The violence of logging and oil palm

The violence of logging and oil palmDone right, palm oil should generate wealth and employment for local communities.Done wrong, oil palm estates can lead to land alienation, loss of livelihoods, social conflicts, exploitative labor relations and degraded ecosystems.(Colchester et al., 2006, p. 11) Industrialisation came to West New Britain not with the cocoa economy, but with the logging and oil palm industries.These were of a very different order to what Maututu had experienced to that point.While smallholders of cocoa and coconut plantings remained largely in control of the growing, processing and marketing of their crops, the industrial transformation under logging and oil palm was characterised by highly capitalised operations that were largely divorced from local aspirations and engagement, geared primarily not to the development of local peoples but to the benefit of the national and district economy, and company shareholders.While the introduction of cocoa allowed for a progressive engagement of Maututu with outside forces, the later industrial developments entangled local people, quickly stripping them of access to their soils, blunting their political representation and threatening their social structures and cultural expressions.The chapters that follow examine the dimensions of this industrial shock, the ways Maututu responded to it and the transformations of their lives and worldview as they sought to engage with it.