Forests and forestlands in the Global South have been claimed for a myriad of interconnected global interests since colonial times, for plantations, concessions for resource extraction and commodity production, and conservation. Resistance to these claims is expressed in discourse, contesting and clashing with often louder, more powerful, legitimations of resource extraction and production. Understanding who argues, how – and how powerfully – when plantations/concessions are resisted or legitimised will be important when trying to shape trajectories for more just futures in forest frontiers. We compare two cases: the establishment of a new oil palm plantation replacing forest in Kribi, Cameroon, and the establishment of a contract for carbon offsets to an international broker in Sabah, Malaysia. We analyse print media covering the individual cases, using Discourse Network Analyzer (DNA) to identify involved actors, coalitions, and the discursive strategies at play. While our two cases show differences in who resists and supports large land deals and how, we identified three discursive strategies common to both studies: those resisting from below encounter limitations when trying to leverage transnational coalitions, while those advocating for large land deals employ delegitimisation and dismissal of critique, as well as silence and silencing as main discursive strategies.