Land Grabbing, Local Contestation, and the Struggle for Economic Gain

Abstract

This article examines why peasant communities in South West Cameroon have contested a U.S.-based company’s intentions to establish an agro-industrial palm oil plantation in their region. Land investments in the form of agro plantations, if not properly conceived, negotiated, and implemented, pose a series of threats to the ecological, cultural, and economic stability among peasant farming communities, who depend on land and forest resources for their livelihood. Using Nguti as a case study, this article argues that local communities do not oppose investment in land but they contest projects that attempt to alienate them from their sources of livelihood without providing alternatives. The study also demonstrates how local communities, despite being critical of the project, struggle with the company through their relations with government, to demand new social contracts and/or memoranda that could offer them greater opportunities as economic partners. The article concludes that for palm oil plantations to be economically equitable, local communities’ incorporation is necessary to safeguard rural livelihoods and to ensure that provisions are made for adequate compensation and alternative sources of livelihood.