Portraits of palm oil farmers

Families involved in palm oil cultivation in Liberia face significant difficulties in their daily lives. They often live and work in precarious conditions, with few opportunities for a stable and dignified life. They are paid extremely low wages and often face dangerous and unhealthy working conditions. This makes it difficult for families to meet their basic needs, such as food, housing, and medical care. In addition, many of these families have been evicted from their lands to make room for palm oil plantations, which has resulted in the loss of livelihoods and a threat to their safety and well-being. The difficulties are further exacerbated by the lack of basic public services, such as health and education, which are often inadequate or non-existent in the rural areas where these families live. Finally, the massive deforestation to make room for plantations is putting the country’s biodiversity at risk and threatening local communities that depend on these forests for their livelihoods. (Text by Luca Catalano Gonzaga).