In November 2021, in an ostensible attempt to reduce the UK’s outsize contribution to global deforestation, the government included a section on “forest risk commodities” in the country’s new Environment Act. Think beef and leather, soy, palm oil, coffee, cocoa, rubber. . . that sort of thing. Just a few days previously, the UK had brokered a global agreement - the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use - to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030.
But more than three years later, the secondary legislation required to enact the “forest risk commodities” section of the Environment Act has still not been introduced. That is despite frequent statements from the outgoing Conservative administration that the secondary legislation was “imminent”, and the new Labour government apparently determined to show “climate leadership” globally and tackle the planet’s “nature emergency.” At the United Nations climate change conference held in Azerbaijan - “COP29” - late last year Foreign Secretary David Lammy committed funds to combating deforestation, ensuring the protection of indigenous and other forest-dwelling peoples’s rights, and partnering with “Global South” governments, but made no mention at all of the UK introducing its own regulations.
In recent months various civil society actors have been urging, both publicly and privately, the UK to take action on this. For example, in late October the NGO Mighty Earth released a report connecting Brazilian deforestation to British supermarkets and calling for a “robust UK environment law to end soy-driven deforestation feeding [the] chicken sector”, with a particular focus on improving supply-chain due diligence and traceability. The following month, the NGO Environmental Investigation Agency published a briefing also urging the UK to “develop robust secondary regulations for forest risk commodities under the Environment Act” and specifically calling for “full traceability” too, among other things.
In addition, in late November a delegation of leaders and community activists from Colombia, Indonesia, Liberia and Peru visited the UK and met civil servants at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA). Here one of those Colombians - whose name has been withheld for security reasons - explains what has been going on in the region where he/she lives, how the DEFRA meeting went, and what he/she wants the UK to do:
DH: It would be good to start by orienting ourselves with a basic question about geography. What part of Colombia are you from?
Anonymous interviewee (AI): Montes de María, on Colombia’s Caribbean coast.
DH: In the north of the country. What has been happening there that explains why you came to the UK? Something to do with palm oil, I understand.
AI: We - Afro-descendants and campesinos - are caught in the middle of an on-going armed conflict into which have come agroindustrial companies which have participated in the systematic plunder of our land and the violation of our human rights. That led us to make a formal complaint to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil [RSPO]. That’s why we travelled to London - in order to present in person that complaint to the companies in the UK that have been buying palm oil from the Colombian company linked to land-grabbing and human rights violations. That complaint includes various allegations against one company in particular, Grupo Oleoflores, and it was that that initially prompted our trip to London. In addition, it was to make clear to members of the British parliament what has been happening in our territories and how the lack of laws and regulations binding on companies in the UK end up supporting those who are plundering our land and violating our rights. Many of the products that UK families are consuming are stained with the blood of Afro-descendants, campesinos and indigenous peoples. In the worst cases, some of those families don’t realise that what they’re eating on a daily basis has been produced as a result of paramilitary violence, land-grabbing and the assassination of human rights defenders. That’s what is in our complaint and it’s why we came to the UK - to denounce what is happening with our own voices and make British parliamentarians and families aware of what is happening.
DH: Before going into more detail about the palm oil, I think it important to get a bit more context. It's probably fair to say that many people in the UK think the armed conflict in Colombia is over, following the peace agreement between the government and the most well-known “guerilla” group, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - Ejército del Pueblo (FARC–EP) in 2016. Who is fighting in the region where you live?
AI: In my region the group operating is called the Autodefensa Gaitanistas de Colombia, commonly known as the Clan del Golfo, a paramilitary organisation founded in 2007 that - after the FARC’s demobilisation - expanded across Colombia into the majority of departments. They’ve declared themselves against the armed forces as well as the guerrilla groups or cells that continue to exist. Over the years, it should be emphasised, there have been multiple massacres in this region.
DH: So in the middle of all this certain companies are producing and buying palm oil. When did the first oil palm plantations arrive in Montes de María?
