A regenerated rainforest at Samboja near Balikpapan, on Kalimantan, Indonesia on May 20, 2019. Wolfgang Kaehler / LightRocket via Getty Images
It may be surprising that a universal basic income would also help the environment, but that is exactly what a new study found. A government program to help poor, rural Indonesians through direct cash payments had the unexpected effect of reducing deforestation by 30 percent in participating villages, according to a new study, as Newsweek reported.
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<p>The program that Indonesia started, Keluarga Harapan program, or "Family Hope" program, which provides direct cash transfers to low-income households to bring them above the poverty line, had no intention of helping the country's <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/forests">forests</a>, which have been slashed down at a remarkable rate.</p><p>Instead, the program gave families money if they met certain conditions, like attending regular doctor visits, keeping kids in school, and participating in health and nutrition training. While conditional cash transfers are used in several countries around the world to alleviate poverty, they are not viewed as an environmentally friendly action, according to <a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/deforestation-trees-indonesia-cash-poor-families-programs" target="_blank">Science News</a>.</p><p>That's because economic growth is often correlated with environmental degradation. But, that's correlation, not causation.</p>
<p>The new study, published in<em> <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/24/eaaz1298" target="_blank">Science Advances</a></em>, examined the habits of 266,533 households in 7,468 rural villages across 15 provinces on multiple islands between 2008 and 2012. The researchers then compared where the cash was distributed to satellite images of forests during the same timeframe. That's when they noticed that forests where the government was making payments were faring far better than other regions of Indonesia.</p><p>"For decades, people have been debating whether alleviating poverty and protecting the environment are at odds with each other. Resolving this debate is important because lots of poor people are found in the same areas where we find the most endangered ecosystems, like the rainforest," Paul Ferraro, an author of the study from Johns Hopkins University, told <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/government-program-accidentally-deforestation-people-poverty-1510585" target="_blank">Newsweek</a>.</p>
<p>Saving Indonesia's forests is crucial for the health of the planet and wildlife. The forests are home to a diverse range of species and are efficient at capturing carbon. However, forest destruction is responsible for 10 percent of human carbon dioxide emissions, and much of it is the result of extreme poverty, as <a href="https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/how-fighting-poverty-accidentally-stopped-deforestation-1.1450530" target="_blank">Bloomberg</a> reported. For rural villages, selling timber and clearing land for cultivation is often an income stream of last resort.</p><p>Indonesia is home to the world's third-largest tropical forests, but it's also the top global producer of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/palm-oil">palm oil</a>, which generates millions of jobs but is blamed by environmentalists for forest loss and fires, according to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-poverty-deforestation-trfn/cash-payments-to-cut-poverty-in-indonesian-villages-help-forests-too-idUSKBN23J2SZ" target="_blank">Reuters</a>.</p><p>Not only does Indonesia suffer from troubling rates of deforestation, it also has terrible income inequality. According to <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/" target="_blank">Global Forest Watch</a>, Indonesia had the <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/IDN?dashboardPrompts=eyJvcGVuIjp0cnVlLCJzdGVwSW5kZXgiOjAsInN0ZXBzS2V5IjoiZGFzaGJvYXJkQW5hbHlzZXMiLCJmb3JjZSI6dHJ1ZX0%3D&map=eyJkYXRhc2V0cyI6W3siZGF0YXNldCI6IjBiMDIwOGI2LWI0MjQtNGI1Ny05ODRmLWNhZGRmYTI1YmEyMiIsImxheWVycyI6WyJjYzM1NDMyZC0zOGQ3LTRhMDMtODcyZS0zYTcxYTJmNTU1ZmMiLCJiNDUzNTBlMy01YTc2LTQ0Y2QtYjBhOS01MDM4YTBkOGJmYWUiXSwiYm91bmRhcnkiOnRydWUsIm9wYWNpdHkiOjEsInZpc2liaWxpdHkiOnRydWV9LHsiZGF0YXNldCI6ImI1ODQ5NTRjLTBkOGQtNDBjNi04NTljLWYzZmRmM2MyYzVkZiIsImx" target="_blank">third-highest rate of rainforest loss</a> in the world in 2019. It also saw the divide between its richest and poorest citizens grow faster than any other country in Southeast Asia over the last two decades, and now has the sixth-largest wealth inequality gap in the world, according to <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/inequality-indonesia-millions-kept-poverty" target="_blank">Oxfam International</a>, as <a href="https://www.mic.com/p/a-new-study-shows-how-a-universal-basic-income-could-help-the-environment-too-22981684" target="_blank">Mic</a> reported.</p><p>"No matter which way we looked at it, the anti-poverty program on average leads to reduction in deforestation in the villages receiving it," said Ferraro, as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-poverty-deforestation-trfn/cash-payments-to-cut-poverty-in-indonesian-villages-help-forests-too-idUSKBN23J2SZ" target="_blank">Reuters</a> reported.</p>
