MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK

The African Development Bank and the Tree Plantations Industry

Published

6 years ago

November 16, 2020

“Plantations are not forests”, members of communities from Zambezia province, in Mozambique.

In June 2019, the report “Towards Large-Scale Commercial Investment in African Forestry,”
(1) made a call to development-funding agencies, mainly from Europe, and the World Bank,
to provide aid money to a new Fund for financing 100,000 hectares of (new) industrial tree
plantations, to support the potential development of 500,000 hectares, in Eastern and
Southern Africa. This money, according to the report, would be crucial for private investors to
generate profits from the plantations. The new Fund would be headquartered in the tax
haven of Mauritius.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) and WWF Kenya produced this report with funding
from the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds. The purpose of the report is to assist the
AfDB “in evaluating and designing alternative private funding models for commercial forestry
in Africa with a view to ultimately establishing, or aiding the establishment of, a specialized
investment vehicle for commercial forestry plantations.” The report declares that the
development agencies from Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, the United
Kingdom and The Netherlands are interested.
Essentially, the report is a praise to industrial monoculture plantations. It repeats, without
providing any evidence, most of the deceiving arguments that plantations companies use in
their propagandas to cover up the impacts of this devastating industry. The report’s focus is
on outlining the possible financial instruments that would attract companies to this region and
make their investments most profitable.
The report identifies “readily available projects with the potential to establish almost 500,000
ha of new forest (sic) on about 1 million ha of landscape, not including areas that existing
companies and developers are already planning to use for own expansion. It also excludes
early stage or speculative projects.” (italics added) In particular, the report identifies “viable
plantation land” in ten countries: Angola, Republic of Congo, Ghana, Mozambique, Malawi,
South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The report further affirms that “Africa may be positioned to have the most profitable
afforestation potential worldwide.” And, then, it goes into explaining the possible investment
schemes that can make profit-oriented business and afforestation objectives (from climate or
voluntary targets) to be aligned and, thus, generate more profits for shareholders.
None of the pages in the report mention, however, not even indirectly, the overwhelming
amount of information that evidences the many negative impacts that industrial plantations
cause to communities and their environments. The report’s authors chose to ignore
plantations companies’ destruction of forests and savannahs; erosion of soils; contamination
and dry-up of water sources; overall violence inflicted on communities which include
restriction of movement, criminalization when resistance emerges, abuse, harassment and
sexual violence in particular to women and girls; destruction of livelihoods and food
sovereignty; destruction of cultural, spiritual and social fabrics within and among
neighbouring communities; few precarious and hazardous jobs; unfulfilled “social” projects or
promises made to communities; destruction of ways of living; rise in HIV/AIDS; and the list
goes on.

In front of this, on September 21, 2020, the International Day of Struggle against
Monoculture Plantations, 121 organisations from 47 countries and 730 members from
different rural communities in Mozambique that are facing industrial tree plantations,
disseminated an open letter to demand the immediate abandonment of any and every
afforestation programme based on large-scale monoculture plantations. (2)
The report, nonetheless, brags about having used a “sector-wide consultation exercise.”
For the authors, the sector includes “industry participants ranging from investors, industrial
players, and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) through to forestry fund managers
(…) To further enrich and triangulate inputs to the study, the team also participated in three
forestry industry events and consulted with a broad range of personal contacts in the sector.”
The report also mentions consultations made to Development Finance Institutions and
agencies as well as oil and other industrial companies. It is clear however how communities
living in or around the almost 500,000 hectares of land identified to be transformed into
industrial monocultures, are not considered part of the sector. Nor were considered the many
communities and groups that have been resisting for decades the plantations in the countries
the report use as examples: Tanzania, Mozambique, Ghana and Brazil. (3)
The report further sustains that the NGO Conservation International confirmed “that it sees
potential in associating large global businesses with the forestry sector.” It further mentions
WWF and The Nature Conservancy – namely, the same category of NGOs mainly concerned
on promoting programs and policies that are aligned with corporate interests as an easy way
to keep their funding, projects and investments.
The purely financial focus of this report, with an eye on how to make most profits, should not
come as a surprise though. It was prepared by a company called Acacia Sustainable
Business Advisors (4), which was set up by Martin Poulsen, a development banker active in
rising private Equity Funds particularly in Africa. Equity Funds try to offer big returns by
spreading investments across companies from different sectors. (5) One co-author of the
report was Mads Asprem, the ex-director of Green Resources, a Norwegian industrial tree
plantation and carbon offsets company. Green Resources’ tree plantations in Mozambique,
Tanzania, and Uganda have resulted in land grabs, evictions, loss of livelihoods and
increased hunger for local communities. (6)

