Palm Oil

This palm oil company promised destruction - and it delivered.

The palm oil industry has become notorious for deforestation and abuse of indigenous communities. Some companies have made progress in addressing these issues through the adoption and implementation of strong forest conservation and human rights policies. However, deforestation is continuing across Indonesia because of rogue companies that are attempting to evade these new environmental and social requirements on a vast scale.

We’ve always thought these companies knew exactly what they were doing, knew the damage their wholesale destruction of forests would do to ecosystems and communities. But it’s rare to see explicit proof of companies’ foreknowledge of the massive impacts they cause. However, exactly that type of proof recently fell into Mighty Earth’s lap.

We recently received the social and environmental impact assessment that was submitted to the Indonesian government in 2009 as part of the permitting process for establishing a 39,000 hectare palm oil plantation called PT Bio Inti Agrindo (PT BIA). The plantation is located in Papua, Indonesia’s largest remaining intact rainforest. The plantation is now owned by the South Korean conglomerate POSCO Daewoo. All palm oil companies in Indonesia are required to submit these assessments, known as “AMDALs”, but rarely are these AMDALs seen by the public.

Throughout the assessment, the company explicitly acknowledges the devastating impacts its development would have on the environment and on the local community. What’s truly sad is that all of the impacts the company anticipated came true. Unfortunately, the Indonesian government licensed PT BIA for development despite the consequences detailed in the assessment, underscoring the leniency of the Indonesian Government’s permitting process for palm oil and other industrial development at the time.

There are dozens of pages of anticipated negative impacts listed in the report. Among the most shocking:

• Polluting the Bian and Fly Rivers with toxic waste, despite acknowledging that the community uses these rivers daily for drinking, bathing, and fishing. While it does state an intent to build a wastewater treatment facility, the report acknowledges that the pollution levels are likely to exceed the facility's capacity.
• Destroying the habitat of several protected species, including the tree kangaroo, through the conversion of native forest to monoculture plantation.
• Increasing the risk for severe public health impacts like the spread of malaria, ISPA (acute respiratory tract infection), and diarrhea due to the water pollution and ecosystem changes.
• Constructing the palm oil plantation on customary lands.
• Spurring social restlessness, conflict and anarchy.

See below for selected excerpts:

“B. THE SOUNDING OF SIGNIFICANT AND IMPORTANT IMPACT

Result of impact identification and prediction as spelled out in the document of Reference Framework on Environmental Impact Analysis (KA-ANDAL) is that the subject matters of impact due to this activity plan of oil palm plantation project construction and the construction plan of PT Bio Inti Agrindo’s processing plant, in Papua province are as follows:

• (1)  the degradation of Bian River’s and Fly River’s water quality
• (2)  the increasing rate of soil erosion
• (3)  the disturbance to protected Flora /vegetation and Fauna/wild animals
• (4)  local community’s complaint and restlessness (community’s perception)
• (5)  community’s health”

PT BIA outlined the expected intensity and duration of the impact of its development as follows (bold font added for emphasis):

“•       The use of local people’s communal right on land: temporary, during the commencement period of construction

• The upgrade of dust’s degree: every day, during the activity period (25 years) 

• The degradation of water quality due to PKS waste: every day, during the activity period (25 years) 

• The increase of boar and rat pest: 5-6 years during the commencement 
period of construction
• The damage of road due to excess load of CPO: every day, during the activity period (25 years) 


The nature of community’s perception impact (complaints and restlessness) above if the source of impact is not managed well, it is estimated to occur a conflict and social anarchy.”

In reference to the impact on community health specifically, PT BIA expected:

“The nature of impact of oil palm plantation and processing plant construction activity plan on community’s health parameter is deemed as a negative impact. The oil palm plantation activity and the dumping of liquid waste into Bian and Fly rivers will have an impact on the health of those communities using the rivers for daily purpose. This will trigger the emergence of various diseases such as malaria, ISPA (acute respiratory tract infection), and diarrhea.

The emergence of malaria disease is based on such considerations like among others the disturbance of mosquito habitat existing at the project site and the entry of occupants who are in general susceptible to malaria disease.

The intensity of impact will occur continuously until the end of activity.

The other environmental component going to suffer the impact of this community’s health is social restlessness (community’s perception). By the degradation of community’s health condition and the emergence of various diseases, it will result in social restlessness (community’s perception that tends to be negative).”

Indeed, several of these exact impacts were described to Mighty Earth in July 2017 during a meeting with Pastor Nikodemus Rumbayan MSC, Parish Pastor in Muting, one of the villages affected by PT BIA. He especially emphasized the pollution of the Bian River due to the dumping of palm oil waste, the worsening health condition of the community, and the rising social tensions due to the land conflict between indigenous clans that was spurred by PT BIA’s development. These impacts were also revealed in a recent article published in the South Korean weekly news magazine SisaIN, which was based on interviews with affected community members.

The environment and social impact report also admitted that the project would harm the habitat of fauna in the area of PT BIA, including several protected endangered species. Here are just a few excerpts:

“The nature of this wild animals relocation and migration impact constitutes a secondary impact due a change to the animals’ habitat function due to a change to secondary forest’s vegetation to become an open area and monoculture crops.
The subsequent impact is the migration of those animals to another area or the decrease of protected animals population in said area covering:

• Protected animal species : cuscus (Phalanger gymnotis), tree kangaroo (Dendrologus ursinus), and deer (Cervus timorensis).
• Protected aves species: cassowary (casuarius casuarius), fish eagle (Pandion haliaetus), big beak parakeet (tanygnathus megalorinchos), blue chest Cendrawasih (Ptiloris magnificus), and yellow crest cockatoo (cacatua galerite)
• Protected reptile species: fresh water crocodile (Crocodilus novaeguineae), Irian turtle (Carettachelys coraceae) and lizard (Varanus gouldi).”

It describes the potential impact on these protected species as follows:

“Onshore fauna /wild animals; the construction activity of oil palm plantation as a whole is potential to degrade the quality of wild animals’ habitat existing at the study area. In addition to habitat, this activity is also potential to decrease the abundance of animals’ feed in the form of vegetation (herbivora) and animals (carnivora). In the review on wild animals preservation, it is not only the protected wild animals need to maintain, but also the other animals being the feed of carnivora that need to maintain. The activities estimated to damage wild animals’ habitat is land preparation 
(land opening) and road network building activities

Aquatic biota; as the subsequent impact of the degraded water quality is the 
degradation of aquatic biota’s habitat (plankton, nekton and benthos)”

“The impact of oil palm plantation and processing plant construction activity on this wild animals is deemed as an important negative impact with significant weight of impact (-3) based on the following considerations:

(1) the loss of original vegetation will reduce the population of protected wild animals of quite wide diversity, due to the loss of their habitat functioning as a place to find feed, nesting, egging, and breeding, even though certain animals will undergo a migration out of the study area

• (2)  the presence of outsiders working at the project area, tends to cause a potential decrease of unique wild animals, due to a demand for being owned and raised (for aves species) even for being taken their meat (deer) through hunting
• (3)  the migration of wild animals particularly boar and rat will potentially become a pest for plants, either oil palm plant or community’s feed plant, that might impact on the death/damage of cultivation crops which shall be detrimental to the community 

• (4)  the impact characteristic of this wild animals’ migration can be classified as permanent impact, except for mobile species (certain aves)”

“The impact of oil palm plantation construction plan on nature’s vegetation constitutes a primary impact where by total felling down system, the floristic composition in the existing land will be replaced with monoculture vegetation system. Further, since the previous existing vegetation constituted a habitat of various wild animals (protected and non-protected ones), then this impact is classified as an important impact.”

While it’s impossible to reverse all of the damage its already caused, POSCO Daewoo must immediately enact a moratorium on forest clearing in order to do no further harm, adopt a comprehensive group-level No Deforestation, No Peat, and No Exploitation policy, and undertake credible sustainability assessments (High Carbon Stock and High Conservation Value) aligned with the industry benchmark for responsible production, the High Carbon Stock Approach. In addition, POSCO Daewoo must take responsibility for the negative impacts PT BIA knowingly brought to the environment and communities in Papua. It should invest in extensive forest restoration, clean up the Bian and Fly rivers until water quality is restored to its original condition, and seek to resolve the social conflicts it has spurred to the satisfaction of the community.

This case also raises questions about whether exciting licenses should be reviewed and, in instances where companies have inflicted significant harm to community health and wellbeing, peatlands, or Indonesia’s dwindling rainforests, revoked.

PHOTOS OF THE PT BIA SITE FROM 2010-2016

2010: FOREST COVER AT THE SITE OF PT BIA

2012: MONOCULTURE PALM PLANTATION HAS ALREADY BEGUN REPLACING THE NATURAL FOREST, FIRES ARE CLEARLY VISIBLE

2012: BULLDOZER CLEARING MORE FOREST

2012: WHAT'S LEFT BEHIND AFTER THE FOREST DESTRUCTION

2016: BOUNDARY BETWEEN THE PT BIA PALM OIL PLANTATION OWNED BY POSCO DAEWOO AND THE STANDING FOREST

Photo credit: Mighty Earth

2016: AERIAL DRONE VIDEO OF PT BIA

Credit: Mighty Earth, June 2016

To read the full social impact assessment, click here.