<p>The researchers suggest their results may spill over to other countries in Asia that have similar experiences, such as cutting down forests to grow rice as a supplement to a poor harvest. They also say that their study shows that's what's good for people is also good for the environment.</p><p>"The value of the avoided deforestation just for carbon dioxide emissions alone is more than the program costs," said Ferraro, as <a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/deforestation-trees-indonesia-cash-poor-families-programs" target="_blank">Science News</a> reported, adding that the economic benefits of saving the forests justify the intervention.<br></p>
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In 2002, Rukam villagers sold their land to a palm oil company. Since then, they've seen their peatlands, forests and fish stocks vanish. Jefta Images / Barcroft Media via Getty Images
By Rizki Nugraha, Michaela Cavanagh and Holly Young
Just like his father and grandfather, Alfian has spent his whole life working as a fisherman on the banks of the Batang Hari river in Rukam, Indonesia.
<p>In the village of 1,200 residents, rows of houses sit low to the ground beside the water, buttressed on the other side by <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/scotland-restores-its-peatlands-to-keep-carbon-in-the-ground/a-50915166" target="_blank">swampy peatlands</a>.</p><p>The natural environment has long sustained the life of this village on the island of Sumatra. But now 48-year-old Alfian is struggling. "The fish are gone from the river," he says. "It's barely enough for daily survival."</p><p>Alfian remembers when many fish species lived in the peatlands. He could feed his family for a week with the money from one day's catch.</p><p>The fate of both Alfian's daily catch and Rukam itself is intertwined with that of an estimated <a href="https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/97/2/18-220434/en/" target="_blank">US $60 billion-dollar industry</a>. </p><p>Indonesia sits at the heart of the global palm oil trade. In 2002, it arrived on the banks of Rukam when the Indonesian company PT Erasakti Wira Forestama (EWF) offered the villagers a one-time payment for their land.</p>
<p>Some villagers resisted. Syafei, a 68-year-old who was chief of Rukam at the time, advocated for joint ownership and management of the lands between villagers and the company. But he says some residents pressured him to accept the terms.</p><p>They were offered roughly €55,000 (700 million Rupiah, $62,333 according to conversation rates at the time) for approximately 2,300 hectares (5684 acres) in total.</p><p>"At that time, that amount of money was really huge," says Syafei. The villagers were "yearning for the compensation."</p><p>In the end the community sold the land. Valuable peatlands were converted to plantations — and the repercussions of the decision are still felt today.</p>
The Environmental Cost of Palm Oil
<p>Touted as a wonder commodity, palm oil is found in a vast array of products and has been an undeniable driver of economic growth in the country.</p><p>But the environment has paid the price — namely through deforestation, loss of biodiversity, soil degradation, and polluted water and air.</p><p>Slash-and-burn techniques, used to clear large swathes of land for plantations, are particularly devastating in peatlands like those found in Rukam. Peatlands are made up of thick layers of decomposed organic material and burning them releases huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.</p><p>Rukam's residents have witnessed their landscape transform since they sold their land.</p><p>The peatlands were drained to make them usable for palm oil. A water pump brought in for irrigation disrupted the natural flow of water, redirecting it from the river to the plantation — which made it difficult for Rukam's residents' to access water for their own fields.</p><p>The situation worsened when a flood dam, used to protect the oil palm plantation from flooding, was built in 2009.</p><p>"As a consequence, villagers experience more damaging floods in the rainy season and don't have enough water in the dry season," says Rudiansyah, from WALHI, Indonesia's largest environmental organization. Farming has become difficult.</p><p>The profits from the sale of land, which were split evenly among residents, were not long-lasting. In fact, Rudiansyah claims Rukam's economy shrank significantly after the land conversion. While there is no data from before EWF came to the village, a study from WALHI and the University of Jambi found 366 of 494 families in Rukam were considered "poor" or "very poor" in 2018.</p><p>WALHI and many villagers put this down primarily to the loss of fishing ground due to the palm oil expansion.</p><p>Residents say the lakes they used to fish in disappeared after the land conversion and that they've seen fish stocks dramatically decline. When peatlands were drained many valuable species lost their breeding grounds. Now, there are only 53 fishermen, making around €8 ($8.70) per day.