Open Letter from CEO of Herakles Farms in Response to Report On ...

wrongly portray Herakle Farms…) It would have been most wonderful for Bruce to use this medium to
inform Cameroonians and the international community, instead of further bruising people. Unfortunately,
Bruce prefers to bruise critics instead of using their talking points to throw more light on the issues raised.
The threat by HF to level Cameroonian rainforest while negatively impacting the lives of tens of
thousands of formerly happy and content indigenous hunters and farmers in the South West Region of
Cameroon is real and is already being seen in the nurseries. At the Fabe nursery, over 50 hectares of
pristine and robust forest have been cleared. Crops have been destroyed along the way. HF has planted its
beacons and pillars in local cocoa farms in the Nguti area around Ayong, Bombe Konye and Ekita.
HF recruited surveyors from Ghana who went through the Cameroonian forest unaccompanied by
technicians from the survey department to assist in the illegal demarcation process. It is even alleged that
these Ghanaians were helping HF prospect for minerals as well as carry out other activities which should
never be known by Cameroonians. If HF was only interested in survey and demarcation, surveyors
abound in Cameroon, trained by the Public Works schools in Buea and Yaounde. Why did HF not get
them if it had no hidden agenda?
While the Cameroon government might still be considering the application from HF, the company has
gone ahead to unilaterally demarcate the forest without any respect for sacred sites, burial grounds, areas
of High Conservation Value, and the wishes of the indigenous peoples. In fact, it is only after the
President of the Republic would have signed a land lease that HF would have been allowed to go with the
indigenes for the demarcation of their forests. Once more I iterate that the forests belong to the indigenes
according to the 1974 Land Tenure Law, which states that people who have been occupying land since
1974 can own land and apply for a land certificate. Most of the lands in the concession area have been
occupied by the local population for more than a hundred years.
HF, its agents and assigns have maintained an elitist discourse in the communities. HF has told local
populations and their curious leadership that they were operating on the instructions of government and
did not need the opinion of the people living in Nguti, Mundemba and Toko. Even the government of the
Republic of Cameroon listens to indigenous populations when its interest intervenes with the rights of the
people. So why will a foreign company have overriding powers to set the agenda and pace in Cameroon?
To set up a school that will benefit the local population, government appeals to the local communities to
identify a suitable location for the project. Through consultation and prior consent, the local community
and the divisional lands consultative board, headed by the sub divisional officer will now go out to
appraise the suitability of the land and make sure it is unencumbered before authorizing use for a
government project, in the interest of the public.
President Paul Biya cannot sign a land lease for 73,000 hectares without the informed opinion and
consent of the local lands consultative board. For the concession area that HF is interested in, three Land
Consultative boards come into play. The Mundemba sub divisional Lands Consultative Board, the Toko
sub divisional Lands Consultative Board, the Nguti sub divisional Lands Consultative Board, made up of
at least nine members each, would have to sign a document attesting their visits to the concession area
and declaring that such lands are unencumbered by the customs and the traditions of the people before the
President can sign. HF has been carrying out illegal activities by not subscribing to these basic tenets of
land appropriation and concession in the Republic of Cameroon. Herakles Farms is not absolved of the
law setting conditions for land acquisition in Cameroon.
Bruce Wrobel describes HF as an “incubator” of ideas. The assertion may be good for other parts of the
world. In fact, in Cameroon, HF is an “Incubator of Poverty”. If any assessment was done of the