Tvind schools - how Tvind attracts young people.a dossier on Humana, Planet Aid, IICD and Campus California TG.

...exploiting the Third World?

The Tvind plantations:

A full list of Tvind plantations according to Tvind company Fairbank, Cooper and Lyle

including......

Brazil
Floresta Jatob, Bahia
(Fazenda Floryl)

88,000 hectare mixed plantation in the rainforest, bought for $9m from Shell

 

Belize
Monkey River Estate

5,000 hectare mango farm, subject of bitter civil rights complaints and surrounded by armed guards

 

St Lucia
Mt Lezard Estate

Fruit farm acquired in controversial property deal from local family in 1986

 

Ecuador
Banana plantations

 The scene of bitter workers strikes in 2000-1, but may now have been sold off.

 

Cayman Islands
Mango farms

 

El Salvador
Bananas, sugar and rice

 

St Vincent
Orange Hill Estate

 

Venezuela
Plantations

 

Full list of known, likely and former Tvind plntations

 

 

 

 

Tvind is into private farming in a big way.   As you are rattling a tin on a windy corner of Oslo to help the world's poor, one thing the Teachers will not tell you is just how rich Tvind itself is.   Tvind is known to own large, profitable, exploitative commercial plantations in several developing countries.

These farms were bought during the 1980s and 1990s, costing millions of dollars.   The first were probably mango and banana farms in the Caymans and St Lucia.  Huge plantations were then bought up in Belize, El Salvador, St Vincent and Venezuela.   A mango farm in Belize is said to be the biggest in the American continent.  In 1994, the Teachers Group acquired the jewel in its property crown - an 88,000 mixed fruit and timber plantation in the Brazilian rainforest, bought from the oil company Shell for $9m, which is currently at the centre of the Tvind criminal money-laundering trial.

In most cases, the properties have been bought and managed by offshore companies set up by Tvind for the purpose - secretive and out of range of government tax inspectors, just like cynical big business or organised crime.

In some cases, farms have been acquired in the teeth of local opposition, with Tvind being accused of bullying tactics and corruption to get its way.  St Lucia journalist Roy Lawaetz, for example, says he saw his family property taken from under his nose as Tvind struck a corrupt deal with local politicians.   In St Vincent and Australia, Tvind was forced to close down and sell off landholdings (although it has since returned to St Vincent).

Tvind's stewardship of the land and its allegedly harsh treatment of local employees have been heavily criticised.   According to Scandinavian newspapers, Tvind's ownership of the vast Fazenda Floryl ranch in Brazil lays it open to the charge of deforesting the rainforest - hardly appropriate for a supposedly environmental charity.     And at many of the plantations, there is significant evidence that local workers are very poorly paid, have their freedom restricted, are exposed to dangerous pesticides without proper controls or health care, and are denied union recognition.  There have been many strikes.   But these claims are difficult to check - journalists hoping to visit the Tvind plantations are denied access and are often met by high fences, steel gates and armed guards.

The Teachers Group usually denies any connection with these big-business farming ghettoes, but has in the past attempted to justify them by saying it is providing employment and training to local people.     In some areas, especially southern Africa, Tvind-owned plantations may masquerade as 'development projects' for local people.   In fact, local people may be charged high rents to farm on the land and the produce could well be highly profitable for Tvind.   Senior managers are invariably white Europeans.

Where did the money come from to buy these vast properties?  The finger of suspicion obviously points to millions of pounds being diverted in the 1980s from charity funds, grants, donations, school fees and the proceeds of recycling schemes - money that was supposed to be spent on poverty relief in Africa, but was spent instead on property and real estate. In fact a central allegation in the current Danish money-laundering trial is that money collected for 'environmental projects' by a supposed Tvind charity was used instead to buy the Fazenda Florestyl ranch in Brazil.

One man knows for sure:  Henning Bjornlund, a former Teacher who was, during the 1980s, Tvind's financial controller and who is said to have masterminded the plan to invest in fruit farms, and who now lives in Australia where he works at a university.    In an unguarded moment Bjornlund is said to have told an undercover journalist that Tvind was 'all about money'.    Danish police are thought to be eager to speak to him.

One thing is certain - the plantations continue to make Tvind a lot of money.   It is quite likely the mango or banana you bought in your local superstore comes from a Tvind farm.