</p><p>With few alternatives left, many residents have turned to working on the palm oil plantations to earn a living.</p><p>Roughly 150 people, or about 16% of the village, work on the EWF plantation, which covers more than 4,000 hectares of land between the Batang Hari and the Kumpeh rivers.</p><p>"The only way to survive is to work on the plantation," says Hikmawati, a 35-year-old Rukam resident. Hikmawati worked distributing fertilizer on the plantation but eventually quit because of the high workload and low wages.</p><p>Now Hikmawati is trying to earn a living as a seamstress, while her husband works as a driver for the few remaining fishermen.</p>
Loss and Regret
<p>Hikmawati can't imagine any future for Rukam and would turn back the clock if she could: "I'd go back to the olden days where we could grow rice, or when there were still plenty of fish around."</p><p>She's not alone. "When I see the vanishing forest, I feel sad... The future looks bleak," fisherman Alfian says. "If nothing changes, then the next generation will leave, and this village will go extinct. Because there is nothing to live for anymore."</p><p>Alfian expects he will be the last in the family line of fishermen. "Maybe my children will only learn the names and types of fish that used to live here," he says.</p><p>For former village chief Syafei, regret is tinged with frustration: "Everything I had planned for the future has gone to the bottom of the ocean because they didn't want to listen to me."</p><p>Many in the community feel a sense of loss, and not just concerning their livelihood. "Countless species of medicinal plants are also lost because of the land conversion from peat forest to plantation," says Rudiansyah.</p><p>It's a response common to many villages impacted by the industry. "There is without question an enormous amount of regret for those communities," says Terry Sunderland, a senior scientist with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).</p><p>"Rukam's story is actually representative for a lot of the villages in Indonesia that are engaging palm oil," says Erik Meijaard, a conservation scientist and chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature palm oil task force.</p><p>"Certain communities benefit from palm oil, but for communities in which residents go fishing or hunting or collecting plants as part of their livelihoods, they tend to lose out quite badly when palm oil goes in and cuts down the forest, because you've got major environmental impacts."</p><p>A <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332655945_Does_oil_palm_agriculture_help_alleviate_poverty_A_multidimensional_counterfactual_assessment_of_oil_palm_development_in_Indonesia%20p.%2014" target="_blank">study out of Kalimantan, Indonesia</a>, found a marked decline in social and environmental well-being in communities with oil palm plantations between 2000 and 2014 — particularly those, like Rukam, that relied on subsistence-based livelihoods.</p><p>According to Rudiansyah, Rukam is an unusual case because it chose to sell its land as opposed to many <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/09/22/indonesia-indigenous-peoples-losing-their-forests" target="_blank">communities plagued by conflicts</a> with palm oil companies.</p><p>But Sunderland argues fully informed consent is often lacking: "People should be able to make a decision based on the full knowledge of what the implications are. And that's not the case — palm oil is sold as the financial answer to communities' problems.... Palm oil companies negotiate very disingenuously and essentially don't provide all the information." </p><p>As part of the concession agreement with the local government, EWF made regular corporate responsibility payments to Rukam, used to build infrastructure in the village.</p><p>Still, some villagers now say they were misled about the impact on water and degradation of their peatland forest.</p><p>"At that time [of the sale] we didn't know the impact will be like this. It wasn't known to us that there was a plan to build the dam," says Alfian.<span></span></p><p>"Flooding wasn't even a problem [before], not like now where the water has become dark and murky, probably caused by the pollution from the plantation," says Hikmawati. Although no official study has been carried out, residents have accused the company of dumping chemicals in the river.</p><p>EWF has not responded to requests for comment on these allegations.</p><p>"The company should have been fair towards the villagers, not trying to destroy their livelihood, but to embrace them as strategic partners," says Rudiansyah, arguing lack of proper education in the community also played a role.</p>
Wildfires and Mixed Progress
