We are a Palawan-based advocacy group campaigning against oil palm development and all forms of land grabbing pursued by powerful individuals or being legitimized through State policies, development schemes (mining, industrial agribusiness, etc.) and top-down conservation programs. Our organization is legally registered with the Security and Exchange Commission of the Philippines (SEC) and it is l
argely composed by indigenous Pala’wan and Tagbanua people and by some non-indigenous farmers. We decided to join our forces after realizing that oil palm plantations, and in particular those of Agumil Philippines, Inc., were destroying our lives and plundering our land to an unprecedented level. At the beginning many of us were seduced by the ‘sweet talks’ and ‘empty promises’ of Agumil to the extent of entering into memorandum of agreements with them. As a result, today, we are being strangled by huge debts with both Agumil and the LandBank (the key financer of oil palm projects) and our land titles are being withheld by the former as a collateral. We felt that, before it was too late, we had to take this matter into our hands and start informing other neighboring communities of what Agumil had done to us. In short, we decided that, somehow, Agumil and its oil palm projects had to be stopped and made accountable for the environmental damage and social crisis they have caused. Initially, a number of us, who had personally experienced the negative consequences of oil palm plantations, formed a small network named “Task Force against Large-Scale Plantations in Palawan”. A few months later, and as more individuals joined our group, we decided to legally register as “Group Coalition Against Land Grabbing” (CALG). On 29 September 2014, we handed over to Palawan Vice-Governor Dennis Socrates, a petition signed by more than 4,200 impacted individuals calling for a moratorium on oil palm expansion province-wide. On that occasion we asked the Provincial Government to focus on concrete and sustainable plans to improve production on farmers’ land, rather than pushing for massive oil palm plantations. Oil palm expansion, however, did not stop. Nevertheless, because of our advocacy other indigenous and farmers’ communities prevented themselves from entering into deceptive agreements with Agumil. We have also been successful in convincing the Government of Quezon to pass a resolution banning oil palm expansion in its Municipality. As of now, our struggle continues and our key objective is to prevent that additional conversion of land into oil palm plantations would endanger more biodiversity, water resources, the quality of topsoil and indigenous peoples’ and traditional farmers’ livelihood, while undermining Palawan local food security. In addition to oil palm development, we have also taken on board other pressing concerns such as possible mining applications threatening Palawan West Coast, limestone quarrying in Quezon, illegal conversion of primary forest for rubber plantation in the Municipality of Aborlan, organized squatting in the forested ancestral domain of the Tagbanua of Napsan. Furthermore, one of our most recent campaign calls the Provincial and Municipal Governments for a lift on ongoing restrictions on traditional integral faming systems. The ongoing ban on shifting cultivation is playing a very heavy tool not only on indigenous culture and livelihood, but also on forest ecology. We are not alone in fighting corporate interests and calling for the safeguard of Palawan indigenous ancestral land. In fact, our international supporters include Rainforest Rescue, Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), World Rainforest Movement (WRM), Survival International (SI) and the Global Consortium on Indigenous peoples’ and Community Conserved Territories and Areas (ICCAs).
