A legal loophole allowed palm oil companies in Ecuador to establish plantations on ancestral land that belongs to small communities. This is the first in a two-part series.
Highlights
- A legal loophole allowed palm oil companies in Ecuador to establish plantations on ancestral land that belongs to small communities.
- Residents say that agricultural chemicals and waste from plantations and palm oil processing mills is polluting the water sources on which they depend.
- In retaliation, the company that owns and operates the plantations, Energy & Palma, sued four members of the community for lost profits; in Sep.
- 2021, courts ruled in the company’s favor and ordered the four to pay $151,000 to the company.
- In 2019 Barranquilla residents organized a three-month protest during which they set up tents and camped out along the main access road to the oil palm plantation.