<p>Despite established criteria from the <a href="https://www.rspo.org/key-documents/impact-reports" target="_blank">Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)</a> in data from 2018, only 19% of palm oil produced globally was certified sustainable. Furthermore, Greenpeace <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/5-problems-with-sustainable-palm-oil/" target="_blank">have argued deforestation</a> continues to happen even among certified palm oil companies.</p><p>The Indonesian government has frequently touted the economic benefits of the industry. However, in the wake of the 2015 wildfires, which destroyed 2.6 million hectares of land including large swathes of peatland, the government took steps that earned international praise.</p><p>The Peatland Restoration Agency (BRG) was set up in 2016 and by the end of 2018, it had restored more than 679,000 hectares. In 2019, the same year as more intense wildfires hit the country, the Indonesian government also issued a permanent moratorium on new forest clearance for activities like palm oil development and logging.</p><p>But not all are convinced of the progress.</p><p>"[Palm oil] companies benefit from poorly enforced laws, which in some cases are also poorly drafted," says Sol Gosetti from Greenpeace, referring to the creation of the BRG and <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/twenty-three-companies-fined-for-causing-forest-fires-leading-to-indonesia-haze/a-18934750" target="_blank">renewed government action</a> against companies destroying forests and peatland, such as mandating punitive fines and revoking licenses.</p><p>"The intentions [of government plans] seemed good, but there has been very mixed follow up and research in the field shows that the plantation sector is still not changing its practices," says Gosetti. "In the meantime, a number of plantation companies continue expansion; clearing forests and draining wet, carbon-rich peatlands."</p><p>Despite the moratorium, a <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/southeastasia/press/2834/one-million-hectares-of-forest-burned-inside-forests-moratorium-area-greenpeace-analysis-show/" target="_blank">Greenpeace investigation</a> in 2019 found that more than 1 million hectares had been burned in protected areas. The government has also been criticized for a failure to enforce industry transparency or regulations and tackle human rights abuses.</p>Peatland Regeneration
<p>Yet at the local level, some see reasons to believe the peatlands have a future.</p><p>Panace, 39, is a farmer living in Pematang Rahim, a village not far from Rukam. He used to cultivate palm oil on peatlands, but found it was very expensive as a smallholder farmer and was degrading the soil.</p><p>Now he is one of many farmers working to rehabilitate their land through the peat restoration program. The first step is rewetting the peatlands by installing infrastructure like deep wells and canal blockings to redistribute water. Then trees and other crops are replanted to repair <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327881251_Implementing_Peatland_Restoration_in_Indonesia_Technical_Policies_Interventions_and_Recent_Progress" target="_blank">damaged land.</a> </p><p>"We are going to continue diversifying our own crops and try to establish polyculture," says Panace. "We have started with Pinang palm — which grows well in peatlands and has a higher price on the market than palm oil fruits — and so far, it looks really promising."</p><p><span></span>The program depends on the willingness of both farmers and palm oil companies to participate but Panace believes education is key in the future. The program also works with community groups, NGOs and universities to promote the advantages of peatland restoration.</p><p><span></span>Change will not happen overnight. "Peatland recovery takes decades, while restoration activities have only been running for four years," says Myrna Safitri, from BRG. But once established on a broad scale it could <a href="https://theconversation.com/4-steps-the-indonesian-government-can-take-to-ensure-locals-help-put-out-forest-fires-126330" target="_blank">help mitigate the spread</a> of wildfires. </p><p>While restoration has not yet reached Rukam, not all residents are resigned to their village's fate.</p><p>Following pressure from the region's provincial government and WALHI, EWF has agreed to meet three demands of the villagers in Rukam, set to be put into effect this year: To repair the health of the soil, to help residents set up rice fields and irrigation systems, and to restore the water source for agriculture and clean drinking water.</p><p>This comes almost two decades after the decision that changed everything for Rukam. "Years ago, we only needed to take what nature provided for us," laments Syafei. "Our entire way of life was dependent on the natural rhythm of the seasons."</p><p>But he hasn't completely given up hope there is still time to recognize what is at stake. "If we don't learn from the past, then this village might disappear."</p>From Your Site Articles
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Tavurvur Volcano near Kokopo on Papua New Guinea. Daisuke Kishi / Getty Images
By John C. Cannon
Change. That's what Monica Yongol has seen in her 54 years. In that time, the loggers and then the oil palm companies have moved into the remote corner of Papua New Guinea where she raised her family, altering the contours of the society she knew.
