Palm oil projects destroy local livelihoods: report
More than 1.8 million acres of palm oil plantations in Myanmar’s southern Tenasserim Division do more harm than good for local Karen villagers, causing land conflict, damaging livelihoods, destroying biodiversity, and polluting the environment, according to a new report. Companies and businesspeople have taken over land that once belonged to local communities who were displaced by civil war, destroying their crop plantations for palm oil projects without compensation, according to the new report titled Green Desert, which was released by several local civil society organizations after 18 months of research. At a press conference in Yangon on January 12, representatives of the organizations and affected villagers said that companies had taken control of their land.