Caption for banner image: According to Pastor Nikodemus Rumbayan MSC, Parish Pastor in Muting, the village Chief’s wife had to go to the hospital after bathing in the water because her skin broke out in rashes. She was urged to keep quiet about the incident.

Photo Credit: SKP KAMe Merauke

by Mighty Earth

New satellite mapping reveals POSCO Daewoo continues to clear Indonesian rainforest at rapid pace in second half of 2017

Company could clear all remaining forest on its palm oil plantation by end of the year

New satellite mapping of Papua, Indonesia - home to the third largest rainforest in the world - shows that the Korean conglomerate POSCO Daewoo has continued to rapidly clear large areas of the rainforest for palm oil production at its palm oil plantation called PT Bio Inti Agrindo (PT BIA).

The mapping shows that POSCO Daewoo has destroyed an area of forest approximately half the size of the metropolis of Seoul, South Korea — an estimated total of 27,050 hectares of mostly primary rainforest – as of August 19, 2017.

Of PT BIA’s two blocks of land, block I has already been completely cleared, totaling 6,816 hectares of deforested land.

The new Planet satellite map of block II above depicts the area cleared from February 21, 2017 to August 19, 2107 – a total of 4,203 hectares, outlined in orange. The area outlined in yellow was cleared prior to February 21, 2017, a total of 16,031 ha. Combined with the complete clearing of block I (6,816 ha), POSCO Daewoo has cleared an estimated total of 27,050 ha of mostly pristine rainforests. Given its pace of clearing, it is likely more deforestation has occurred in the past month, but no cloud-free satellite image was available in this timeframe.

An estimated 8,032 ha of forest remain in the PT BIA concession, outlined in green. At POSCO Daewoo’s extremely rapid pace of clearing, it could clear the entirety of the remaining forest in its concession by the end of 2017. Indeed, the visible outline of new roads into the forested area indicate more clearing is imminent. POSCO Daewoo has refused to institute a moratorium on forest clearing.

This animation shows the conversion of forest to plantation by POSCO Daewoo from February 21, 2017 to August 19, 2017, totaling an approximate 4,201 hectares.

POSCO Daewoo should be on a black list for any potential customers, business partners, or financiers who are striving to achieve responsible business practices and supply chains.
Caption for banner image: New palm oil saplings planted on land that used to be covered by virgin rainforests at POSCO Daewoo’s PT BIA concession. @Mighty Earth, June 2016.

by Mighty Earth

Samsung Breaks Business Ties with Notorious Indonesian Rainforest Destroyer Korindo

Move follows Galaxy Note 8 Online campaign by Mighty Earth and SumOfUs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 12, 2017

Washington DC--- Environmental NGO Mighty Earth and consumer group SumOfUs announced victory today as Samsung declared that it has no plans to pursue a joint venture or any business with the Korean-Indonesian conglomerate, Korindo. The announcement comes on the heels of a two-month intensive online campaign by Mighty Earth and SumOfUs, calling on Samsung to drop the joint venture it had announced or any business partnership with Korindo due to Korindo’s egregious rainforest destruction on its palm oil plantations in Papua and North Maluku, Indonesia, which was documented by Mighty Earth in a report and field investigation last year (1).  

The campaign was launched in response to widespread news coverage in Korean media outlets in June that a Samsung IT subsidiary, Samsung SDS, and Korindo were pursuing a joint venture related to logistics in Indonesia. One of the articles in the Korea Times featured a photo of executives from both companies shaking hands in front of a banner showcasing their corporate logos (2).

“Samsung is doing the right thing by dropping ties with the notorious deforester Korindo,” said Deborah Lapidus, Campaign Director with Mighty Earth. “Korindo’s deforestation has put its business at risk in many different sectors, not just palm oil. We hope Korindo wakes up to the reality that even from a business perspective, it can’t continue to allow deforestation.”

In July, more than 73,000 people, including 15,000 Samsung customers, signed a petition to Samsung launched by SumOfUs.org (3). The petition signatures were hand delivered by Mighty Earth to Samsung’s main office in Seoul, where Mighty Earth met with executives from Samsung’s Corporate Social Responsibility team. The number of petition signatures to Samsung has since grown to over 188,500 due to a petition launched by Rainforest Rescue (4).

Last month, Mighty Earth and SumOfUs carried out a week of action (5) surrounding the August 23rd launch of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8, in which over 2,000 Samsung customers sent emails to Samsung from their Samsung devices, over 10,000 people took action online, and nearly one million people viewed online ads about Samsung’s connection to rainforest destruction (6).   

“I own two of your TVs and recently switched my Galaxy back to Apple because of your Korindo involvement,” said one of the many personalized emails to Samsung.  “As long as you continue to have an environmentally irresponsible ethos I will not be a customer, and I will share that with my friends and on social media.”

Samsung SDS’s CEO informed Mighty Earth in a letter dated August 31st, “that we [Samsung SDS] do not have any plans to develop a business between the two companies”.

“We are glad that Samsung took the messages from its customers to heart,” said Fatah Sadaoui, Campaign Manager with SumOfUs.  “It was clear from the overwhelming response to our petition that people expect a company with as big a brand name and global reach as Samsung to maintain high standards of environmental and social responsibility for its own business and its business partners. I think Samsung was smart to work to boost its global reputation by severing ties with Korindo.”

While Samsung has dropped its business with Korindo, Mighty Earth and SumOfUs call on the company to clean up its own palm oil operations. Samsung owns two palm oil plantations in Sumatra, Indonesia as part of a joint venture with an Indonesian palm oil company called Ganda Group. In December 2016, a group of Korean human rights lawyers with the organization Advocates for Public Interest Law (APIL) conducted a field investigation into Samsung’s palm oil plantations and documented egregious labor and community rights violations (7). In addition, Ganda Group is infamous for using violence against villagers (8), and is currently driving massive deforestation in Papua, Indonesia (9).  

“Samsung has taken the first step to delink its business from rainforest destruction. Now it must go all the way,” explained Lapidus. “Samsung needs to remedy its human rights abuses on its own palm oil plantations and require its joint venture partner, Ganda Group, to adopt a strict forest conservation policy aligned with the industry standard for responsible production.”  

“Fixing its palm oil problem would be a great way for Samsung to begin to restore trust in its brand,” remarked Sadaoui.

###

Mighty Earth is a global environmental campaign organization that works to protect forests, conserve oceans, and address climate change. We work in Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa, and North America to drive large-scale action towards environmentally responsible agriculture that protects native ecosystems, wildlife, and water, and respects local community rights.  Mighty Earth’s global team has played a decisive role in persuading the world’s largest food and agriculture companies to dramatically improve their environmental and social policies and practices. More information on Mighty Earth can be found at https://www.mightyearth.org/.

SumOfUs.org is a global movement of consumers, investors, and workers all around the world, standing together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable and just path for our global economy.

CONTACTS:

Marisa Bellantonio, [email protected], 203-479-2026

Yasmina Dardari, [email protected], 407-922-8149

Sample social media and google search ads that ran during the August week of action:

Notes to the editor:

1. Mighty Earth, Burning Paradise: Palm Oil in the Land of the Tree Kangaroo, September 2016. www.MightyEarth.org/BurningParadise
2. Herh, Michael, “Samsung SDS Accelerates Logistic BPO Business In Indonesia”, Business Korea, June 20, 2017: http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/english/news/industry/18403-business-process-outsourcing-samsung-sds-accelerates-logistic-bpo-business; Seung-woo, Kang, “Samsung SDS Joins Hands With Korindo”, Korea Times, June 19, 2017: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2017/06/133_231536.html
3. SumOfUs, “Samsung, get out of conflict palm oil”. https://actions.sumofus.org/a/samsung-get-out-of-conflict-palm-oil
4. Rainforest Rescue, "Samsung, get out of Papua's rainforests,"
   www.rainforest-rescue.org/petitions/1105/samsung-get-out-of-papuas-rainforests#letter
5. www.MightyEarth.org/Samsung
6. View examples of the social media and google search ads at
   www.MightyEarth.org/SamsungHangsUpOnKorindo
7. Korea Transnational Corporations Watch, Interim Report on Negative Human Rights Impact of Samsung C&T in Palm Oil Plantations In Indonesia, Field Investigation Report, December 28, 2016.  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By8pRnkpzbHXa01NR09RVkkzUzQ/view
8. Parker, Diana, “Indonesian palm oil company demolishes homes and evicts villagers in week long raid,” Mongabay, December 14, 2013. https://news.mongabay.com/2013/12/indonesian-palm-oil-company-demolishes-homes-and-evicts-villagers-in-week-long-raid/
9. Forest Hints, “Papua HCS Forests Remain Source of Palm Oil Expansion”, September 12, 2017, http://www.foresthints.news/papua-hcs-forests-remain-source-of-palm-oil-expansion

Image Credit: Bustar Maitar/Mighty

by Mighty Earth

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Found Using Paper Linked to Rainforest Destruction

The Australian NGO Markets for Change and Mighty Earth launched a campaign this week targeting News Corp Australia over its ties with rainforest destroyer Korindo. The organizations distributed parody newspapers of News Corp’s Australian newspapers, The Courier Mail (“The Courier Fail”) and The Australian ("The Not Australian"), outside News Corp offices in Sydney and Brisbane.