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<p>"Things have changed a lot over the years for the women," Yongol said. "The male members of society or even other males from other clans, they go ahead and make decisions in private spaces, which means women are not included."</p><p>Often, those decisions determine the fate of the forests that the people of Mu, Yongol's village in the rural local-level government of East Pomio on New Britain Island, have lived next to and subsisted on for generations. In East Pomio, part of Pomio district in East New Britain province, mothers have traditionally passed what they have down to their children. The principle has worked well, Yongol said, because women have a vested interest in ensuring that the land continues to provide for them.</p><p>"Women are looking at how they sustain the lives of their children in the future generations," she said, "whereas men are more looking at short-term benefits."</p><p>But the influx of "development" — first to harvest the island's tropical timber in the 1990s, and more recently to set up oil palm plantations — backed by politicians and lawmakers in distant capitals, has shifted the calculus around the value of the land. Yongol and the other women gathered at the Vunapope Catholic Mission on a muggy November afternoon said they feel sidelined, shut out of decisions about what's to happen to the forests where they have traditionally tended their gardens, gathered wood and harvested wild-growing food.</p><p>In another cruel twist, Elizabeth Tongne said, these attitudes also lead to the scapegoating of women for standing in the way of progress.</p><p>"They're blaming us for stopping development on the land," she said.</p><p>Tongne, sporting a worn T-shirt emblazoned with "Badass PACIFIC Feminist," is the founder and director of <a href="https://iwda.org.au/wide-bay-conservation-association/" target="_blank">Wide Bay Conservation Association</a>, a local community-based organization named for the thumb of the Solomon Sea pushing into New Britain's eastern shore next to East Pomio. She and her team at Wide Bay organized a seven-day convention to coincide with the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/events/endviolenceday/" target="_blank">International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women</a> at the Catholic mission just outside Kokopo, the provincial capital of East New Britain.</p><p>The women, leaders from Mu and a handful of other East Pomio villages, spent the days sharing their stories, identifying the problems they face, like domestic and community violence, and coming up with strategies to address them. Tongne and her team also aimed to provide them with information that would help their fellow women, as well as children and young girls, back home. They held presentations on the importance of education and avoiding teenage pregnancy, and they covered tangible skills such as farming, banking and "marketing" (selling goods like produce, tobacco and betel nut at market). As Tongne explained, the loss of the forest has left women and young girls with fewer options in their home villages.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI4Njg5NC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0ODg4NjA0Nn0.Kh16MWlWHf458G0xefBLT8qfWoSaQH3rrnxkp7aczA4/img.jpg?width=980" id="43eee" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="903bb1e9b53a68e9cb3910d892279b58" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Fresh produce at the Kokopo market. John C. Cannon / Mongabay
A Changing Island
<p>The forested mountains rising in sight of Kokopo are constant reminders of the island's volcanic past — and present, if <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-28978089" target="_blank">the 2014 eruption</a> of the still-puffing Tavurvur volcano northwest of town is any indication. But the face of the island is shifting faster than the pace of geologic time, especially with the recent creep of oil palm over the past two decades. From the air, the crop's progress lurches inward from the province's outer edges: deep green canopy giving way first to brown earth and splintering logging roads and then to neat rows of the drooping, top-heavy trees that produce the world's most popular vegetable oil.