The report also shows the possible responses that investors could have to potential
“barriers”. One “structural barrier” identified is called “stakeholder relations,” a very vague
concept that seems to be related to possible conflicts with communities living in or around
the plantation projects. The term “conflicts” however is not mentioned once in the whole
report. The recommended response to this “barrier” is to “Use AfDB or other MDB
[Multilateral Development Bank] “honest broker” profile to convene stakeholders.” So it
seems that the strategy is to use development banks to make communities believe that the
project has the intention of improving (developing) people’s lives. Another “structural barrier”
identified in the report is “land tenure challenges,” to which the recommended response is to
“Follow FSC and other best practices.” This, of course, is recommended despite the vast
amount of information that shows how, in practice, FSC certifies as “sustainable” industrial
tree plantations that destroy peoples’ livelihoods.
When the climate and development agendas blend for profit
It is relevant to underline how the report makes use of the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDG) and the need for climate change mitigation and adaptation in the African region to
promote the further expansion of industrial plantations. It goes as far as to conclude that
“Channelling financial resources to such efforts [afforestation in the framework of the SDGs]
is within the mandate of international development organizations and special climate funds.”
The report also states that “preliminary interviews yielded information that some oil
companies are already forming alliances with sustainable forestry investment companies.”
This despite the fact that oil and gas companies are a fundamental driver of climate change,
which would undermine any possible positive outcome for the climate. Besides, these
‘alliances’ also give these companies an easy way out of any responsibility for their business
operations. This is clearly exemplified with the announcement of oil giant companies, such as
Italian ENI and Anglo-Dutch Shell, to invest in mega tree plantation projects to supposedly
“compensate” their mega levels of pollution they provoke. These two companies are
responsible for environmental disasters and crimes as a result of their fossil fuel activities in
many places across the globe. (7)
The African Development Bank is complicit in this strategy. While the Bank finances this
report encouraging the expansion of industrial plantations in Africa as a climate solution, it
finances in Mozambique a new gas extraction mega-project in the Cabo Delgado province,
undertaken by a consortium of companies including ENI.
This report is one more proof of how investments from profit-seeking corporations are put in
front of the social well being of people in the name of development and now also of
addressing climate change. There is no “unused” or “degraded” land available at the scale
proposed, which means countless people in Africa will be directly and indirectly affected if
this expansion plan materialise.
Another relevant omission of the report is how it bluntly assumes that the current scarcity of
investment in large-scale tree plantations in this African region is due to the few investment
opportunities available. However, the communities and groups on the ground organizing
almost on a daily basis to oppose the seizing of their lands and lives by these plantations
companies, have clear that their resistance has been successful to halt the expansion of
these plantations in many places. And as the open letter launched on September 21st said,

communities around the world “will certainly resist this new and insane expansion plan
proposed in the AfDB and WWF-Kenya.”

