Global Citizen : Hell in Paradise

Nowhere in the world are "bio-energies" developed so drastically as in the Choco Province of Colombia, where a kind of hidden war has been taking place for roughly a decade. Heavily armed paramilitary enter poorly accessible rain forests only to leave behind a trail of blood and fire. They chase the (often Indian) inhabitants, burn their villages and steal their land to sell it onwards to a willing consortia of palm oil producers.

This terror is then followed by bulldozers, systematically destroying the rain forest and replacing it with oil palm plantations. As they do so, drug money is laundered and palm oil is exported to Europe and the United States. Here it’s transformed into agrofuel but also into products of the food-processing industries (palm oil, margarine,...) and for the manufacture of soap, cosmetics, paint...
The stakes behind the story of the African palm tree in Colombia’s Choco Province are very high.
With the exhaustion of fossil oil reserves, the production of bio-energy tends to become merciless and inhumane across numerous other places of the world (Indonesia, Cameroon...).
Thus millions of people across the globe are potential victims of this new, horrible economic war of the 21st century. Thanks to the compelling research brought to light in this remarkable investigative documentary of an exceptional acuteness, we witness and understand the reasons and implications of this both human and ecological disaster.