</p><p>The dense forests that covered more than 98% of the province as recently as 2010 have begun to wink out, according to <a href="https://www.globalforestwatch.org/map/country/PNG/4/3?mainMap=eyJzaG93QmFzZW1hcHMiOmZhbHNlLCJzaG93UmVjZW50SW1hZ2VyeSI6ZmFsc2UsInNob3dBbmFseXNpcyI6dHJ1ZSwiaGlkZUxlZ2VuZCI6ZmFsc2V9&map=eyJjZW50ZXIiOnsibGF0IjotNS42NTg5MDQyMTQ3OTAyODQsImxuZyI6MTUxLjYyMTA0NTU1NDIwNzI5fSwiYmVhcmluZyI6MCwicGl0Y2giOjAsInpvb20iOjcuODU3MDcyNzcyMzk2NzI2LCJkYXRhc2V0cyI6W3sibGF5ZXJzIjpbImI0NTM1MGUzLTVhNzYtNDRjZC1iMGE5LTUwMzhhMGQ4YmZhZSIsImNjMzU0MzJkLTM4ZDctNGEwMy04NzJlLTNhNzFhMmY1NTVmYyJdLCJkYXRhc2V0IjoiMGIwMjA4YjYtYjQyNC00YjU3LTk4NGYtY2FkZGZhMjViYTIyIiwib3BhY2l0eSI6MSwidmlzaWJpbGl0eSI6dHJ1ZX0seyJkYXRhc2V0IjoiMTkwYWNiMGQtMmIwNi00OGQ4LWI4OTQtMjM0YTc0MTM2NzRiIiwibGF5ZXJzIjpbIjBhYmU0YWVhLWNjODYtNGM3NS04YzE2LTJmMTZiZjc4ZDhiZSJdLCJvcGFjaXR5IjoxLCJ2aXNpYmlsaXR5Ijp0cnVlfSx7ImRhdGFzZXQiOiJlYWI5NjU1Zi1kZDM3LTRiYjMtYjIyMy00YzVkZjE2NjU2NGMiLCJsYXllcnMiOlsiZGNlODAwNGYtNGQwZi00YzJkLWFlNGItZGNmNTVlMTQwMzVmIl0sIm9wYWNpdHkiOjEsInZpc2liaWxpdHkiOnRydWUsInRpbWVsaW5lUGFyYW1zIjp7InN0YXJ0RGF0ZSI6IjIwMDEtMDEtMDEiLCJlbmREYXRlIjoiMjAxOC0wMS0wMSIsInRyaW1FbmREYXRlIjoiMjAxOC0wMS0wMSJ9fSx7ImRhdGFzZXQiOiJjOTJiNjQxMS1mMGU1LTQ2MDYtYmJkOS0xMzhlNDBlNTBlYjgiLCJsYXllcnMiOlsiMjM1MTM5OWMtZWYyYy00OGRhLTk0ODUtMjA2OTgxOTBhY2IwIl0sIm9wYWNpdHkiOjEsInZpc2liaWxpdHkiOnRydWV9XSwibGFiZWxzIjp0cnVlLCJkcmF3aW5nIjpmYWxzZSwiY2FuQm91bmQiOmZhbHNlLCJiYm94IjpbXX0%3D&mapPrompts=eyJvcGVuIjp0cnVlLCJzdGVwc0tleSI6InN1YnNjcmliZVRvQXJlYSIsInN0ZXBJbmRleCI6MCwiZm9yY2UiOnRydWV9&menu=eyJtZW51U2VjdGlvbiI6IiIsImRhdGFzZXRDYXRlZ29yeSI6IiJ9&recentImagery=eyJjbG91ZHMiOjI1LCJzZWxlY3RlZCI6bnVsbCwic2VsZWN0ZWRJbmRleCI6MH0%3D&subscribe=eyJvcGVuIjpmYWxzZSwiZGF0YXNldHMiOlsidW1kLWxvc3MtZ2FpbiIsImdsYWQtYWxlcnRzIl19&treeLoss=eyJpbnRlcmFjdGlvbiI6e319" target="_blank">satellite data</a>. Tongne said that oil palm companies began building roads and clearing forest for plantations in East Pomio around 2008. Today, clearings and plantations creep up coastal hillsides, albeit at a much smaller scale than the expanses you'd see in Borneo or other parts of Southeast Asia.</p><p>Pomio is the remotest district in East New Britain, Tongne told me, and perhaps that's saved it from some of the heavier forest loss seen in other parts of the province. Still, between 2001 and 2018, data from the University of Maryland show that tree cover has diminished by nearly 9% in the province, which has lost more than 1,370 square kilometers (529 square miles) of forest in that time. Much of that has happened in the last decade, with forest loss peaking at 201 km2 (78 mi2) in 2015, in a province covering a total of 15,816 km2 (6,107 mi2). Recent satellite images captured over the past few months show many new frontiers of deforestation encroaching into old-growth rainforest in East New Britain, including roads expanding inland from Pomio's coast.</p><p>Around the world, corporations comb through ecosystems in search of resources to feed their bottom lines. Timber and palm oil are the top commodities in this South Pacific corner of Papua New Guinea, but similar patterns emerge whether the prize is oil, natural gas, copper or gold.</p><p>Replete as it is with valuable minerals and the world's third-largest rainforest full of tropical timber, Papua New Guinea continues to struggle with economic development. Outsiders, meanwhile, have profited from those resources, as Australia did in its role as colonial administrator until 1975, and foreign companies from the U.S., Australia and China continue to do today.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI4Njg4Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NzA0MzIwNH0.tXKhCD97VIWf3xgj_z0qXWbm-rGWKXRS82QYHW1INk0/img.jpg?width=980" id="c4789" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bf0caffac0bb8bd399c5a64cb3c0e8cc" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
East New Britain province has lost nearly 9% of its tree cover since 2001, and deforestation has accelerated since then, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland. The inset shows logging roads proliferating around the town of Pomio on Jacquinot Bay. To the northeast, in East Pomio rural local-level government on Wide Bay, deforestation for timber and oil palm has seeped inland. Source: Hansen/UMD/Google/USGS/NASA/Planet Labs, accessed through Global Forest Watch on May 13, 2020.
The Connection Between Violence and Deforestation
