits under the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/03/29-6