Investigations by Mighty Earth and Markets for Change found that The Australian and The Courier Mail are being printed in the Australian state of Queensland on newsprint produced by Aspex. Aspex is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Korean-Indonesian conglomerate Korindo, which Mighty Earth exposed for causing massive rainforest destruction for palm oil and timber products in Indonesia. Our groups informed News Corp of the connection in a letter and an in-person meeting, but so far no concrete action has been taken by the company.

The activists handed out parody newspapers dubbed the “Not Australian” and “The Courier Fail” to News Corp employees and passersby which, while satirical, expose the serious ways in which News Corp’s purchases of newsprint from Korindo helps finance the company’s rainforest destruction in Indonesia, and urge News Corp to switch to a responsible supplier. In fact, News Corp already uses a different supplier for the bulk of its papers, so a switch is entirely feasible. In addition, the newspaper company NZME, owner of the New Zealand Herald and other papers in New Zealand, recently made the switch away from Aspex and is now sourcing from alternative recycled newsprint suppliers.

Pressure from customers has convinced Korindo to enact a moratorium on new forest clearing, but it’s only temporary, and the forest remains at risk.  If News Corp acts to sever ties with Korindo, it could force Korindo to stop the bulldozers once and for all. Click here to send a letter to News Corp.

You can get your own copies of the Not Australian and the Courier Fail here!

Here are some of our favorite photos from the actions in Sydney and Brisbane over the past week.

by Mighty Earth

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp Found Using Paper Linked to Rainforest Destruction

The Australian NGO Markets for Change and Mighty Earth launched a campaign this week targeting News Corp Australia over its ties with rainforest destroyer Korindo. The organizations distributed parody newspapers of News Corp’s Australian newspapers, The Courier Mail (“The Courier Fail”) and The Australian ("The Not Australian"), outside News Corp offices in Sydney and Brisbane.

Investigations by Mighty Earth and Markets for Change found that The Australian and The Courier Mail are being printed in the Australian state of Queensland on newsprint produced by Aspex. Aspex is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Korean-Indonesian conglomerate Korindo, which Mighty Earth exposed for causing massive rainforest destruction for palm oil and timber products in Indonesia. Our groups informed News Corp of the connection in a letter and an in-person meeting, but so far no concrete action has been taken by the company.  

The activists handed out parody newspapers dubbed the “Not Australian” and “The Courier Fail” to News Corp employees and passersby which, while satirical, expose the serious ways in which News Corp’s purchases of newsprint from Korindo helps finance the company’s rainforest destruction in Indonesia, and urge News Corp to switch to a responsible supplier. In fact, News Corp already uses a different supplier for the bulk of its papers, so a switch is entirely feasible. In addition, the newspaper company NZME, owner of the New Zealand Herald and other papers in New Zealand, recently made the switch away from Aspex and is now sourcing from alternative recycled newsprint suppliers.  

Pressure from customers has convinced Korindo to enact a moratorium on new forest clearing, but it’s only temporary, and the forest remains at risk.  If News Corp acts to sever ties with Korindo, it could force Korindo to stop the bulldozers once and for all. Click here to send a letter to News Corp.

You can get your own copies of the Not Australian and the Courier Fail here!

Here are some of our favorite photos from the actions in Sydney and Brisbane over the past week.

by Mighty Earth

Video release: “Burning Paradise” One Year Later

Today, Mighty Earth and KFEM released a new video showing Korindo’s forest destruction for palm oil and highlighting the developments since the campaign launch. This video marks the one-year anniversary of the release of the Burning Paradise report and urges continued action to save the precious, ancient rainforests of Papua and North Maluku from Korindo’s destruction.  

In the past year, following the release of Burning Paradise and global media exposure of its deforestation, Korindo lost many of its largest customers, which determined that Korindo’s practices violated their No Deforestation policies. These include the global palm oil traders Wilmar, Musim Mas, ADM, and IOI, the pulp and paper giant APRIL, and dozens of major brands around the world such as Kellogg’s, Nestle, and Unilever, which demanded that Korindo remain excluded from their supply chains. Siemens Gamesa, Iberdrola, Nordex, and other companies that have purchased wind towers from Korindo have urged Korindo to clean up it act.  In addition, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a sustainability certification body for the forestry sector, announced that, following a complaint filed by Mighty, it is investigating whether Korindo violated FSC criteria.  In response to customer concerns, Korindo announced a moratorium on land development on its palm oil concessions and agreed to conducting sustainability assessments. However, this isn’t enough to ensure the forest remains protected.

A forest the size of New York City (75,000 hectares) remains in Korindo’s concession areas and is at immediate risk of destruction. Korindo still refuses to announce a strong group-wide No Deforestation policy, has already breached its moratorium, and has hired sustainability assessors whose assessments have been rejected by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil for being of “poor quality”.  Korindo has agreed to maintain its moratorium until its sustainability assessments have been approved by the industry’s quality review panels (the HCV Resource Network’s Assessor Licensing Scheme and the High Carbon Stock Approach’s Quality Review Panel), yet has paradoxically been angling in recent weeks to begin clearing forest again.  

Papua is a rainforest paradise--the third largest intact rainforest in the world--but Korindo is at the forefront of a move by large agribusiness to convert these thriving forests into vast monoculture industrial plantations.  Until recently, it was able to operate without much scrutiny due to the remoteness of the location and its inaccessibility for civil society and journalists. We hope this video provides a glimpse of what is at stake, and compels significant action around the world to save this rainforest paradise.   

Citizens around the world can join our effort by sharing the video, and signing the petition to Korindo.

by Mighty Earth

Papuan Community Leaders Call For Protection of Indigenous Rights; Also Hit Back at Korindo Group’s Manipulation of Stakeholder Meeting

On August 9th, leaders from Papuan indigenous communities hosted a press conference in Merauke in honor of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples and timed with the first Papuan Film Festival which focused on the theme of indigenous rights and environmental sustainability.  

Their press release describes the situation faced by many indigenous communities in Papua whose lands have been permitted for monoculture commodity agriculture:

“Currently, permits for large scale commercial investment in the natural resource industries, including mining, plantations and logging, as well as infrastructure, have been issued across the majority of the lands and forests which make up the homelands of the indigenous peoples of Papua.

This subject is depicted in some of the films in the Papuan Film Festival currently taking place in Merauke. In Merauke and Boven Digoel Regencies, the government has issued permits for plantations and industrial timber estates covering a vast area.

Policy and investment activity is only based on private capital-intensive investment, technology and modern organisation, a model which has been seen in practice to disregard the rights of indigenous Papuans, limit or eliminate entirely indigenous people's access to the land which provides their livelihoods, result in horizontal conflict or disharmony, violence and human rights violations, as well as widespread environmental destruction."

Hitting Back at Korindo Group’s Manipulation

The press conference was also a community effort to set the record straight regarding a recent stakeholder meeting on palm oil development in Papua, held in Jakarta, with the local governments and the palm oil company Korindo Group, that the indigenous leaders felt was manipulated to appear as if their views were represented:  

“The head of Nakias village, Mr Melkior Wayoken, suspected that manipulation had taken place to produce statements supporting the company, and that certain individuals had claimed to represent the indigenous community and village governments of Nakias, Tagaepe and Yalhak villages. According to Melkior, one individual was masquerading as the village head and signed a statement, and then used the village government stamp. ‘The statement was made without my knowledge, even though I am the village head, and then they joined the Bupatis of Merauke and Boven Digoel on their trip to the meeting in Jakarta. It was only afterwards that I heard they had signed a letter claiming to be the village government. I was shocked, and so I want to say that I, speaking to you now, am the real village head, and I clearly don't accept this. If they knew I was here then why didn't they call on me, as the leader of the village administration in the area the company is working? I've been elected by the people of Nakias village and they knew I was in Merauke, so why didn't they ask me?’, Melkior explained.”

Calling For Action

Y.L. Franky, the Director of Yayasan Pusaka in Jakarta, spoke at the press conference about the underlying problems facing indigenous people in Papua. According to Franky, the serious problems indigenous people have to face include the loss of their rights and sovereignty, a lack of participation in development to determine its direction, the loss of a sense of security and the limits on the right to free expression, and the loss of autonomy to develop productive economic enterprises.

The leaders called for the following actions:

1. Local government must oversee investment activities to make sure they are legal, and do not violate the rights of indigenous people or destroy the environment.
2. Local governments should issue policy and develop programmes which respect the rights of indigenous Papuans and protect the land which provides their livelihood.
3. Local government should carry out an audit of all plantation companies present in the area, review any permits or contracts which violate indigenous people's basic rights or disadvantage indigenous people.
4. We urge companies to respect the basic rights of indigenous Papuans, to avoid causing horizontal conflict within indigenous communities, not to use state security forces to protect their investment, to respect any community decisions not to surrender their lands and forests for business purposes, to protect important sites for the community and to provide adequate economic empowerment for the community and for company workers, without discrimination.