<p>Around the world, the "colonial" approach aimed at extracting valuable resources has destroyed "traditional and customary social relations" in local communities, Jeanette Sequeira, vice director and gender program coordinator at the Global Forest Coalition, said in a telephone interview.</p><p>"Often, this is in the land of indigenous peoples and local communities where there's already insecure land tenure," she said. "When you have corporations coming in and occupying these lands, there's just total loss of governance."</p><p>Global Forest Coalition and its more than 100 member organizations around the world have studied the interplay between gender and forest loss around the world. While the context of each local situation is unique, Sequeira said that the coalition's partners have seen the impact that forest loss can have on the most vulnerable members of society. In many cases, that means women.</p><p>"Deforestation and climate change and environmental degradation do lead to an increase in violence against women," Sequeira said. "I think that's a claim we can make more and more."</p><p>Along with the evaporation of the trees, the rights of women to determine what happens to the land they depend on have likewise vanished, Monica Yongol said, as the other women in the room nodded in agreement. The changes have jolted their communities. They've made it harder to provide for their families. And problems like teenage pregnancy, drug use and domestic violence in their communities have cropped up that the women say didn't exist before.</p><p>Several argue that the problem is rooted in the silencing of women's voices that's become more common. Yongol recounted a meeting held by a landowner company, a common organizational structure in Papua New Guinea formed by landholders to negotiate with developers, such as logging companies, on behalf of communities.</p><p>A woman at the meeting stood up and asked why the group hadn't informed all of the landowners about what would happen if the outside company interested in their land secured development rights, Yongol said. The tenets of free, prior and informed consent, <a href="http://www.fao.org/indigenous-peoples/our-pillars/fpic/en/" target="_blank">accepted global standards</a> set forth by the United Nations, hold that all community members should be aware of the plans for the land they depend on. In this case, however, the chairman dismissed her comment, telling her that she shouldn't have a say — because she was a woman.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI4Njg5Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMTk2NDUyNn0.Pb_TqR3wtSoRloISc-UHMlFxyDvf9tsKyXJz6589z3A/img.jpg?width=980" id="8f118" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3d921dd3acf6fa662ae5775847d4c2a8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Forest clearance and plantations have crept inland from Wide Bay, an arcing inlet in Pomio District. John C. Cannon / Mongabay
<p>The influx of developers didn't introduce such sexist attitudes to this part of Papua New Guinea. John Suka, a former teacher and now an elected councilor for the East Pomio rural local-level government, said that much of the problem stems from the "old ways."</p><p>There is "no fairness or equality," he said. "That's the first thing, maybe because of some traditional or customary ways of thinking."</p><p>Suka said that the upheaval in these societies triggered by surging interest from outside companies has exacerbated the situation. Without secure claims to the land, women are in a precarious position, especially when companies' respect even for the rights of a community as a whole is tenuous at best.</p><p>Society prior to the arrival of logging companies and plantation developers was neither perfectly fair nor equitable, Suka said. But, he added, the temptation to turn land rights, however spurious, into upfront cash and other benefits for certain members has changed the respect for other customs, such as that of matrilineal inheritance. And it's led some men to assume the roles of brokers in which they speak for entire communities.</p><p>At times, certainly, Suka said, "They have sold what they shouldn't be selling."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI4Njg5OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMDcxMzQ1Nn0.gF1bzpeK8RSsHGDyWGerLtu4H7FklXsSK3IfSiYkfjk/img.jpg?width=980" id="549ac" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="82a2164f59c4be138815db89159d97b0" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The airstrip at Tokua, south of Kokopo, with still-active volcanoes in the background. John C. Cannon / Mongabay
Cascading Effects