(1) AfDB, CIF, WWF, Acacia Sustainable, Towards large-scale investment in African forestry, 2019,
http://redd-monitor.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/towards_largescale_
commercial_investment_in_african_forestry.pdf
(2) Open Letter about investments in monoculture tree plantations in the Global South, especially in
Africa, and in solidarity with communities resisting the occupation of their territories, 2020,
https://wrm.org.uy/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/carta-con-firmas-en-inglés_upd201008.pdf
(3) See more information on resistance struggles against plantations here: https://wrm.org.uy/browseby-
subject/international-movement-building/local-struggles-against-plantations/
(4) Acacia Sustainable Business Advisors, https://www.acaciasba.com/about
(5) Groww, Equity Mutual Funds, https://groww.in/p/equity-funds/
(6) REDD-Monitor, How WWF and the African Development Bank are promoting lang grabs in Africa,
2020, https://redd-monitor.org/2020/09/22/international-day-of-struggle-against-monoculture-treeplantations-
how-wwf-and-the-african-development-bank-are-promoting-land-grabs-in-africa/ ; The
Expansion of Tree Plantations on Peasant Territories in the Nacala Territories: Green Resources in
Mozambique, 2018, https://wrm.org.uy/articles-from-the-wrm-bulletin/recommended/the-expansion-oftree-
plantations-on-peasant-territories-in-the-nacala-corridor-green-resources-in-mozambique/ ; WRM
bulletin, Green Resources Mozambique: More False Promises! 2018, https://wrm.org.uy/articles-fromthe-
wrm-bulletin/section1/green-resources-mozambique-more-false-promises/ ; WRM bulletin, Carbon
Colonialism: Failure of Green Resources’ Carbon Offset Project in Uganda, 2018,
https://wrm.org.uy/articles-from-the-wrm-bulletin/section1/carbon-colonialism-failure-of-greenresources-
carbon-offset-project-in-uganda/ ; WRM bulletin, Tanzania: Community resistance against
monoculture tree plantations, 2018,
https://wrm.org.uy/articles-from-the-wrm-bulletin/section1/tanzania-community-resistance-againstmonoculture-
tree-plantations/ ; and WRM bulletin, The farce of “Smart forestry”: The cases of Green
Resources in Mozambique and Suzano in Brazil, 2015, https://wrm.org.uy/articles-from-the-wrmbulletin/
section1/the-farce-of-smart-forestry-the-cases-of-green-resources-in-mozambique-andsuzano-
in-brazil/
(7) REDD-Monitor, NGOs oppose the oil industry’s Natural Climate Solutions and demand that ENI
and Shell keep fossil fuels in the ground, 2019, https://wrm.org.uy/other-relevant-information/ngosoppose-
the-oil-industrys-natural-climate-solutions-and-demand-that-eni-and-shell-keep-fossil-fuels-in the-
ground /
WRM Bulletin

MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK

Govt orders fresh valuation of land for Rubanda iron ore project

Published

5 days ago

October 8, 2026

witnessradio.org

Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja has ordered officials from the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development to repeat the valuation and compensation assessment for land acquired for an iron ore mining and processing project in Rubanda District following complaints that some affected residents were under-compensated.

Ms Nabbanja issued the directive on Wednesday while officiating at the handover of 60 acres of iron ore-rich land in Mufumba Village, Butare-Katojo Town Council, to Devki Steel Mills (U), which plans to mine and process iron ore in the area.

Some local leaders told the Prime Minister that several project-affected people were dissatisfied with the compensation they received, saying the money was insufficient to enable them to acquire alternative land for farming and settlement.

Ms Nabbanja later handed a land certificate to Devki Steel Mills (U) chairman Raval Narendra and directed the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development to expedite the company’s mining licence.

“I hereby order the officials from the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development that conducted this exercise to work with the local leaders and move house to house, piece of land to another and ensure that the raised concerns on under-valuation are fully addressed and everybody is satisfied,” Ms Nabbanja said.

“We don’t want to hear that our investor has land issues here and there because President Museveni was clear on this matter. After two weeks I will come back here to verify that everybody in this area is fully satisfied.”

Her directive followed complaints from Mufumba LC1 chairman Paulo Tibenderana and Rubanda District LCV chairman Stephen Kasyaba over the compensation process.

“Although people in this area are welcoming the investor, they claim that the money given to them is not enough to facilitate them acquire alternative pieces of land for their livelihoods,” Mr Kasyaba said.

He said the district council had already earmarked 52 acres where an iron ore processing plant could be constructed, as requested by President Museveni.

Mr Kasyaba also asked the government to consider compensating owners of land neighbouring the acquired project area to avoid disputes and other inconveniences associated with mining and crushing activities.

However, the ministry defended the valuation process.

The ministry’s chief government valuer, Gilbert Kermundu, said officials had consulted the Rubanda District Land Board, the 161 project-affected people and other residents before setting the compensation rate at Shs40 million per acre.

He said the rate took into account land scarcity in the area and that compensation was calculated according to the size of each affected person’s landholding.

“We paid the project affected people using this measure because individual land size was different as some people had less than 0.03 acres of land,” Mr Kermundu said.

He added that the affected residents were entitled to an additional 30 per cent of the compensation as disturbance allowance to facilitate their relocation.

“Kindly accept what the government has given you,” he said.