Here is an English translation of the full press release:

Press Release

Indigenous people from Nakias Tagaepe and Ihalik villages, Wambon Tekamerob Indigenous Community, SKP KAMe, Sawit Watch, Yayasan PUSAKA, Papuan Voices, Belantara Papua, SKPKC Fransiskan Papua, Garda Papua, Suara Papua, Tabloid Jubi, Yayasan Teratai Hati Papua (YHTP), Papuan Independent Students Forum, PMKRI Merauke Branch.

Hormati Hak Orang Asli Papua dan Lindungi Ruang Hidup Masyarakat Adat

Respect Indigenous Papuans' Rights and Protect the Spaces which Provide Indigenous Livelihoods.

Today we are commemorating the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples. This date was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1994. The indigenous peoples' struggle at the international level has already resulted in the UN General Assembly adopting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on the 13th September 2007. This historic event for indigenous peoples deserves serious attention, a sign of respect for those who are still fighting for the rights of indigenous peoples.

Currently, permits for large scale commercial investment in the natural resource industries, including mining, plantations and logging, as well as infrastructure, have been issued across the majority of the lands and forests which make up the homelands of the indigenous peoples of Papua.

This subject is depicted in some of the films in the Papuan Film Festival currently taking place in Merauke. In Merauke and Boven Digoel Regencies, the government has issued permits for plantations and industrial timber estates covering a vast area.

Policy and investment activity is only based on private capital-intensive investment, technology and modern organisation, a model which has been seen in practice to disregard the rights of indigenous Papuans, limit or eliminate entirely indigenous people's access to the land which provides their livelihoods, result in horizontal conflict or disharmony, violence and human rights violations, as well as widespread environmental destruction.

Recently a stakeholder meeting took place in Jakarta, attended by the governments of Merauke and Boven Digoel, the Korindo Group, and individuals who described themselves as representatives of indigenous communities in Merauke and Boven Digoel. A topic discussed in the meeting was that land could not be cleared for a community smallholding scheme, because NGOs had issued a moratorium.

The head of Nakias village, Mr Melkior Wayoken, suspected that manipulation had taken place to produce statements supporting the company, and that certain individuals had claimed to represent the indigenous community and village governments of Nakias, Tagaepe and Yalhak villages. According to Melkior, one individual was masquerading as the village head and signed a statement, and then used the village government stamp. "The statement was made without my knowledge, even though I am the village head, and then they joined the Bupatis of Merauke and Boven Digoel on their trip to the meeting in Jakarta. It was only afterwards that I heard  they had signed a letter claiming to be the village government. I was shocked, and so I want to say that I, speaking to you now, am the real village head, and I clearly don't accept this. If they knew I was here then why didn't they call on me, as the leader of the village administration in the area the company is working? I've been elected by the people of Nakias village and they knew I was in Merauke, so why didn't they ask me?", Melkior explained.

Father Anselmus Amo, MSC, the director of SKP KAMe (the Justice and Peace Secretariat of Merauke Catholic Archdiocese), stated his opinion, that a moratorium is not issued by an NGO. This is a misleading statement, and it is irresponsible to make such claims. A moratorium places obligations on a company to abide by regulations issued by government. Recently the Indonesian Government's moratorium on new permits in primary forests and peatlands was renewed, via a presidential directive. So what's all this about NGOs placing a moratorium on a company, Amo underlined.

Father Amo also said that one of the NGOs' complaints about the companies' activities was that they had used fire to clear land. This accusation was brought because companies had clearly been burning land, which is forbidden by central government. It is a great shame if local government appears to be closing its eyes to this matter. Disregard from local government has already become systematic, meaning that even when the Bupati speaks about developments which would be positive for local people, it is not  guaranteed whether his technical staff will follow them up. NGOs make accusations about companies because human rights violations and environmental destruction have taken place in their concessions. If companies cared about human rights and the environment, then there is no way that NGOs would make such complaints.

A similar point was made by Inda Fatinaware, Executive Director of Sawit Watch, who said that community should not be misled by talk of moratoriums. The moratorium issued by the government was to call a temporary halt to new permits in primary natural forest. There is no relation whatsoever to the issue of smallholder schemes. Companies have to provide smallholdings for local people, this is obligatory and clearly stated in the 2014 Plantation Law (UU39/2014). Therefore there is no reason why a company shouldn't develop such a smallholder scheme.  What's more, a company such as Korindo, which has already been operating in Merauke and Boven Digoel for many years, should already have provided smallholdings for the community. The question should be what has the company been doing all this time, and why hasn't it still not developed community smallholding schemes? Don't use the moratorium as an excuse not to develop smallholding schemes.

Y.L. Franky, the Director of Yayasan Pusaka in Jakarta, wanted to take this opportunity to draw attention to the underlying problems facing indigenous people. According to Franky, the serious problems indigenous people have to face include the loss of their rights and sovereignty, a lack of participation in development to determine its direction, the loss of a sense of security and the limits on the right to free expression, and the loss of autonomy to develop productive economic enterprises based on the knowledge of local indigenous people.

This situation has occurred because the state has neglected to respect and protect indigenous Papuan's rights, which makes it impossible to achieve a good standard of community welfare and to uphold the law, as laid down in the constitution and subsequent laws, such as the Special Autonomy Law (articles 42 and 43), Franky explained.

In consideration of this situation, we believe the following actions are necessary:

1. Local government must oversee investment activities to make sure they are legal, and do not violate the rights of indigenous people or destroy the environment.
2. Local governments should issue policy and develop programmes which respect the rights of indigenous Papuans and protect the land which provides their livelihood.
3. Local government should carry out an audit of all plantation companies present in the area, review any permits or contracts which violate indigenous people's basic rights or disadvantage indigenous people.
4. We urge companies to respect the basic rights of indigenous Papuans, to avoid causing horizontal conflict within indigenous communities, not to use state security forces to protect their investment, to respect any community decisions not to surrender their lands and forests for business purposes, to protect important sites for the community and to provide adequate economic empowerment for the community and for company workers, without discrimination.

Contact Person

1.     Pastor Anselmus Amo MSC, SKP KAMe Director (081287778974)
2.     Mario, Sawit Watch (085228066649)
3.     Y.L. Franky, Yayasan Pusaka (081317286019)

by Mighty Earth

Activists in South Korea Rally Against Indonesian Rainforest Destruction by Korean Conglomerate POSCO Daewoo

Mighty Earth joined with The Korea Federation for Environmental Movements (KFEM), Korea’s largest environmental NGO, at a rally in Gwanghwamun North Square in Seoul, South Korea on Monday, July 31st, to demand that the Korean conglomerate POSCO Daewoo stop destroying Indonesian rainforest on its palm oil plantation in Papua.

Over a dozen activists participated in a street performance, in which they linked arms to defend the forest against a masked man holding a chainsaw representing POSCO Daewoo.  The activists held a banner that read, in both Korean and English, “POSCO Daewoo, Stop Destroying Indonesian Rainforest,” against a giant backdrop of palm oil-driven deforestation in Papua, Indonesia taken from Mighty Earth’s field investigation into Korindo and POSCO Daewoo in June 2016.

The rally followed a meeting between Mighty, KFEM and representatives from POSCO Daewoo that took place the previous business day.  At the meeting, Mighty and KFEM asked POSCO Daewoo to immediately stop their deforestation of pristine rainforest. POSCO Daewoo failed to make any specific commitments and instead said it needed to “study” the matter further despite several years of stakeholders urging an end to its deforestation.  

“POSCO Daewoo is trying to buy itself time to finish its forest clearing,” said Deborah Lapidus, Campaign Director at Mighty Earth.  “At the rate they are clearing, there will be no forest left by the time the company is done studying--and that’s surely their strategy.” Already, POSCO Daewoo’s bulldozers have cleared over 26,500 hectares of forest–half the size of Seoul, South Korea–in its 34,195 hectare concession.  What’s more, the pace of clearing has been accelerating; the company cleared 2,400 ha in the first four months of this year alone and over 10,000 ha since September 2015. Unconscionably, the international consulting firm PWC has given POSCO Daewoo’s deforestation a green stamp of approval. 

The land POSCO Daewoo is clearing to make way for its palm oil plantation, called PT Bio Inti Agrindo (PT BIA), is home to indigenous communities, as well as threatened and endangered species including tree kangaroos and birds of paradise.  According to BIA’s original business plans, obtained by Mighty, the entire area was covered by virgin rainforests prior to clearing.  The company estimated that it would make US$162 million just from selling the high value timber it cleared in the process of setting up the plantation.  The ancient rainforests being bulldozed by POSCO Daewoo are also incredibly carbon rich and essential to curbing global climate change.   

