Palm Oil

Three years ago Korindo instigated a libel case against a former fiscal sponsor of Mighty Earth and a German NGO for campaign statements on Korindo’s rampant deforestation

The Rimba Collective pledges to mobilize real dollars for real conservation, and has the potential to deliver gigaton-scale climate benefits and expanded habitat for orangutans, tree kangaroos and other wildlife.

“This is the fourth straight year that palm-oil deforestation has been at a fraction of historic levels, and trending down,” said Glenn Hurowitz, CEO of the environmental nonprofit, Mighty Earth.

The lawsuit is part of an alarming worldwide trend in which powerful interests, including corporations or high-profile individuals, file lawsuits designed to harass and drain substantial resources from smaller watchdog organizations, activists, journalists, trade unions, media organizations, and those who represent the public interest.

FSC must act with urgency to conduct a fair and transparent process, rapidly deliver remedy long overdue, and re-evaluate its decision not to suspend Korindo.

Thousands of concerned travelers around the world have signed on to a threatened boycott of Japanese travel giant H.I.S. International, according to a new briefing paper from environmental campaign organization Mighty Earth.

The European Parliament has adopted a legislative initiative report urging the European Commission to propose a strong law to ensure products sold in the Union are deforestation-free and don’t cause human rights abuses.

Palm Oil Industry Should Resist Legislative Rollback of Deforestation Restrictions

New York Times report, public announcements by major companies highlight risks to Indonesia’s economy

The Indonesian government must recognize and take preventative action against the threat that forest and land fires pose in compounding the public health risks of COVID-19, urged more than 500 medical professionals in open letter published on September 24.

As severe and sweeping in impact as the Amazon deforestation crisis is, it is also avoidable.

The Omnibus bill includes multiple provisions that analysts warn will worsen deforestation in Indonesia and by extension inflict international reputational harm on the palm oil sector.

Smog and the COVID-19 pandemic could pose a double crisis, as experts say that air pollution could exacerbate the number of coronavirus deaths

Environmental groups are celebrating today’s dissolution of Maizuru Green Initiatives GK, a company set up to build a palm oil burning power plant in Maizuru City, Japan.

Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Marius Betera, who are now suffering as result of this appalling act of violence.

Samling scrambles to adopt sham policy to keep customers while destroying rainforests

Olam cleared rainforests over half the size of Singapore.

South Korea's largest trading company, POSCO International, has published a long-awaited zero deforestation policy for its global palm oil operations.

FSC report shows Korindo Group destroyed over 30,000 hectares of rainforest in the past 5 years while systematically manipulating and underpaying indigenous landowners

Nobody doing business with Cargill and JBS can credibly say they are concerned about deforestation

Palm oil and timber conglomerate sends Forest Stewardship Council a cease and desist letter the day it was scheduled to release findings from two-year investigation into the company's wrongdoing

Forest Stewardship Council concludes that Korindo violated its standards, mandates
improvement and remediation measures to avoid disassociation

New report documents US-based agribusiness giant's "ineptitude and incoherence at a grand scale."

Today, BLD Plantation Bhd, a major palm oil producer and refiner operating in Sarawak, Malaysia, announced a Sustainability Policy committing to “No Deforestation, No Development on Peat, and No Exploitation” (NDPE)

A recent report has exposed the harmful practices of major Korean conglomerates linked to the palm oil industry in Indonesia, leading to public outcry and consequences for some of the companies involved.

After a two-year investigation process, Mighty Earth calls for action on stalled Korindo scandal and files new complaint against KTS Group

New science revealed this week that the toxic haze from Indonesia’s 1997 raging forest fires, which spread across 42,500 square miles (bigger than the state of Tennessee), had a direct and irreversible impact on babies.

"We are hopeful that we will be able to soon praise Cargill not just for promises, but for action."

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has notified Mighty Earth that its International Board of Directors has delayed until March 2019 a decision on whether the organization will disassociate from the Korindo Group.

Mighty Earth together with over 60 other NGOs, signed an open letter to members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and consumer goods companies regarding the planned revisions to the RSPO Principles & Criteria.

The world’s fifth largest pension fund – the Dutch national pension fund ABP – has announced that it is divesting €300,000 from a Korean company, Posco Daewoo, which has destroyed 66,718 acres of pristine rainforests in Papua, Indonesia for palm oil plantations.

On May 5th, the national TV station in the Netherlands, Kassa, ran a 16-minute segment exposing the Dutch Pension Fund's financing of Posco Daewoo

While the Korindo Group has enacted a temporary moratorium on new deforestation on its oil palm plantations, it has been quietly but steadily destroying areas of pristine rainforest in one of its logging concessions in Papua, PT Inocin Abadi (PT IA).

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.

The UK’s largest drugstore retailer, Boots, reports that it has ended a retail partnership with POSCO Daewoo, following a letter sent by Mighty Earth to parent company Walgreens Boots Alliance.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) moderated a meeting between Mighty Earth and Olam on January 17th 2018, to discuss progress on commitments made by both parties at a similar meeting in January 2017, related to Olam’s plantations in Gabon and its Palm Products trading business.