The ministry’s Under Secretary, Dr Emmanuel Mugunga, said about 99 per cent of the project-affected people had been compensated, questioning the basis of the complaints raised during the ceremony.

The compensation dispute comes as the government seeks to clear outstanding land issues and enable Devki Steel Mills to commence the planned mining and processing operations.

Mr Narendra appealed to the government to extend hydropower electricity to the project area to support the company’s operations.

He also pledged to employ local residents and support schools in neighbouring communities through education sponsorships and school feeding programmes.

Source: monitor.co.ug

MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK

Death Of Witnesses Cited Among Causes Of Land Case Backlog

Published

7 days ago

October 6, 2026

witnessradio.org

The death of witnesses, illness and repeated adjournments are among the factors contributing to the backlog of land cases in Uganda, the Deputy Registrar of the Land Division has said.

His Worship Ronald Kayizzi said land cases accumulate in court for several reasons, including litigants filing multiple applications in a single matter, forcing judicial officers to adjourn cases and schedule them for later dates.

Appearing on Salam TV’s Judiciary Show hosted by Mariam Busingye, Kayizzi said the availability of witnesses was another major challenge affecting the timely disposal of cases.

He said some witnesses are elderly or sick, while others die before their cases are concluded, further complicating proceedings.

“Some witnesses are sick or elderly, and at times cases are delayed as court waits for witnesses who eventually die,” Kayizzi said.

He urged litigants to take their cases seriously and cooperate with their lawyers to minimise unnecessary delays.

Kayizzi also called on lawyers and judicial officers to manage their diaries properly and avoid fixing too many cases for hearing on the same day.

He further urged all parties expected to appear in court to make every effort to attend scheduled hearings, saying cooperation among litigants, lawyers and court officials is essential to reducing delays.

The comments come amid longstanding concerns over delays in the disposal of land disputes, which can leave parties waiting for years before their cases are concluded.

Kayizzi said better preparation by litigants and lawyers, proper scheduling by judicial officers and timely attendance by all parties could help courts reduce the backlog and improve access to justice.

source: nilepost.co.ug

MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK

Sweeping investments are fueling widespread land grabbing and deepening rights violations across Uganda – Report.

Published

1 week ago

October 5, 2026

witnessradio.org

By the Witness Radio Team.

For 16 years, Sulait Behangana has fought to reclaim his land in Kassanda District, where he says he was forced out to make room for a tree plantation run by the UK-based New Forest Company (NFC). Once the proud owner of over 15 acres lush with coffee, bananas, and sugarcane, Behangana lost not just his fields but the foundation of his livelihood.

Now, Behangana survives by toiling on other people’s plantations, a stark contrast to the life he once knew.

“I was beaten during the eviction, and this caused lameness and weakness of my body. I have been reduced to a pauper; I have to dig in other people’s plantations to get what to eat,” Behangana told Witness Radio.

Behangana was one of 901 families uprooted to clear space for the Namwasa tree plantation, as detailed in a report chronicling seven cases of development-driven forced evictions in Uganda. In his community, families recount being pushed off their land without compensation or genuine resettlement. While a few received land, hundreds remain in limbo, still waiting for justice. Julius Ndagize, who leads the displaced households, says repeated mediation with New Forest Company has brought no resolution.

“We secured 500 acres of land in Kampindu Village, Kitumbi Sub-county after the first mediation to resettle those people. Of the 901 affected families, 453 were allocated land and resettled. However, 448 families haven’t been compensated to date,” Ndagize says.

The ordeal faced by families in Mubende echoes a broader pattern uncovered in a report titled Foreign Investment Drives Systematic Forced Land Evictions in Violation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, presented at the recent Africa Business and Human Rights Forum 2026.

The report details seven major cases where large-scale development projects and investments swept across Uganda, displacing communities. It examines the roles of government and security agencies, and the uphill battle victims face in seeking compensation and justice.

These cases span the Kaweri Coffee Plantation, Namwasa Forest Reserve, Formosa Three Planting Company, Agilis Partners, the Bunyoro Ranching Scheme in Kiryandongo, the Wadelai Irrigation Scheme, the Tilenga Project, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, and conservation projects impacting the Batwa.

