Deal #1159 Version #51588

The company claimed rights on 73,086ha since 2009 until the official lease was signed in 2013. A logging permit was issued to a company called Uniprovince (controlled by Herakles via SGSOC) for 2,500 ha of land within the Herakles concession in 2014. Uniprovince is alleged to have used this license as a cover to transport large volumes of timber that were felled illegally between 2010 and 2013 by SGSOC, prior to the company’s land lease being finalized.

It planed to set up nurseries and oil palm plantations on 60,000 ha, as well as processing plants. The remaining 12,000 ha was to be "protected as environmentally and socially sensitive resource areas, for planting and social infrastructure and as land for village livelihood activities

MOU-- establishment convention-- signed in 2009 states duration of agreement is 99 years.

The actual lease was only signed in 2013 (MOU was signed 17:09:2009). The investment capital for this project is FCFA 400 billion. Lease expires in November 2016.

Nursery set up and clearing of forest started. The operations have been suspended in 2013 after fierce criticism and protest from the local population and civil society. At the end of 2013 a short-term lease for 3 years was signed with the option to extend for 99 years depending on the level of investment the company can make in the first 3 years. The word on the ground points to a dire financial situation and an erosion of faith in Herakles Farms by investors and company’s own workers. Herakles Farms is attempting to rescue its dire financial situation by using its illegally obtained licence to export timber to China. Evidence of a whole range of breaches of regulations in the licensing and operation of the Herakles plantation has come to light. The company began to fell before receiving its EIA, in addition the company had to pay fines for felling outside of the scope of the EIA. All operations in the Mundemba, Toko and in Ndian Division were abandoned on May 29, 2015, with a slight chance that they will be brought into production again in the 2017/2018 season. The plantation came under under new leadership late in 2015, and land clearing has continued (pace of land clearing has in fact sped up). The company appears to have focused its efforts on salvaging the land for oil palm near the town of Nguti, while forsaking the other sites near the towns of Mundemba and Toko.

With the new lease signed, the lease fee went up from 250-500 francs CFA (MOU signed in 2009 states lease fees are US$ 1.00 per hectare for land that is Developed Land (in the production area and yielding an annual harvest of not less than 10 tons of FFB per hectare), and US$ 0.50 per hectare for Land that is not Developed Land) to 3,333 francs CFA. The only payment required under the oil palm concession agreement between Herakles and the Cameroonian government is an annual ‘area rent’, which will provide just US$66,000 a year to the government once all of the land is planted. None of the leasing fees have been paid to date.

One report states that the company offered small oil palm plantation development.