Tribes are Losing Millions of Dollars Due to Palm Oil Companies

If you buy something in a supermarket, it's likely to include palm oil. If you trace it back via the supply chain, you'll finally come across an oil palm tree in Indonesia. However, enterprises that sell it to huge corporations such as Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg's, and Mondelez are robbing indigenous communities of millions of dollars in revenue, according to a joint BBC investigation. Mat Yadi traces the river's route, his spear poised to strike. He doesn't catch anything today, as he does most days. "There were a lot of pigs, deer, antelope, and hedgehogs before," he explains. "There's almost nothing alive now." In the 1990s, a palm oil business promised them money and progress in their rural village of Tebing Tinggi.

It would seize possession of the community's ancestral land in exchange for more than half of it being planted with oil palms, a wonder crop in high demand around the world, according to the Orang Rimba. The tribe would sell the fruit they picked to the company, making it a win-win situation.

Over the course of 25 years, the oil palms grew tall and the bright-orange fruit streamed into the company's mill, producing millions of dollars' worth of edible oil for its ultimate owner, the Salim Group, which was bought by the makers of Cadbury's chocolate, Pop-Tarts, and Crunchy Nut Clusters.