INSIDEmalen

Malen chiefdom sits on a highway, 90 minute's drive from the district capital of pujehun in southern sierra Leone. the past decade has seen the landscape. gone are the bush lands and subsistence farms more typically of their region,in their stead and thousand of heaters of oil palm.
Equally transformed is the peace and tranquillity of this far flung corners of west africa, rocked by violence and division since the arrivals of the oil palms. the conflict over land that disaffected locals say was taken from them without their consent or proper compensation continues to this day. meanwhile , the plantation company at the heart of it all just been awarded the converted seal of approval by the world's leading sustainable palm oil body,by RSPO.
It all started in 2011,when the socfin agricultural company (SAC) entered into a 50 year land lease agreement with the government of sierra Leone and malen's local authority, the chiefdom council.SAC is subsidiary of the socfin group, an agro- industrial multinational head quartered in Luxembourg the.the original agreement leased 16,249 acres (16,576 hectares)to the company,or but additional agreements over subsequent years have added substantially to that number.on papers,SAC's concession currently covers 18,473 hectares nearly 70% of the chiefdom's total area of 27,000 ha of this 12,349 h is now planted with oil palm,making it the largest oil plantation in the country according to data from non profit Grain.
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