US investment company, Herakles Farms and its Cameroon subsidiary SGSOC wants to build a plantation in the heart of Africa's rainforests. This plan has been condemned by scientists worldwide as the area is a hotspot for African biodiversity.
The area is home to 3 endangered primates including the Drill, a cousin of the Mandrill, the Nigeria Cameroon Chimpanzee and the Preuss' Red Colobus. These special primates are found nowhere else in the world. If this plantation is allowed to go ahead, it will undoubtedly impact the survival of these primates.
Save International Conservation Fund, together with our partner in Cameroon have argued successfully to the RSPO to stop its certification of the plantation. Now, the companies have given up on certification on the RSPO and intend to go ahead and build this plantation even though they do not have a Presidential decree from Cameroon to proceed.
We are asking GRASP UNEP, as the leading body at the United Nations for the preservation of great apes, to intervene and ask the Cameroon government to stop this plantation!
GRASP UNEP. Please save Korup National Park and its endemic primates from a proposed palm oil plantation in the heart of Africa’s rainforests.
We are friends and supporters of social and environmental organisation Struggle to Economize Future Environment( SEFE ) and Save Wildlife Conservation Fund, Germany.
We are writing to you today to beg the intervention of GRASP-UNEP against a proposed palm oil plantation by Herakles Farms and its Cameroonian subsididary, SGSOC .The location of the proposed plantation is in the middle of 2 national parks on the eastern side and 2 protected forest reserves on the Western side. Multi year studies conducted by reknowned international scientists including Dr. Josh Linder on the region have identified it as a hotspot for African biodiversity. Studies by Dr Josh Linder have shown that this area is home to endemic primate species including the Drill, the Preuss’ Red Colobus and the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee.
Other international studies on the impact of industrial activity close to protected forest habitats have consistently shown that their effects reach far beyond the typical buffer zones. The construction of roads that is needed to service massive industrial plantations such as this one will further fragment existing habitats for wildlife in the region.
SEFE has successfully sued and obtain a stoppage on all construction until all issues regarding the environmental and human rights have been resolved. Up to this point, the only thing that was truly holding back further deforestation has been the plantation’s attempt to have this proposed plantation certified as sustainable by the Roundtable On Sustainable Palm Oil. We have learnt today that Herakles Farms has walked away from its membership at the RSPO as the company wants to proceed with the plantation without any sustainability restraints.
This has left us with no option but to appeal to higher powers at the United Nations to intervene and stop this proposed plantation. For the sake of the endemic primates of Korup National Park and surrounding forest reserves, please ask the Cameroon government to relocate this project to an area that will not have such a devastating affect on global biodiversity.