Witness Radio, ORRA, AFIEGO, FIAN-Uganda, BIRUDO, and BIDO, in collaboration with EDLC-NOVA, compiled the report. Drawing on community testimonies, court records, and grassroots documentation, the report claims these seven cases displaced 56,400 people. Even more striking, civil society monitoring suggests over 360,000 Ugandans may have been affected by forced evictions in the first half of 2024.

Mr. Jeff Wokulira Ssebaggala, Executive Director of Witness Radio, notes that while the cases span different investments and regions, affected communities’ stories share striking similarities. He points out that communities were frequently sidelined in decisions about their land, while those with political or financial clout often influenced the very processes that led to displacement.

“We noticed key agencies but also middlemen or government officials who are politically and financially connected,” Ssebaggala said, adding that such actors can be involved from the start, especially where communities live on land without formal tenure, making it easier to disregard their claims when the land is identified for investment or government use.

Ssebaggala explains that the roots of the problem stretch back to historical land decisions, when communities were left out of government planning and later discovered they were living on land earmarked for other uses.

“There are others whose land was gazetted to be a ranch by governments in the 1970s, but they were never consulted when the national exercise of planning was taking place,” he said.

He warns the stakes grow higher when communities resist these projects or question their removal.

“Those who stand against these projects are arrested, intimidated, or imprisoned. Communities regard land as everything because it defines their livelihood and heritage,” Ssebaggala said, adding that the report raised concerns about state institutions supporting investments rather than protecting affected communities.

The report reveals that women and young people were largely shut out of decision-making around land-based investments. Ssebaggala notes many projects moved forward without seeking communities’ voices or meaningful input, leaving those most reliant on the land excluded from choices shaping their destinies. As gender equality is concerned, the report shows an exclusion of women and youth in all these processes as projects really exist on their own without expressed opinion or contribution from the communities,” he said.

Examining these cases and the struggle for justice, lawyer Peter Arinaitwe, who represents land eviction victims, says affected communities face many obstacles: institutional backlogs, delays, and the heavy financial toll of legal battles that can drag on for years.

“We face judicial capture. Recently, we had the Chief Justice warning judges not to grant injunctions, stopping any investment project, and said that doing so amounts to prison,” Arinaitwe said.

Arinaitwe says Uganda has constitutional and legal protections for land rights, but these have not always protected communities on the ground. He cited cases involving the oil refinery and Kaweri Coffee Plantation, where communities pursued claims in court. Even when cases were decided and compensation awarded, legal processes continued to prolong disputes.ws because the constitutional provisions and protections exist in the book. Still, it’s a different story when it comes to practice,” he said.

For those stripped of their land, drawn-out court battles add another burden, forcing them to spend time and money seeking justice while struggling to rebuild their lives. Arinaitwe adds that the scars of eviction run deep, with psychological and emotional wounds lingering long after the land is gone.

“They are traumatized by the atrocities committed in the course of the eviction which go beyond the land and instead cause mental and emotional drain,” he said.

Participants from across Africa echoed Uganda’s concerns. Edmund Matotay described how Maasai communities in northern Tanzania now face mounting pressure as government interests in conservation, tourism, agriculture, and development clash with the pastoral way of life.

He said the Maasai depend on access to grazing land and that physical displacement therefore affects more than where people live. “The issue of physical displacement disrupts the way of life considering that Maasai people are typically nomads and pastoralists who depend on the grazing of the cows and cattle,” Matotai said.

He also reported intimidation of people supporting the communities, saying lawyers, faith leaders and others involved in defending land rights had faced threats and arrests. “There were a lot of intimidation issues, not only to the lawyers, to other actors, but also to the faith leaders who are leading some of the discussion around the area,” he said.

Back in Uganda, the report insists that stopping forced evictions is not the government’s burden alone. Companies profiting from land-based investments must also identify human rights risks before projects start, engage with affected communities, and create accessible ways to hear and resolve grievances.

Ssebaggala urges investors not to wait until communities are uprooted and legal battles erupt before tackling human rights issues. He calls for ongoing human rights due diligence throughout every stage of investment, and for companies to set up grievance mechanisms so affected people can voice concerns and seek solutions.

“Investors should integrate human rights due diligence across project cycles and also establish a grievance mechanism, policies, structures and awareness of these processes,” he said.

He also urges the government to put in place systems that verify free, prior, and informed consent, making human rights due diligence and environmental impact assessments mandatory before any land-based investment can proceed.