Protecting the ‘lungs of West Africa’
‘When we eat chocolate, fried chicken or ice cream, or apply nail varnish, it has consequences across the ocean because one of the main ingredients of all these products is palm oil,’ says Alfred Brownell, one of West Africa’s leading environmental and human rights defenders. ‘Our desire for such things keeps the supply coming in, but destroys the forest and the communities who live in it. It causes the indigenous woman to be beaten and stripped naked and members of her community to be harassed, evicted and sent to prison,’ he adds, his voice breaking with emotion.
The 53-year-old Liberian environmental lawyer knows this firsthand – he took on the fight of that particular woman and the wider indigenous communities in Liberia’s Sinoe
