Ugandan farmers kicked off their land for New Forests Company's carbon project | redd-monitor.org

Ugandan farmers kicked off their land for New Forests Company's carbon project | redd-monitor.org: A report released yesterday by Oxfam International documents how more than 22,000 people in Uganda were evicted to make way for a carbon offset tree plantation established by a London-based firm called New Forests Company. While this is not a REDD project, it provides an early warning of how “standards” and “safeguards” can be willfully ignored.

New Forests Company (NFC) was formed in 2004. The company now has projects covering a total of 90,000 hectares in Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique and Rwanda. Investors in the company include the Agri-Vie Agribusiness Fund, which in turn is backed by the World Bank’s private sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation and the European Investment Bank. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) owns about 20% of NFC and has a seat on its board. These investors have social and environmental standards to which NFC should comply.

Oxfam’s report, “The New Forests Company and its Uganda Plantations”, can be downloaded here (pdf file 208.7 KB). The story has been reported in The Guardian, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and on AlJazeera.

'Nuff said.

The devastating effects of the new colonialists

When there was a coup in Madagascar a few months ago, there was widespread condemnation of the unconstitutional actions -- from the US, from France (the former colonial power) and from the African Union, with several African countries threatening to impose sanctions. BBC NEWS | Africa | Pressure grows on Madagascar coup:

The African Union has suspended Madagascar after the army forced out the president and installed the opposition leader in his place.

Southern African leaders say they may impose sanctions on the Indian Ocean island unless legality is restored.

But as with many such stories, there is more to this one than meets the eye.

Wish you weren't here: The devastating effects of the new colonialists - Nature, Environment - The Independent:

The urban poor were angry at the price of food, which had been high since the massive rise in global prices of wheat and rice the year before. Food-price rises hit the poor worse than the rest of us because they spend up to two-thirds of their income on food. But what whipped them into action was news of a deal the government had recently signed with a giant Korean multinational, Daewoo, leasing 1.3 million hectares of farmland – an area almost half the size of Belgium and about half of all arable land on the island – to the foreign company for 99 years. Daewoo had announced plans to grow maize and palm oil there – and send all the harvests back to South Korea...

The government of President Ravalomanana became the first in the world to be toppled because of what the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization recently described as "landgrabbing". The Daewoo deal is only one of more than 100 land deals which have, over the past 12 months, seen massive tracts of cultivable farmland across the globe bought up by wealthy countries and international corporations. The phenomenon is accelerating at an alarming rate, with an area half the size of Europe's farmland targeted in just the past six months.