Agriculture, Beverages & Food

Village land in Chikor Leu commune, Koh Kong province, Cambodia, was forcibly seized in 2006 to give to local companies to grow sugar for conglomerate Tate & Lyle. The former residents sued Tate & Lyle in the UK. In April 2023, the NGO Equitable Cambodia announced that 200 families were compensated for the land and the human rights abuse, although details were not disclosed. Read More

Société Financière des Caoutchoucs (Socfin) operates a 58,000-hectare palm oil plantation around the town of Mbonjo in west Cameroon that it acquired from the government of Cameroon in the year 2000. After two years of negotiations, villagers were given back three hectares of sacred land that contain ancestral graves as well as where they grow traditional medicinal plants. Read More

Environmental groups Forest Ethics (now named Stand.Earth) and Greenpeace were sued by logging company Resolute Forestry Products for criticizing the impact of the company’s boreal forest logging on dwindling woodland caribou herds. A California judge tossed out the C$100 million lawsuit after a seven-year court battle. Read More

Palm oil and timber giant Korindo sued Mighty Earth and Rettet den Regenwald, environmental groups based in Washington DC and Hamburg, Germany, respectively, for publicly criticizing the companies’ deforestation of West Papua, Indonesia. When the court indicated that it would rule in favor of the NGOs this past February, Korindo agreed to drop the lawsuit. Read More

The European Court of Justice ruled in favor of a Belgian beekeper, Nature & Progrès Belgium and Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe to close a loophole that allowed companies like Bayer to produce and sell neonicotinoids – pesticides that kill bees and other pollinators – in Europe despite a 2013 ban. Read More

A group of 230 workers in the San Francisco Bay area sued Golden Gate Restaurant Group Inc., a franchisee of Burger King, for forcing them to work off the clock including during their meal and rest breaks. The California Labor Commissioner’s Office ordered the company to pay $724,000 in unpaid wages and interest, plus a fine of $1.2 million.  Read More

Photographs and interviews with dozens of Indonesian fishermen by the Environmental Justice Foundation, a UK based investigative NGO, and Mongabay have revealed that Dalian Ocean Fishing is using banned equipment to harvest shark fins, in violation of international law. Read More

In 2008, Radiant Lagoon Sdn Bhd was granted two palm oil concessions covering an area of 4,400 hectares (10,900 acres) adjacent to Gunung Mulu National Park, the only UNESCO World Heritage site in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. In 2018, the company began logging the area without obtaining required permits. Read More

In a country known for its sausages, schnitzels and other meat-filled traditional foods, the German city of Tübingen stands out. Considered one of the most vegan-friendly and eco-friendly cities in Europe, Tübingen was recently sued by a franchisee of the fast food chain McDonald’s over a new packaging tax. Read More

Wearing white overalls stained with blood-red paint, members of Extinction Rebellion protested at Monsanto’s headquarters in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in mid-May. Read More