“Unfortunately, two Korean companies have established sprawling palm oil operations in Papua and are clearing forests at a vast scale,” said Ms. Lapidus to an assembled crowd of newspaper photographers and participants at Monday’s rally. “You might recall when we were here last year to expose Korindo’s forest destruction.  Right next to Korindo’s plantations is an immense zone of destruction that is owned by POSCO Daewoo, one of Korea’s premier companies. Despite the enormous ecological value of these areas, POSCO decided that it was happy to destroy them to create a giant monoculture plantation.  We are not seeing many companies act in such an egregious manner anymore but POSCO’s bulldozers are still operating.”  

Rally participants called on POSCO Daewoo to declare an immediate moratorium on all new forest clearing, to commit to a No Deforestation and No Exploitation policy aligned with the industry standard High Carbon Stock Approach, and to invest in restoration to repair its past damage.  

“POSCO Daewoo has done an incredible amount of damage in a short amount of time. It is undermining other companies’ progress on forest conservation and damaging its own brand and reputation around the world across its diverse businesses,” commented Glenn Hurowitz, Mighty Earth’s CEO, at the rally.  “All this deforestation is bad for its business.”

Just as POSCO Daewoo’s mill has become operational in the first quarter of 2017, the world’s largest palm oil buyers have stated they will exclude POSCO Daewoo and BIA’s palm oil from their supply chains because it violates their own No Deforestation and No Exploitation commitments.  

Investors are also pulling away from POSCO Daewoo over its deforestation.  The Norwegian Pension Fund, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, with more than $1 trillion in assets, commissioned an in-depth study into POSCO Daewoo’s activities, and found that the company’s practices were so egregious that they withdrew their investments in August 2015.  Hermes Investment has encouraged POSCO Daewoo to work with stakeholders to rapidly address this issue.  And POSCO Daewoo risks losing financing from several of its financial backers, including HSBC and BNP Paribas, which have both have announced No Deforestation financing policies.

Speaking at the rally, Choony Kim, Vice Executive Director of KFEM said, "Almost 7,700 hectares of tropical forests still remain on the site of POSCO Daewoo. In order for POSCO Daewoo to clean past mistakes and to compete fairly in the global market, it is necessary to immediately declare a moratorium on new land development in the remaining tropical forests. Also, efforts should be made to restore damaged forests and ecosystems.”

by Mighty Earth

Mighty Earth and Olam Joint Statement Following Visit to Gabon

London, July 24, 2017 – Conservation NGO Mighty Earth and Olam International have completed a 5 day series of meetings and visits in Gabon as part of their agreement, announced in February 2017, to move forward on models for responsible agricultural development in highly forested countries.

Mighty Earth’s CEO Glenn Hurowitz and Olam’s Global Head of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability, Dr Christopher Stewart, participated in a series of intensive and constructive meetings with key decision-makers in the Gabon central and provincial governments, facilitated by Mighty’s local partner NGO Brainforest and by Olam Gabon, as well as a round-table of Gabonese NGOs belonging to the environmental and human rights civil society platform: “Gabon, Ma Terre, Mon Droit “ (Gabon, My Lands, My Rights).

Glenn Hurowitz, CEO of Mighty Earth, said, “Thank you to Olam for organising an eye-opening, worthwhile, and inclusive visit to Gabon. We appreciated the opportunity to join Brainforest, WWF, TFT and other groups to see Olam’s Mouila plantations, conservation activities, and discuss sustainable development with local communities and government officials. The visit was a valuable input into our ongoing discussions with Olam and many other stakeholders around the world to refine an enduring conservation standard for high forest cover countries. In Mouila, we saw evidence that while there remain important issues to resolve, Olam has created jobs, and is taking efforts to protect those conservation areas it has set aside, and also working to resolve important community concerns. However, the visit also raises serious questions about whether large-scale plantation agriculture is a good model for heavily forested landscapes and other biodiverse, carbon rich ecosystems. We look forward to exploring this question further with Olam, the High Carbon Stock Approach group, other companies operating in Africa and elsewhere, and a range of environmental and community groups, including the upcoming Forest Dialogue in Gabon.”

Christopher Stewart, Olam’s Global Head of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability, said “I would like to thank Glenn Hurowitz for visiting our palm plantations in Gabon, and for his positive and helpful contributions to the fundamentally important debates about responsible agriculture. It was also a rare and extremely valuable opportunity for us and the conservation NGOs to participate together in high-level political discussions on Gabon’s long term economic and land use strategy. I do not underestimate the evolving market demands and expectations surrounding sustainable agriculture in developing tropical countries like Gabon or the local challenges that are created by the development of our plantations and the GRAINE project. We are already looking to a series of further technical and policy discussions with the multi-stakeholder group and I expect that a mutually reciprocated spirit of openness and respectful dialogue will help us to converge on solutions, that serve both the urgent developmental needs of Gabon and the imperative to conserve its globally critical forest landscapes and wildlife for future generations.”

The meetings with senior officials included the Minister of Agriculture, the Parliamentary Sustainable Development Commission, the Secretary-General of the National Parks Agency, the Head of the National Climate Council, the Minister in Charge of Presidential Affairs, and the Director General of the Environment. The Ministers, parliamentarians and Agency Heads welcomed Mighty’s visit to Gabon and Olam’s proactive effort to understand and respond to their concerns, encouraging the local NGOs to embrace the challenges raised by the revitalisation of Gabon’s agricultural sector, and enter into monitoring partnerships with Olam.

Over the course of 2 days of substantive discussions, they also laid out the history of land and natural resource use in Gabon, the urgent and inevitable need to diversify Gabon’s economy away from fossil fuels, the social dangers of dependency on oil, Gabon’s significant (and regionally unmatched) commitments to long-term conservation of its forests and reduction of its greenhouse gas emissions, and the primary importance of agriculture (both large and small-scale) in Gabon’s National Strategic Plan. The tone of these meetings was both constructive and cordial, despite many differences of opinion that still need to be resolved.

Olam Gabon, Mighty Earth and its local partner Brainforest convened a round table including additional members of the “Ma Terre Mon Droit” platform, WWF Gabon, FENSED, IDRC Africa and Croissance Saine-Environnement. The key environmental and social impacts of plantation agriculture were debated at length and NGOS expressed both strong support for the social development benefits of export crop plantations, and strong reservations about the biodiversity and climate impacts, and potential human rights impacts, of large scale plantation agriculture as a basis for the renewal of Gabon’s rural economy. NGOs demanded transparency and better participation in decision-making, as well as capacity building initiatives, strengthening partnerships for monitoring the plantation impacts and improving local livelihoods.

Olam’s Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability team agreed on these points and the need to continually improve its outreach processes, including communicating technical documentation in a way that is more accessible to all stakeholders. Olam also set out the many opportunities for NGO involvement that are in place, not least the systematic local and national consultation processes on social and environmental impacts, open-access publications on all its plantation operations, the joint elaboration with national NGOs of the Gabonese RSPO National Standard, and its national-scale GRAINE support programme for cooperative farming, in which most of the NGOs present had played a framing role.

A large NGO delegation including Mighty, The Forest Trust (TFT), and local NGOs Brainforest, WWF-Gabon, FENSED, and Muyissi Environnement also spent 2 days visiting Olam’s palm oil plantations and the landscape and communities of Ngounie Province, southern Gabon. They were given an overview of the plantation operations and progress to date by the General Manager of Olam Palm Gabon, and visited operations including the planting area, mechanically assisted harvesting teams, an innovative drip fertigation project, and the 90-tonne Mouila Mill, which was inaugurated in 2016. They also visited a small part of the 18,000 ha conservation set-aside within Lot 1, and learned about Olam’s environmental action plan since 2013 to restore the logged forests of the set-asides, including prevention and monitoring of illegal logging and hunting of protected species (both of which are a continuing threat to forests and wildlife in this area).

A highlight of the field visit was the exploration of Olam Palm Gabon’s Mouila Lot 3, where Olam has established a 14,000 ha savannah plantation compliant with the requirements RSPO’s New Plantings Procedures, on a strict zero-deforestation basis . This also includes the first High Conservation Value savannah ecosystem mosaic under active management in the RSPO system, and Olam’s pioneering research in this under-appreciated ecosystem (in partnership with Missouri Botanical Gardens) has already laid the groundwork for a new National Park in the area, under the leadership of the National Parks Agency.

The NGO delegation also held village meetings in 3 villages chosen and organised by Brainforest, which are among a total of 87 villages which have Free Prior and Informed Consent procedures and Social Contracts with Olam. The villagers expressed themselves without reservation on both positive and negative social impacts of the plantation developments: on the one hand they largely welcomed the employment opportunities and investment in social infrastructure provided by Olam, whilst expressing their strong need for better access to essential services including schooling, healthcare, clean water provision, electrification, building materials and opportunities for promotion within the Olam structure.

A recurring theme was the concern on the impact of plantations on natural streams and lakes, which are a key source of water – villages in this region suffer from annual water shortages in the dry season as seasonal streams and artesian wells dry up. The NGO delegation urged Olam to act on these concerns and provide better solutions for water provision, more transparency in its water quality monitoring process, and rehabilitation in the case of accidental damage to natural water bodies. However, they were satisfied to observe that Olam’s social team has strong connections to the villages and has previously addressed and documented both the grievances expressed and the solutions proposed. Olam agreed immediately to investigate renewed concerns expressed in the village of Ferra relative to the Rembo river, a key dry-season drinking water source, which villagers feared might be impacted by a nursery upstream from their village.