AI: The first plantations date back to 1998/1999.
DH: The NGO Forest Peoples Programme (FPP) - which co-submitted your RSPO complaint - summarises the allegations against Oleoflores like this: “territorial expropriation, land grabbing, deforestation, water dispossession and the illegal privatisation of communal resources and community rights of way,” as well as “violent behaviour, criminalisation and intimidation.” You mentioned that UK companies - or at least companies operating in the UK - have been buying some of the palm oil produced as a result of those alleged horrors. How do you know that?
AI: Because in 2018 research was begun with FPP to establish what are and what have been the impacts on local communities, which enabled us to learn who exactly Oleoflores’s owners are, to trace their supply-chains, and to discover who in the UK and EU have been buying from them. That research took six years and drew on academic papers, publications by the company itself and complaints made by local communities, as well as other kinds of documents that were already public. As a result, we’ve been able to understand who their buyers are and document how the owners and subsidiaries of the company have applied legal and political pressure against local communities when they’ve spoken out. Our complaint to the RSPO has approximately 140 annexes. It shows, clearly and precisely, how the company has violated human rights and is connected to land-grabbing. In addition to all that, many NGOs - as well as journalists working for local, national and international media - have helped with making our findings public. That has sometimes been difficult, given that the state agencies themselves have been coopted by the company. Pulling together all that material - some of it written, some oral, some involving mapping - has been an arduous process!
DH: Can you give us an example of a UK company - or at least a company operating in the UK - that has been buying some of this palm oil?
AI: Unilever, Cargill, Reckitt Benckiser. From/in other countries: Nestlé, Bunge, Louis Dreyfus, Kelloggs, Colgate-Palmolive. We know this from RSPO and Palm Oil Watch records, which demonstrate links between these buyers, Oleoflores and their affiliates and suppliers in María la Baja.
DH: I understand that, when you came to the UK, you and others met with DEFRA. How did that go? What was their reaction when you told them about the abuses?
AI: It left a real impression on them. I think they still had the idea that the palm oil in the UK and EU that comes from Colombia is “clean” or “sustainable”, but that would be a lie. The DEFRA people were able to meet us in person and hear from us directly about the abuses that the larger companies in the UK are connected to. Their reaction was one of shock and surprise. They were also interested in the points we raised about international development financing that the UK is spending on supporting the cultivation of certain crops and industries - given that it has been proven that Oleofores has received, for example, funding from the EU in particular for its plantations. That sort of thing is not only going on in Colombia. There was someone with us from Indonesia who denounced how British banks and companies are directly linked to deforestation, land-grabbing and the persecution and criminalisation of community leaders and human rights defenders.
DH: Ultimately, what would you like the UK government to do?
AI: One, within the context of the intention to implement a deforestation law, that the palm oil industry is acknowledged as a main driver of deforestation. Two, that mechanisms are created that allow the UK government to effectively monitor companies that have violated - and continue to violate - human rights, given the way we’ve seen companies behave when they try to distance themselves from violations simply by selling their assets or participation in certain projects. Three, that the UK government requires companies to be transparent about their supply-chains so that traceability is possible and human rights violations can’t continue. Four, that UK legislation guarantees respect for the customary land tenure rights of indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples, and other traditional rural communities.
DH: Final question. I understand that, as a result of your work on these issues, you’ve received death threats. Is that correct?
AI: Yes. Those death threats have come about as a result of my work as a human rights defender researching in-depth the behaviour of the company doing the land-grabbing, which includes appropriating public lands traditionally and collectively used by Afro-descendant and campesino communities. In addition, we’ve exposed how the company and its representatives, suppliers and subsidiaries have persecuted via legal means other human rights defenders when they’ve demanded their rights to access and use water. Ever since their arrival, the use of water has been prioritised for the oil palm plantations - rather than for the communities that for many years have lived there.
DH: Thank you very much.