Indonesia: Greenpeace Skeptical of Firm’s Deforestation Claim

Jakarta Globe 24 Sep 14;

In this photograph taken on July 28, 2013, a worker load harvested palm oil fruits on a palm oil plantation in Blang Tualang village in Aceh province, Sumatra. (AFP Photo/Sutanta Aditya)

Jakarta. Greenpeace Indonesia has welcomed an announcement by the Royal Golden Eagle Group’s oil palm plantation company Asian Agri and palm oil trading arm Apical that their new sustainability policies aim to tackle their impact on Indonesia’s forests, but the environmental group notes that other companies in the group are still destroying the country’s forests.

Monday’s announcement of new environmental commitments by Asian Agri and Apical, palm oil businesses owned by Sukanto Tanoto, come as his family’s pulp companies, APRIL and Toba Pulp Lestari, continue to destroy Indonesia’s rainforests, Greenpeace said in a press release on Tuesday.

On Padang Island in Sumatra, bulldozers are continuing to clear forests on deep peatland, it said.

Bustar Maitar, head of Greenpeace’s Indonesian forests campaign, said that while he welcomed the announcement, he saw it as a missed opportunity by the RGE Group to address its real impact on the rainforests of Indonesia.

“We note the announcement of new commitments by Asian Agri and Apical, but why are RGE’s pulp companies, including APRIL and Toba Pulp Lestari, allowed to continue with deforestation? Questions also remain about how these new palm oil policies will apply to minority shareholdings, third-party suppliers and new acquisitions,” Bustar said in Jakarta.

Greenpeace has called on RGE to immediately implement no-deforestation commitments that apply to all pulp and palm oil businesses that are owned or controlled by the Tanoto family.

Separately on Tuesday, Asia Pulp and Paper announced in a press release that it had signed the New York Declaration on Forests at the UN Climate Summit to help tackle climate change.

Teguh Ganda Wijaya, the APP chairman, joined a number of officials from other companies, governments and NGOs to sign the New York Declaration on Forests at an event at the UN Climate Summit 2014.

The declaration is an unprecedented international, multi-sector commitment to safeguard the world’s forests and to help tackle climate change, the group said.

The signatories said they had committed to a vision of slowing, halting, and reversing global forest loss while simultaneously contributing to economic growth, poverty alleviation, rule of law preservation, food security, climate resilience and biodiversity conservation.

Teguh said United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had done the planet and some of its most critical ecosystems a great service in convening the ground-breaking meeting of governments, global business leaders and NGOs.

“Business can take the lead in delivering these commitments, but we must work closely with all stakeholders, including governments and NGOs, to truly tackle deforestation and climate change. One of the most effective ways to do this is by conserving forests, planting trees,” he said.

The declaration highlights that reducing emissions from deforestation and increasing forest restoration are key to tackling climate change, the signatories said.

All participants must strive to at least halve the rate of loss of natural forests globally by 2020 and end natural forest loss by 2030.

At the same time they plan to restore 150 million hectares of degraded landscapes and forestlands by 2020. They also aim to significantly increase the rate of global forest restoration thereafter, which would restore at least an additional 200 million hectares by 2030.