Biofuelwatch actively supports the campaign for an EU moratorium on agrofuels from large-scale monocultures. Agroenergy monocultures are linked to accelerated climate change, deforestation, the impoverishment and dispossession of local communities, bio-diversity losses, human rights abuses, water and soil degradation, loss of food sovereignty and food security.

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Protest against the detention of community leader and mayor Muhammad Rusdi

Protest against the detention of community leader and mayor Muhammad Rusdi in Jambi Province, Indonesia - photo by Feri, WALHI Jambi.

As the demand for palm oil, soya and other monoculture rises, land conflicts and human rights abuses across many countries of the South are escalating. In Indonesia, there are more than one thousand land conflicts relating to palm oil, according to WALHI (Friends of the Earth Indonesia). An increasing numbern of conflicts involves violence against communities. A current example is the arrest of a community leader in Karang Mendapo village in Jambi in Sumatra. The plantation company Sinar Mas illegally appropriated the land, which belongs to local rubber farmers, years ago and turned it into an oil palm plantation, at the expense of local people and biodiversity. Last August, the community re-settled and reclaimed their own land, yet they continue to be subject to persecution and intimidation and now the arrest of their mayor.

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Europe's new biofuel targets are expected to greatly accelerate the expansion of oil palm and other monocultures, and thus to worsen land conflicts and human rights abuses. Yet, under the new EU legislation, evictions, unlawful arrests and even murder are no grounds for classing biofuels as 'unsustainable'.