For more information on the investigation into Olam’s plantations and the issues related to industrial agriculture at large, check out this article by Mighty Earth’s Glenn Hurowitz.

by Mighty Earth

Samsung partnership with Korindo ignites another fire scandal

Samsung’s phones are not the only thing in their business catching on fire.  Samsung IT subsidiary, Samsung SDS, announced on June 19 that it has entered into a partnership with the notorious forest destroyer, Korindo Group, to form a joint venture in the logistics sector in Indonesia.

As we documented in our Burning Paradise report, Korean-Indonesian agribusiness Korindo has cleared 30,000 hectares of rainforest and had nearly 900 fire hotspots on its palm oil concessions in Papua and North Maluku, Indonesia since 2013. We also found that Korindo has taken land from indigenous communities without their consent. Yet, just as Korindo has been losing more and more major global customers over its bad track record and is now being investigated by the Forest Stewardship Council, Samsung decided to proudly announce a new partnership with the company.

Samsung is no stranger to these types of allegations itself.  A report released in December 2016 by a group of Korean human rights lawyers called Korean Transnational Corporations Watch (KTNC Watch) documents deplorable human rights violations that they observed on their field investigation to Samsung palm oil plantations in Riau province of Sumatra, Indonesia.  The Samsung plantation companies are called PT Inecda and PT Gandaerah, and are part of a joint venture with the Indonesian Ganda Group.  Ganda Group has a well documented history of human rights abuses, including coming under scrutiny in 2013 for forcibly evicting villagers from their homes and destroying them.

The report describes how the indigenous communities who have lived on this land for centuries have seen it snatched by Samsung’s plantations, with important ancestral and cultural sites taken over by the plantation. The company has diverted the rivers to irrigate the palm oil plantation, leaving the rest of the surrounding area with a severe water shortage. In addition, the pesticides and other toxic chemicals used on the plantation are polluting the waterways.  Local communities can no longer get the clean water they need to drink, clean, or wash. The plantations are also resulting in a major loss of biodiversity, which threatens the food and livelihood of the indigenous communities. Samsung has been found offering bribes to discourage efforts to claim communal rights to the land, paying certain community members to spy on their neighbors and report back.

The report also documents extensive human rights violations of workers on Samsung’s plantations. There are frequent instances of child labor identified on the plantations and many workers report bringing their children or spouses to work to help them meet the high daily quotas set by Samsung. Workers are expected to handle toxic chemicals and work in a setting with inadequate safety conditions. There are no formal contracts, very low wages, high daily quotas, and long hours. Workers that live on the plantations are also subject to very poor, unhealthy living conditions.

Given the unsavory operations of both Korindo and Samsung in Indonesia, it is no surprise that these companies would see eye to eye on how to conduct business in the country.  But just as this new partnership brings new opportunities for growth to both companies, it also brings new opportunities for Samsung’s millions of consumers around the globe to take action to end both companies’ abuses in Indonesia.

Samsung can’t afford another PR nightmare right now, as it’s working to build back its reputation following the recall of 2.5 million phones and as its Vice Chairman is on trial for massive corruption scandals in South Korea. The last thing Samsung needs is to be caught up in a scandal over forest destruction and species extinction. If enough Samsung customers take action, we can convince them to drop the partnership with Korindo, sending a clear message to Korindo that forest destruction is bad for business.

by Mighty Earth

Mighty Published in New Journal on Key Environmental Issues in Asia, EnviroLab Asia

Deborah Lapidus, Campaigns Director at Mighty, contributes foreword on solutions to palm oil production and expansion in Southeast Asia in the scholarly journal, EnviroLab Asia. The inaugural volume explores environmental and social impacts of the rampant growth of the palm oil industry and explores new perspectives on indigenous resistance.

Ms. Lapidus’ foreword discusses the public and environmental health issues stemming from irresponsible oil-palm production, describes the No Deforestation revolution afoot in global commodity agriculture, and lays out a vision for where the industry needs to go next. “One of our key goals is to eliminate the global market for deforestation-based palm oil and we work with many allies around the world who are committed to this same objective,” Ms. Lapidus notes.

EnviroLab Asia, a laboratory launched by the Claremont Colleges in 2015, fosters interdisciplinary knowledge and presents innovative solutions to environmental problems. The academic publication employs both environmental and social lenses to offer insight into globalization in Singapore and Malaysian Borneo. Holistic in approach, the publications subsequent academic chapters and first-person reflections illustrate EnviroLab Asia’s dedication to diverse forms of intellectual engagement.

Mighty is excited to contribute to the inaugural volume of EnviroLab Asia, and to continue to be a part of growing synergies between academics, students and NGO’s around the world working to solve the deforestation challenge.

by Mighty Earth

Buyers Beware: POSCO Daewoo’s Deforestation Palm Oil is Ready for International Markets  —  But Global Buyers are Rejecting it

Buyers Beware: POSCO Daewoo’s Deforestation Palm Oil is Ready for International Markets  —  But Global Buyers are Rejecting it

POSCO Daewoo, self-described as Korea’s largest trading company, operates a 34,195 hectare palm oil plantation located in the Ulilin district in Merauke, Papua, Indonesia called PT Bio Inti Agrindo (PT BIA). PT BIA just released its first “Environmental and Social Report” for 2016. The report reveals that the company’s mill is becoming operational in the first quarter of 2017, which means the palm oil grown on top of the 26,500 hectares of rainforests the company has destroyed over the past five years is about to reach international markets.

Satellite imagery (above) shows that in the same timeframe that the majority of the palm oil industry was racing to clean up their supply chains, POSCO Daewoo was racing to clear forest as fast as possible. PT BIA has cleared an astonishing 9,900 hectares of forest between September 2015 and April 2017, 2,400 of which occurred just in the first four months of 2017.

Any purchase from POSCO Daewoo would violate No Deforestation policies followed by major palm oil buyers around the world. It would also violate companies’ commitments to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) because the forest cleared was mostly primary forest that is habitat for endangered species, containing High Conservation Values (HCV’s). Indeed, maps from the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry reveal that 15,800 ha of BIA—nearly half the concession area—are covered by primary forest. This is corroborated by PT BIA’s original business plans, obtained by Mighty Earth, in which the company states that “most of the area is still covered by virgin tropical rain forest.” (See below.)

Mighty Earth reached out to international buyers of palm oil across the supply chain as well as investors to find out who is buying from or financing POSCO Daewoo or BIA. Out of nearly 50 responses from major traders and consumer companies, none were currently sourcing from POSCO Daewoo and/or BIA.  Over 20 companies explicitly said they would exclude POSCO Daewoo and BIA from their supply chains or investment portfolios until such time as they could comply with their policies, and several more responded that their responsible sourcing policies would preclude them from sourcing from BIA. For the full list of companies we reached out to and their responses, see here.  

Given that BIA’s mill is scheduled to become operational Q1 2017, it’s possible it hasn’t begun selling its palm oil yet. It’s also possible, and likely, that BIA sells to its neighbor and fellow forest destroyer, Korindo, and/or other rogue buyers willing to turn a blind eye to deforestation.  However, the responses make clear that the global marketplace is rejecting the palm oil grown on BIA’s destroyed rainforest.  

BIA’s Environmental and Social report contains a chart showing the results of a biodiversity assessment which found a number of IUCN-listed endangered species as being present in the area of its concession, including the adorable tree kangaroo and colorful birds of paradise. (The species are listed in the report on page 29 in Bahasa Indonesia. Click here to see the English translations.) Unfortunately, BIA’s biodiversity assessment was determined to be “unsatisfactory” by the HCV Resource Network’s quality review panel.

POSCO Daewoo lacks a commitment to No Deforestation, which means it is continuing to destroy the habitat these species need to survive. Notably, PT BIA’s concessions are adjacent to the Korean-Indonesian agribusiness Korindo’s Papua palm oil concessions, demonstrating that Korindo was being dishonest when it denied the presence of tree kangaroos in the area of its plantations in response to Mighty Earth’s Burning Paradise report, which exposed massive deforestation and illegal burning of intact rainforests for palm oil production by both Korindo and POSCO Daewoo’s PT BIA.

PT BIA has long been the subject of significant global controversy due to its egregious deforestation of primary tropical rainforests in Papua, Indonesia, an area with the largest remaining intact forest landscapes left in Indonesia and home to over 80% of Indonesia’s biodiversity. Last September, Mighty Earth worked with the research consultancy Aidenvironment to do a sustainability assessment of PT BIA. In its analysis, Aidenvironment found that since 2012 BIA deforested more than 19,000 hectares and was continuing to clear at a rapid pace—having cleared 3,300 ha in just an eight month period leading up to the report release. Moreover, the satellite images showed a clear pattern of fire hotspots following deforestation, demonstrating that BIA was using fire systemically to clear land. In September and October 2015 alone, 158 fire hotspots were recorded, concentrated in the area that was deforested earlier that year. Mighty Earth also conducted a field investigation and documented BIA’s immense deforestation through drone video and photographs.

