A land dispute between residents of a Cameroonian village and a major palm oil company remains unresolved despite protests and requests for meetings with authorities, NGOs and community members say.

Residents of Apouh village in the country’s Littoral region have long accused Socapalm, a subsidiary of Luxembourg-based multinational Socfin, of encroaching on their ancestral land to establish its oil palm plantation. In late March this year, residents protested against Socapalm replanting oil palms on contested land, insisting it should be returned to them as part of a land retrocession process. The protests took a violent turn when deployed police used tear gas to disperse the crowd.

Cameroonian NGO AFRISE, which represents the women of the Édéa region where Apouh village is located, has since written to the Ministry of State Property, Surveys, and Land Tenure (MINDCAF). It’s seeking a meeting to present the community’s grievances and follow up on a claim to redistribute 700 hectares (1,730 acres) of land community members say MINDCAF has found Socapalm to be occupying in excess of its land titles.

But there’s been no meeting to date, AFRISE chair Félicité Ngo Bissou told Mongabay. “And while we are waiting, they are planting their palm trees around our houses all the way into our courtyards.”

“They are planting under the watchful eye of law enforcement,” added Emmanuel Elong, president of the nonprofit National Synergy of Farmers and Residents of Cameroon (Synaparcam).

After the nonprofit Business & Human Rights Resource Centre contacted Socfin about the replanting of oil palm on the disputed Apouh land, Socfin rejected the allegations, saying the contested land wasn’t part of the retrocession process initiated in 2005, since it was acquired by Socapalm in 2010 and the conflicts arose in 2023.

Socfin added the dispute “transcends a simple agrarian conflict” and that an independent investigation would give a comprehensive picture of each stakeholder’s motives.

Over the years, Socfin and its subsidiaries have faced several independent investigations concerning community grievances. In 2023, Socfin hired sustainability consultancy Earthworm Foundation (EF) to investigate complaints at its subsidiaries’ operations in Cameroon, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cambodia. EF found several allegations to be valid.

“We raised the issue of the Apouh village incident with the company earlier this year, including concerns about the police presence. We made it clear that this was not appropriate and needed to change,” Jotica Sehgal from EF told Mongabay via email. Sehgal said the contested area is part of a “wider issue linked to land retrocession that requires a more proactive approach by Socfin to engage with communities and rights groups.”

Based on EF’s findings, Socfin released an action plan for Édéa in June, mentioning ongoing dialogue sessions and meetings with community leaders. Socfin hadn’t responded to Mongabay’s questions by the time this article was published.

Banner image: A view of oil palm groves on the Socapalm plantation from the village of Apouh. Image by Yannick Kenné for Mongabay.