BANKS DODGY DEALS CAMPAIGNS
Sections
Banks Dodgy Deals Campaigns
Our campaigns
Banks and Climate
Banks and Human Rights
Banks and Nature
Our projects
Tracking the NZBA
Banks and Russia
Banks and Steel
Tracking the Equator Principles
Tracking the PRBs
Find a Better Bank
Banks and the OECD Guidelines
Media
News Publications
Raiffeisen Out! Bank.Green End Coal Finance Plastic Banks Tracker Defund TotalEnergies Financial Exclusions Tracker Equator-Complaints.Org Don't Buy into Occupation Banks & Biodiversity Forests & Finance Drop JBS StopEACOP Fossil-Free Finance
BankTrack
About BankTrack Organisation Our team Our board Our annual reports Funding and finances Guiding principles Our history BankTrack in the media Team up with us Our privacy policy Donate Visit us
Successes Contact BankTrack
Donate Mailing list Facebook Twitter Linkedin Login
Home › Partner news ›
Partner News

Deutsche Bank must end its sustainability farce in Central Africa

2021-04-15 | Hamburg
By: Greenpeace
Contact:

Christoph Thies, Greenpeace Germany forests and climate campaigner, +49-0171-883 1107

Tal Harris, Greenpeace Africa International Communications Coordinator, +221-774643195

IIndigenous Baka People from Cameroon were displaced by the rubber plantation Sudcam, which trashed a 10,000 hectares of rainforest . Photo: Greenpeace / Kate Davison
2021-04-15 | Hamburg
By: Greenpeace
Contact:

Christoph Thies, Greenpeace Germany forests and climate campaigner, +49-0171-883 1107

Tal Harris, Greenpeace Africa International Communications Coordinator, +221-774643195

For the second time in 12 months, Deutsche Bank is about to violate its own Environmental and Social Policy Framework. By mid-2021, the bank is expected to transfer the second tranche of a USD 25 million loan to Singapore-based rubber giant Halcyon Agri, knowingly overlooking its record of human rights violations, non-transparency, and some of the most devastating deforestation in Africa’s recent history.

In July 2020, Deutsche Bank announced “an innovative new loan” of USD 25m to Halcyon Agri, through its subsidiary Corrie MacColl, to finance investments for its plantations in Cameroon and Malaysia, promising “a new standard for the rubber industry.” The same month, the bank pledged not to “knowingly finance… activities within or in close proximity to a World Heritage Site,” yet satellite imagery shows that between 2011 and 2018 Halcyon’s subsidiary Sud-Cameroun Hévéa (Sudcam) cleared more than 10,000 hectares of rainforest – an area the size of Paris – less than one kilometer from the Dja Faunal Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The clear-cutting caused the displacement of Baka Indigenous People.

“Deutsche Bank must cancel its toxic loan immediately,” said Christoph Thies, Greenpeace Germany forests and climate campaigner. “If the bank’s ambitious target of spending EUR 200 billion on sustainability by 2025 means sponsoring human rights abuses and forest-trashing, Germany and the EU must respond with tighter regulation,” Thies added.

Last July, Greenpeace Africa called for the loan’s cancellation, based on findings by UNESCO, (1) Rainforest Foundation UK, (2) Earthsight, (3) Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global, (4) the Center for International Forestry Research, (5) and its own fieldwork. (6)

As Greenpeace reported in 2018 and 2019, the Sudcam plantation lies only seven kilometers from the Mvomeka’a mansion, security compound, and airstrip of Cameroonian President Paul Biya, who has held power since 1982. Greenpeace has obtained reliable evidence that Sudcam’s minority shareholder is the President’s son and potential successor, Franck Biya. Halcyon Agri has staunchly refused to name Sudcam’s 20% shareholder.

“Deutsche Bank’s champion company kicked Indigenous Baka People off their ancestral lands, without the slightest attempt at obtaining their free, prior and informed consent. Dressing up its loan as sustainable is a textbook case of greenwashing,” said Ranèce Jovial Ndjeudja, Greenpeace Africa campaign manager in Cameroon. 

Greenpeace Africa and Greenpeace Germany call on Deutsche Bank to immediately terminate its loan to Halcyon Agri.

See the original press release here. 

 

Notes

(1) UNESCO, Rapport de la mission de conseil d’experts indépendants de l’UNESCO à la Réserve de faune du Dja (Cameroun), 18 February – 4 March 2019.

(2) Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK), Palmed Off: an Investigation into three industrial Palm Oil and Rubber Projects in Cameroon and the Republic of Congo, May 2019.

(3) Earthsight, Cameroon women denounce “destruction” of forests and community by agribusiness giants, April 2020; The Coming Storm: How Secrecy and Collusion in Industrial Agriculture Spell Disaster for the Congo Basin’s Forest, March 2018. 

(4) Norway Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) Annual Report, February 27, 2019; Rainforest Foundation Norway, Press Release: Norway’s Government Pension Fund acts against deforestation: divests major agricultural companies, February 28, 2019.

(5) Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Socioecological responsibility and Chinese overseas investments The case of rubber plantation expansion in Cameroon, 2015.

(6) Greenpeace Africa, We were told not to go to our Forest anymore:  Sudcam’s assault on human rights, 2019; Halcyon Agri’s Ruinous Rubber (2018).

Banks

Deutsche Bank

Germany
Active
Sections
Banks Dodgy Deals Campaigns
Our campaigns
Banks and Climate Banks and Human Rights Banks and Nature
Our projects
Tracking the NZBA Banks and Russia Banks and Steel Tracking the Equator Principles Tracking the PRBs Find a Better Bank Banks and the OECD Guidelines
Media
News Publications
Raiffeisen Out! Bank.Green End Coal Finance Plastic Banks Tracker Defund TotalEnergies Financial Exclusions Tracker Equator-Complaints.Org Don't Buy into Occupation Banks & Biodiversity Forests & Finance Drop JBS StopEACOP Fossil-Free Finance
BankTrack
About BankTrack Organisation Our team Our board Our annual reports Funding and finances Guiding principles Our history BankTrack in the media Team up with us Our privacy policy Donate Visit us
Successes Contact BankTrack
Vismarkt 15
6511 VJ Nijmegen
The Netherlands
Contact@banktrack.org
Donate Mailing list Facebook Twitter Linkedin
©2023 BankTrack
BankTrack is a registered charity in the Netherlands (ANBI) - RSIN 813874658
Find our privacy policy here

Stay up to date

Sign up now for all BankTrack's news


Make a comment

Your comment will be reviewed, before being posted