Blayah” Town” Grand Bassa County Palm Oil concession companies are sprouting up in Liberia but the issue of land and expansion has become a sticky one for all concerned. The expansion effort of the Equatorial Palm Oil Company to resurvey over 35″000 hectares of land caused upset for the local inhabitants last year.

Dialogue Taken to Sirleaf's Doorsteps

In a village where they hardly see police cars all year round” Family Kpokoui was shocked by the sound of sirens in her Town one fateful night. The night the police entered Taloe's Town (name of one of the affected towns) located in Grand Bassa County” located 160 kilometers southeast of Monrovia” on September 2″ 2013″ reminded her of the war days when rebels ruled the interior and the people were subject to them.

“I heard the sound of sirens and it was loud and became afraid because we do not hear that normally. It was like some war was about to start”” she told FrontPageAfrica.

“The light was blinking on top of the cars and we were afraid. I took my baby and put him on my back and we ran off into the bush. It was dark” we didn't have any light” I almost fell in the hole.”

Kpokuoi is among many citizens of at least thirteen villages” each inhabited by at least 700 persons according to local authorities” who fear being forcibly evicted to give way for the expansion of the Equatorial Palm Oil Concession expansion.

The Liberian government through the 2008 50-year concession agreement gave the palm plantation go-ahead to resurvey 34″ 398 hectares of land and provided full police protection without prior consultations with the locals when the survey commenced.

'It's our father's land'

Robert Behn 63″ an elder and a farmer of Qwakpojilan one of the affected towns in Grand Bassa County who has been growing rubber” cocoa and pineapple said the villages are not willing to give up ancestral lands to the palm oil plantation because past concessions have not benefitted them.

“They want extension from Palm Bay to go to Tingbo River (EPO has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the River Cess County” district and tribal officials also explore and farm on a minimum of 80″000 hectares of oil palms on land provided from local communities and the Tingbo river is the border between Grand Bassa and River Cess County)” but we said no” enough is enough”” he said.

The tension between locals and the company” which lasted for weeks” later calmed because a local right campaigner Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) offered to represent the locals at the level of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).

SDI urged EPO to cease conducting the survey of customary community land in Jogbahn Clan” District #4″ Grand Bassa County pending resolution of complaints by citizens to the RSPO.

Sitting in town hall meetings with the elders” men” women and children of the villages” they all expressed one thing in common that they did not want EPO to expand any further and any attempt by the government to force the survey would meet stiff resistance.

Surveyors attempted on September 16″ 2013 to map out the vast green canopy” but faced resistance as the locals stopped them. Not deterred they came back” a move that led to skirmishes.

The EPO concession agreement” which was ratified in 2008″ has come under intense scrutiny because it seeks to expand to a total of 34″ 398 hectares of land. The company seeking to process up to five tons of oil palm fruits per hour said it has not been given a chance to explain its policies to the people of the area.

Organized tension

Senior Assistant Plantation Manager” David Woah in an interview with FrontPageAfrica last year during the height of the tension claimed that the locals have been organized by some groups to resist the survey” even though he did not name those groups.

The company established in 2005 is a UK publicly listed crude palm oil company and its plantations include the former Palmbay plantation that seized operations due to the Liberian civil war” located near the deep-water port of Buchanan” 160 kilometers” southeast of Monrovia and 25 kilometers from the Buchanan port.

Many are of the opinion that if the government does not handle the current expansion plans properly” there would be continued tensions between the local communities and the company. Simeon Freeman an opposition politician told IPS that the government must act properly to save the people in the area from being dislocated.

“We have to be able to come up with a functional local policy” the sooner we do this the better. I don't think our public officials understand this”” said Freeman.

Freeman says the government wants to repeat the bad policies of previous governments which failed to consult the people before awarding ancestral land to companies” something he says will lead Liberia in another saga of violence that will be even more disastrous.

“The way it happens is that if they give one million acres of land” every town within that area is dislodged; it becomes a corporate property and you are compelled to work for the corporation because you are not going to have much land to farm”” he said.

Will the government listen?

The SDI urged the government then to listen to the concerns of the people who live in these communities that are being targeted for resurvey and do the right thing in the interest of the people who live in the area instead of a company which plans to cultivate 5″000 hectares of land per year for oil palm production.

“The Government of Liberia knows there is a problem in this concession” but is refusing to heed the wishes of its own citizens by stopping the land survey and acknowledging that these communities have the right to make decisions about their own land”” says Silas Siakor” Campaigner” SDI.

The United Nations Special Representative to Liberia Karen Langren told the United Nations Security Council that the Liberian government is aware of the potential risk of new conflict that could result from any improper handling of either land rights or the management of Liberia's natural resources.

“We know that implementation of concession agreements has been a significant source of tension”” she said. On Wednesday” March 5″ 2014″ President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf met with aggrieved persons from the affected concession areas.

Time to include women

A Monrovia Rally on International Women's Day also looks to President Sirleaf at a Conference that brings Central and West African leaders together” to support the rights of Liberia's women as it relates to land issues.

The commemoration on March 8″ 2014″ (African Women's Network for Community Management of Forests (REFACOF)” the Foundation for Community Initiatives” and the Rights and Resources Initiative will hold the Third Regional Workshop on Gender” Climate Change” Land and Forest Tenures in Africa in Monrovia. This conference will bring together more than 50 participants from 16 African countries along with donors” development partners” and issue experts.

The conference will bring together women from across Liberia and Gender Minister Julia Duncan-Cassell” will host Cecile Ndjebet” President” REFACOF) (Cameroon)” Julie T. B. Weah” Executive Director” Foundation for Community Initiatives (FCI) (Liberia) and Solange Bandiaky-Badji” Africa Regional Director” Rights and Resources Initiative.

In Liberia” as in most Central and West African countries” Indigenous Peoples and local communities do not own the land and forests on which they have lived and cultivated for generations.

But as the country moves towards adopting a new policy on land ownership” activists are pushing for the inclusion of women in a process that would rather push for respecting the tenure rights of the people who live on the land in question. Customary traditions do not recognize the right of women as it relates to land governance and as currently written” Liberia's proposed land reform policy has no safeguards for women.

With over 150 women from across the Liberian countryside attending the celebrations” many will be looking to see President Sirleaf” President Sirleaf reaffirms an unprecedented promise to Liberian women” she made last year stating that “Women will have the full right to own their land like anyone else.”