The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, the Norwegian Pension Fund, announced on August 17, 2015 its decision to exclude POSCO Daewoo because it represented an “unacceptable risk of severe environmental damage”. Greenpeace also exposed HSBC’s financing of BIA in its recent report, “Dirty Bankers” which led to HSBC announcing a No Deforestation financing policy. Greenpeace has called for HSBC to act on BIA as a first “test case” of its new commitment.

This will also be a first test case for BNP Paribas, which just announced a new responsible palm oil financing policy and has a commercial relationship with POSCO Daewoo.  They are engaging with them currently, but if POSCO Daewoo doesn’t immediately put a moratorium on forest clearing, they should exit the relationship.

PT BIA’s Business Plans Reveal the Company’s Intent to Deforest Vast Areas

Mighty Earth obtained PT BIA’s original business plans, which reveal the forested characteristics of the land area at PT BIA, the land clearing schedule and profit potential, and a photo-diagram showing the palm oil production process starting with deforestation.  Here are some of the most compelling excerpts:

Introduction describing the state of play with Indonesia’s palm oil biofuel production plans, in the context of evaluating the opportunity for BIA’s palm oil to be sold into the biofuel market:

“One obvious controversial aspect of the master plan is the need for vast new land banks for plantation expansion, which some environmental groups say is accelerating already rapid deforestation. Indonesia currently has an estimated 5.5 million hectares of palm oil plantations, and the government now plans to more than double the total area under cultivation through the development of another 6.1 million hectares in Kalimantan, Papua and other provinces.”

Section describing the physical characteristics of the land area of BIA:

 “Most of the area is still covered by virgin tropical rain forest.”

Business plan documents:

Left: photo diagram from BIA’s business plan showing the palm oil production process beginning with deforestation.

Right: excerpt from PT BIA’s business plan. This is a translation of an article boasting about investors cashing in on the bountiful natural resources of Papua.

Featured photo from Richard Ashurst

by Mighty Earth

Finally, Real Action from Big Banks on Deforestation

This month BNP Paribas, the world’s seventh-largest financial institution, announced a new palm oil policy that sets responsible palm oil production as a pre-condition for financing. The policy requires that companies receiving financing protect forests and indigenous people. It also requires companies to adhere to strict human rights and labor standards, end the use of hazardous pesticides, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, among other significant measures.

This policy is a breakthrough in forest-friendly finance. For far too long the finance sector has significantly lagged behind the trend toward responsible commodity agriculture, enabling company expansion into forests even when the marketplace is rejecting the practice. This has given rogue producers like Korindo hope that they can develop their own infrastructure to refine and export their deforestation commodities and circumvent “No Deforestation” supply chains. BNP Paribas’ new policy charts a new path for responsible financing that all major financial institutions should follow - or else face the growing consumer backlash against environmentally destructive institutions.

BNP’s policy comes at a time when a growing number of financial institutions are coming under scrutiny for financing destructive agribusiness operations.  Just last week, Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN)  released a report exposing the Nordic banks and government pension funds linked to the six major banks financing Indonesia’s palm oil deforestation.  (Already one of the banks profiled in RFN’s report, the Singaporean DBS Bank, announced a Responsible Financing policy that requires new lending in the palm oil sector to adhere to No Deforestation, No Peat, and No Exploitation requirements.)  Over the past few months alone, Greenpeace launched a campaign on HSBC that led to the bank announcing a No Deforestation, No Peat, and No Exploitation palm oil finance policy. Rainforest Action Network launched a “Forests and Finance” campaign exposing the banks and investors behind Southeast Asia’s deforestation. And Friends of the Earth created a new tool called Deforestation Free Funds, which shows the global mutual funds that contain palm oil related holdings, while launching a campaign on the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA) regarding its high risk land holdings and palm oil investments.

But financial institutions aren’t only worried about being the target of a public campaign.  They are also beginning to respond to the reality that investing in deforestation is risky business.  Increasingly, companies that are caught destroying forests and abusing workers are shut out of international markets. In some cases, their stock prices plummet. For example, last year our team worked with allies to successfully persuade two dozen of the world’s largest palm oil buyers, including Unilever, Nestle, Kellogg, biofuels giant Neste Oil, and Dunkin’ Donuts, to suspend purchases from the Malaysian palm oil company IOI after the company breached its No Deforestation policy and was suspended by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. Its share price dropped almost 15% in the month following the suspension, representing a $4 billion decline in value. IOI has since made important moves to address these issues and return to being a responsible provider of palm oil; we’re continuing to monitor those efforts, but it’s clear that sustainability is now a market mover.  Deforestation—once seen by agribusiness titans and their financiers as a cheap and easy way to make huge profits—is increasingly becoming a major business liability. More and more banks don’t want to do deals with companies pursuing outdated and high-risk business models.

BNP Paribas has firmly set a new benchmark for responsible financing in the palm oil sector, one that must be met with decisive action. Both BNP Paribas and HSBC have a first clear test case of their new policies: South Korean industrial giant POSCO Daewoo, which owns a palm oil company called PT Bio Inti Agrindo (BIA) that has a 340 square kilometer plantation in Papua, Indonesia.  Satellite imagery (see here) shows that POSCO Daewoo’s BIA has cleared an astonishing 99 square kilometers of forest between September 2015 and April 2017, a quarter of which (24 square kilometers ) occurred in the first four months of 2017 alone.

Research by Greenpeace showed that in the past five years, 13 banks – including HSBC, BNP Paribas and Standard Chartered – have been involved in providing POSCO Daewoo and its subsidiaries with loans totaling nearly $3.6 billion and bonds totaling over $5 billion. BNP Paribas told Mighty Earth it is engaging with POSCO Daewoo to express concerns about this deforestation. However, if POSCO Daewoo is not willing to implement an immediate moratorium on forest clearing and restore the damage it has done, it is not engaging in good faith and BNP should terminate its commercial ties with the company immediately.

If the deforestation dominos continue to fall in the financial sector, this could be a key turning point in the fight to save Southeast Asia’s remaining forests. Simply put, if companies can’t find the financing they need to keep cutting down the trees, they will have to turn to a more responsible path.  We must seize the moment. Now is the time for all of us to be demanding that our financial institutions follow the model set by BNP Paribas by enacting no-deforestation forest conservation and human rights policies.

by Mighty Earth

Forest Stewardship Council Accepts Mighty Earth’s Formal Complaint Against Korindo

Extensive deforestation breaches FSC policy, Company should no longer be able to sell certified timber and paper

UPDATE- June 2, 2017: Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) notified Mighty Earth that our complaint against agribusiness Korindo was officially accepted for investigation. Their acceptance note stated, “With this email we would like to inform you that, after an internal assessment of the complaint submission (including the additional information provided and the related investigation report “Burning Paradise”), FSC International has decided to accept the PfA complaint filed by Mighty against the Korindo group.”

BONN, Germany, May 15, 2017-- Mighty Earth has submitted a complaint today to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a global sustainable forestry certification body, regarding agribusiness Korindo’s deforestation activities. The complaint presents compelling evidence confirming that since 2013 Korindo’s oil palm companies have been responsible for clearing over 30,000 hectares (ha) of Indonesian rainforests in Papua and North Maluku.

Under the ‘Policy for the Association of Organizations with FSC’ (1), companies are prohibited from clearing more than 10,000 hectares of forests over the past five-years across their operations. The FSC policy aims to prevent its certificate holders from conducting such ‘unacceptable forest-related activities [which are] ‘harmful to FSC’s reputation’.

The FSC policy also prohibits clearing areas classified as High Conservation Value Forests, such as primary forests. Korindo oil palm companies have cleared at least 11,700 ha of primary forests since 2013. In addition, it requires Korindo companies to “uphold the legal and customary rights of local communities,” which the group is failing to do on its operations in North Maluku and parts of Papua. To see the full complaint, click here.

“Korindo has not earned the good reputation that comes along with holding FSC certification and has violated the trust of its wood products customers who believed that the certification brought assurances of sustainability,” said Deborah Lapidus, Campaign Director with Mighty Earth. “We call on the FSC to fully investigate Korindo’s violations of the Policy for Association, and take steps to terminate Korindo’s FSC certificates until it strictly complies with its standards.”

As a result of the complaint, four of Korindo’s forest products companies located in Indonesia (PT. Korintiga Hutani, PT. Aspex Kumbong, PT. Korindo Abadi Asike, and PT. Korindo Ariabima Sari), stand to have their FSC certificates revoked. This could put some of Korindo’s timber trade in jeopardy from suspension by buyers seeking FSC-certified products. For example, Korindo’s pulpwood buyers include the Japanese companies Oji Holdings (also Korindo’s Korintiga Hutani joint venture partner) and Marubeni Corporation. A coalition of Japanese organizations is working to ensure that only FSC certified wood is used in the construction of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo—a standard that should preclude Korindo’s products from being accepted in light of this complaint. Korindo also sells plywood to the Dubai-based Transcontinental Identing company.