Deforestation is continuing across Indonesia because of rogue companies that are attempting to evade these new environmental and social requirements on a vast scale...

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).

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 calling on Samsung to drop the joint venture.

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 properties The Courier Mail (“The Courier Fail”) and The Australian (The Not Australian).

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 properties The Courier Mail (“The Courier Fail”) and The Australian (The Not Australian).

Mighty and Korea Federation for Environmental Movements (KFEM) release video showing how a year of citizen action around the world is creating pressure to stop the Korean-Indonesian conglomerate Korindo’s destruction of “the Land of the Tree Kangaroo”

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.  

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.

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.

Last week, Ecology Minister Nicolas Hulot laid out France’s new “climate plan” which includes greater efforts to protect the world’s tropical rainforests in the Amazon, West Africa, and Southeast Asia.

Samsung’s phones are not the only thing in their business catching on fire.

Mighty Campaign Director Deborah Lapidus contributes foreward on palm oil for a new academic journal focused on key environmental issues in Asia, called EnviroLab Asia.

POSCO Daewoo, 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.

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.

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.

In the wake of Mighty Earth’s Ultimate Mystery Meat report, soy traders Bunge and Cargill are facing escalating pressure for supply chain reform from their customers, investors, and the public around the globe.

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.

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).

Mighty Earth and Olam agreed to move forward on two imperatives after their meeting in Washington, D.C.

Campaign Director Deborah Lapidus was on Australian network ABC today speaking about Korindo's devastating impact on West Papua.

Weeks after its moratorium, Korindo’s PT Papua Agro Lestari concession in the Indonesian island of Papua carved out plantation “blocks” on approximately 1,400 hectares of forest, an activity also known as “stacking”, which is the final step of land development prior to forest clearing.

A new report details Samling's crime-ridden palm oil operations in Malaysia, just another in a long line of abuses by the company.

With rainforest destruction and forced labor urgent concerns in palm oil cultivation, a diverse group of NGOs and investor organizations releases today shared guidance for corporate reporting on company commitments towards responsible palm oil sourcing and production.

Korindo has recently taken the positive step of announcing land clearing moratoria for all of its palm oil operations, following discussions with its global customers. However, critical questions remain about how Korindo plans to enforce and independently verify adherence to its moratorium.

Activists from the Korean Federation for Environmental Movements (KFEM) and Wahli (Friends of the Earth Indonesia) held a solidarity action late last month in Bandar Lampung, Indonesia against deforestation by agribusiness giant Korindo.

Today, Olam has cracked open its black box to the light of day. However, important questions remain about their sourcing.

A new report released today by Mighty and Gabon-based NGO Brainforest reveals that Olam, one of the world’s leading agribusiness traders, is operating a secretive palm oil trading operation.

For the sake of the 44,600 hectares of forest remaining in the concessions covered by the moratorium, we at Mighty hope that Korindo follows through on this commitment. But even if it does cease deforestation in these areas, Korindo needs to take many other actions before being considered responsible.

It’s time to breathe a big sigh of relief that the light at the end of the tunnel is near. The two groups today announced an agreement that will bring all the standards together, following a year-long convergence process.

Notorious driver of deforestation Korindo isn't just a palm oil company. Ironically, the Korean-Indonesian conglomerate is also a wind tower manufacturer.

Although a member of Korindo’s field technical staff admitted at a press event that his company does indeed use illegal fires to clear land for its oil palm plantations, the Korindo corporation now publicly asserts that it does not use this dangerous practice.

Following the launch of our “Burning Paradise” report on Korindo, which prompted the Indonesian government to announce a major investigation and garnered widespread media coverage, Mighty team members Bustar Maitar and Deborah Lapidus traveled to South Korea to participate in a speaking and media tour.

One year ago, Astra Agro Lestari (Astra), the second largest private palm oil grower in Indonesia, adopted a new, ambitious No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation policy. However, a new report shows that, one year in, the implementation of Astra’s sustainability policy leaves much to be desired.

Previously, governments and companies in the region provided repeated claims that that fewer than two dozen deaths were recorded. This study reveals the truth. This research shows that haze kills, it kills across borders, and it kills on a massive scale.

With stunning images, our inaugural report, "Burning Paradise," documented how the Korean-Indonesian conglomerate Korindo had engaged in systematic illegal burning of rainforest in Papua. Following the press conference, the Indonesian government announced that it would follow up with its own investigation into Korindo’s deforestation and burning.

A groundbreaking new investigation released today reveals new satellite, photographic, and video evidence of massive deforestation and illegal burning of pristine rainforest by the Korean-Indonesian corporation Korindo, to support establishment of its palm oil plantations on the Indonesian provinces of Papua and North Maluku.

The Indonesian government has stepped up its efforts to fight haze caused by deforestation, but is the private sector doing its part?

IOI Group was suspended from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, and instead of cleaning up its act has decided to file a lawsuit. We asked consumer companies to make a commitment to no longer source from IOI Group and its processing arm IOI Loders Croklaan. See where some of the biggest global companies stand on responsible palm oil sourcing.