[Posted on behalf of José Tavares]
“You are certainly aware that an oil palm plantation is the tropical equivalent of a corn field – almost zero biodiversity?” Norbert’s directness in the long meeting with the Dutch manager of a Belgian-French palm oil multinational active in São Tomé could be seen as being too pushy, but the exchange had been really open and honest until now. “Your investment plan is late, you will not be able to reach the 5,000 hectare objective you set yourself – have you considered packing your bags and leaving?” I asked next.
Don’t worry - the palm oil big business still paid for lunch. We left the pleasant meal, in an esplanade overlooking the sultry bay, alive and having had productive conversations.
The business of Agripalma (the joint venture between Socfinco and the São Tomé Government) has been at the forefront of our meetings here. Agripalma has a 5,000 hectare concession from the Government to plant oil palm – the problem is that most of it requires cutting secondary forest, and a significant area of this is next to the core areas for the dwarf ibis. Unfortunately operations were not checked or evaluated when they started in 2010, and so a key area of forest has already been clear-cut.
Last year the São Tomé government got their act together and now operations are closely scrutinised, and one of the main objectives of our meetings here with the ministry officials is to get political commitment that any future requests to cut areas of forest where ibis live will be refused! The situation is complicated – Agripalma has a legal concession in their hands, and they will certainly ask for compensation. Land swapping is a possibility, that is, if it exists - there are forest communities across the island, and it may not be easy to find suitable plots with the right mix of climate, slope and land-use. But we need to try. As we repeatedly say to everybody, extinction is forever. And we will be blamed for it. Tomorrow we meet the minister of natural resources and public works himself. Extinction is forever, we will surely repeat there.
José Pedro Tavares