The complaint follows several months of work by Mighty Earth and a coalition of allied organizations in Indonesia, South Korea, and across the Globe, following the September 2016 release of a report entitled Burning Paradise (2), which documented through satellite analysis and field investigation Korindo’s deforestation of 30,000 ha and over 900 fire hotspots since 2013 on its palm oil plantations in Papua and North Maluku, Indonesia.  In response to global media exposure and pressure from its customers, Korindo announced a moratorium on forest clearing on December 1^st, 2016, but then quickly breached this commitment throughout January and February 2017 by carving roads over 3,100 ha of forest and clearing 1,000 ha at its PT Papua Agro Lestari oil palm concession in Papua.  Despite reinstating the moratorium and agreeing to submit its sustainability assessments for independent quality review, Korindo has yet to provide the data needed for the reviews to commence and has failed to adopt a comprehensive Group-wide policy to implement zero deforestation and protect human rights.

“Until Korindo can delink its operations from deforestation and land rights violations, it should not be able to get away with carrying a green FSC label on its products,” said Ms. Lapidus. “Korindo’s slogan, ‘Green Tomorrow’, says it all. For the FSC to maintain its credibility, it needs to require Korindo to clean up its operations today, not tomorrow.”

About Mighty Earth

Mighty Earth is a global environmental campaign organization that works to protect forests, conserve oceans, and address climate change. We work in Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa, and North America to drive large-scale action towards environmentally responsible agriculture that protects native ecosystems, wildlife, and water, and respects local community rights.  Mighty Earth’s global team has played a decisive role in persuading the world’s largest food and agriculture companies to dramatically improve their environmental and social policies and practices. More information on Mighty Earth can be found at https://www.mightyearth.org/.

Notes to Editor:

• The ‘Policy for the Association of Organizations with FSC’ is available here.
• Mighty’s report on Korindo’s palm oil activities is available here.

by Mighty Earth

Indonesia’s second largest palm oil producer fails to deliver on its sustainability policy

NGOs deem Astra Agro Lestari’s implementation of sustainability policy far too slow; question the company’s intentions to fully adhere to its commitments

Jakarta, Indonesia., February 27, 2017—Astra Agro Lestari, Indonesia’s second largest palm oil company, has failed to address several key gaps in implementing its sustainability policy that were identified in an assessment by several Indonesian and international NGOs last September. The NGOs—Rainforest Foundation Norway, Mighty, KKI Warsi, Yayasan Merah Putih Palu (YMP), and SumOfUs—sent Astra a letter last Thursday asking for a swift response to these gaps and other critical remaining questions.  Astra already missed a December 5^th deadline for providing this information which was originally requested in a letter dated September 26^th. Soon after, Astra did reply asking for another meeting with the NGOs. While appreciating the answer, the NGOs are not satisfied.

“We want to see a detailed implementation plan and adherence to deadlines. There’s been enough talk, now we want to see real action,” said Anja Lillegraven, Head of the Asia and Oceania Department of Rainforest Foundation Norway. “Astra’s failure to implement its own policy is unacceptable and demonstrates that nice policies are not enough.”

Astra’s sustainability policy was announced in September 2015, following a major campaign that included the release of a report documenting massive deforestation and human rights violations within Astra’s concessions.  The campaign also invovled grassroots actions around the world aimed at Astra’s owner, the large conglomerate Jardines Matheson, and their luxury hotel chain, the Mandarin Oriental.

Astra’s failure to implement key aspects of the policy is reflected in these quotes from key NGO stakeholders:

• “Astra’s attempts at resolving conflicts and compensating human rights violations, as pledged in the policy, are far from satisfactory,” said Diki Kurniawan, Director of KKI Warsi, an Indonesian NGO that advocates for the rights for the Orang Rimba. “Members of the Orang Rimba indigenous group in Jambi Province are still living on the edge of starvation after they lost their land to Astra’s palm oil plantation.”
• “As the dry season is fast approaching, we fear that Astra lacks good systems for preventing fires,” said Fatah Sadaoui, Palm Oil Senior Campaigner, SumOfUs.
• “We question the intentions of Astra. No detailed implementation plan has been provided, indicating that Astra is not allocating sufficient resources into its sustainability work,” said Anja Lillegraven, Head of the Asia and Oceania Department of Rainforest Foundation Norway.
• “Astra has not published quarterly updates on the implementation of its sustainability policy, as pledged,” said Amran Tambaru, Director of Yayasan Merah Putih Palu, an Indonesian NGO that advocates for indigenous rights.
• “While Astra has curtailed deforestation on its own concessions, it has failed to demonstrate that it has adequately addressed high risk third-party suppliers like PT Austindo Nusantara Jaya (PT ANJ) which was recently caught deforesting at a large scale in Papua,” said Glenn Hurowitz, CEO of Mighty. “We strongly recommend Astra’s owners and investors to seriously consider the reputational risk represented by links to Astra.”

“The time for delay and excuses is over. This is a final warning to Astra that we demand to see real action,” said Ms. Lillegraven.

CONTACT:

Marisa Bellantonio, Mighty
203-479-2026
[email protected]

Anja Lillegraven, Rainforest Foundation Norway
[email protected]

Featured image © Aidenvironment (drone photo), 6 September 2016, coordinates: S 0°49'4.30"; E 111°28'24.13"

by Mighty Earth

Olam et Mighty Earth se mettent d’accord pour collaborer dans le domaine de la protection forestière

by Mighty Earth

Mighty’s Agreement with World’s Largest Farmer Could Have Major Implications for the World’s Forests

By Glenn Hurowitz

Mighty Earth, Olam, and World Resources Institute today announced an important breakthrough agreement to protect forests, great ape habitat, and local communities in Africa and Asia. This is a big step because Olam is “the world’s largest farmer,” operating in 70 countries and trading in 47 agricultural commodities.

Under the agreement, Olam agreed to suspend deforestation for palm oil and rubber, and also apply the industry-standard High Carbon Stock approach to its third-party suppliers (the agreement doesn’t apply to commodities other than palm oil and rubber, such as cocoa and coffee, areas we are continuing to investigate).

It followed Mighty Earth’s global campaign and publication of our Palm Oil’s Black Box report about Olam’s operations, and negotiations between Mighty Earth Chairman (and former Congressman) Henry Waxman and Olam CEO Sunny Verghese in Washington, DC. Action from Olam stakeholders like Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek, as well as an array of Olam customers, and investors and banks contributed to this agreement. This breakthrough would not have been possible without the support of the Arcus Foundation, which works to conserve great ape and gibbon habitat around the world.

Of course, we hope that Olam’s suspension of land clearing in forests will have direct impacts to protect habitat for chimpanzees, gorillas, and other wildlife in Gabon and other places it operates. In addition, we hope this agreement dramatically improves treatment of local communities; we are continuing to work closely with our Gabonese partner Brainforest to monitor and address serious outstanding social issues.

Several aspects of this agreement have the potential for significant positive ramifications that transcend Olam’s own operations.

1. Olam and Mighty Earth have agreed to join others in working to determine consensus standards for development in the few remaining “High Forest Cover” countries that still have most of their forests intact. Olam had justified its activities in Gabon on the basis of that country’s high forest cover and relative lack of large-scale degraded land; on the other hand, we and other environmental advocates have traditionally viewed large, intact, wildlife-rich ecosystems like those found in Gabon as exactly the ones that need protecting from plantation agriculture. We’ve always believed that development should be focused on the 125 million hectares of degraded land around the world. We are hopeful that, just as the recent NGO-company “convergence process” on agriculture development was able to build consensus around strong conservation standards for commodity agriculture development around the world, this process will do the same for development in High Forest Cover landscapes like Gabon. Just as in the “convergence process,” we anticipate the key group will be the High Carbon Stock Approach, and its High Forest Cover working group.

2. The agreement also formally shuts down the “palm oil black box” that was the initial focus of Mighty’s report. Our initial concern was that Olam was keeping its suppliers’ identities secret, creating a potential outlet for rogue palm oil companies that wanted to evade the strong “No Deforestation” policies that almost all of Olam’s rivals (Wilmar, Musim Mas, GAR) have adopted. Now, Olam has taken a step forward for transparency by revealing their suppliers’ identities, pledged to apply the industry-standard strong conservation policies to them, and take further steps to align their transparency measures with industry leaders. We will of course continue monitoring Olam and other companies’ operations. We hope that they will soon take important steps like revealing their mill locations, and invest in serious conservation and restoration initiatives.

3. Olam’s commitment to deforestation-free rubber in its own plantations is one of the first examples of a corporate commitment to environmental and social responsibility in the rubber industry. Rubber is a globally significant driver of deforestation, but almost no rubber companies have any sustainability policies that go beyond mere pledges to adhere to the laws of the countries in which they operate. Michelin started to change that with its Sustainability policy in 2016, and now Olam is stepping up on the producer side. We anticipate greatly increased calls for the rubber industry to align themselves with deforestation-free policies in the palm oil, paper, and soy industries.

We look forward to working with Brainforest, Olam, WRI and all our allies around the world to make this progress stick in the months to come.

Featured image from Flickr.

by Mighty Earth

Olam and Mighty Earth agree to collaborate on Forest Conservation and Sustainable Agriculture in Highly Forested Countries

by Mighty Earth