<p>Tongne said that these developments often touch off a chain of consequences for women.</p><p>"Once land is sold and taken away from them, there is a greater violence against women," she said, for several reasons. The forests in East New Britain, and indeed many parts of the country, have long served as a storehouse of ready food and supplies. They're essential in times of plenty, and they serve as vital emergency caches when times are tough.</p><p>"If there's a drought, the women know where to find food in the forest," Tongne told me.</p><p>But as logging and industrial agriculture replace forests close to home, women are forced to travel farther to gather food and other resources or to tend their gardens. That time spent on the road is time they're not looking after their homes or raising their children, Tongne said.</p><p>"The men begin to beat them up," she added. "Violence comes about because there is no food on the table."</p><p>On these extended journeys to the forest, women might face the threat of attack from people from other villages or clans, or from the workers brought in from outside communities by the companies.</p><p>Before, "We had a lot of safety and security. We can walk, visit friends, long distances to other villages," said Lucy Teine, a 50-year-old woman from the East Pomio village of Iwai. "But now, with the population that's coming in to work in those developments, that's now a threat for us."</p><p>The fraying of the social fabric exacerbated by outsiders who might harbor different values is a symptom of a larger issue. Foundational blame for these changes lies with the mentalities that colonialism introduced, according to Sequeira.</p><p>While sexism has persisted in many societies around the world, "Indigenous communities had, in many cases, more equitable gender relations before the advent of colonialism," she said. "Women and men had different, respected roles and status in communities."</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI4NjkwMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMTE2NjIwN30.rckr7Nojn7ixl6UBPWg7-YS-hfBeNrMX8vHBJl3m84E/img.jpg?width=980" id="0174f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="130511d5333fdbb0954e4be3d76aa613" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
John Suka, an elected councilor in the East Pomio local-level government, at the Vunapope Catholic Mission. John C. Cannon / Mongabay
A Global Issue
<p>The Global Forest Coalition and its partners have been investigating issues like these around the world. They've found that, while the details may change from place to place, there are broad commonalities among the communities affected by land development and extractivism, Sequeira said.</p><p>"We know that these [roles] became eroded as we had colonial administrations and just the complete dispossession and destruction of indigenous identity," she said.</p><p>In Colombia, she said, women and men are supposed to have equal rights to the land. But, "That's not really how it plays out."</p><p>"You still have women who have to ask permission [from] their husbands or partners for being able to use a bit of land to cultivate medicinal herbs and other food for household consumption," Sequeira said.</p><p>In many places — though not everywhere —laws are in place that should protect land rights, including those of women, she added. Where the system falls short is in implementing these statutes. What that means, broadly, is that forests suffer when women don't have a say in land rights.</p><p>"[W]omen play a vital role in forest conservation," Sequeira and her colleagues wrote in a November 2019 blog <a href="https://globalforestcoalition.org/forest-conservation-must-address-violence-against-women/" target="_blank">post</a>. "Women interact daily with forests and other ecosystems, relying on them for household needs and their livelihoods, but also for conservation and restoration."</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI4NjkwMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NTgzMTgyM30.D8vUEYruo1bNesDIZ68gWKx72NM_jt30ITNJN_iB7Qg/img.jpg?width=980" id="8e225" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e09d9b1bcaa7226c53e226dd9d129789" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Several active volcanoes sit just northwest of the town of Kokopo. Tavurvur last erupted in 2014. John C. Cannon / Mongabay
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800909001852?via%3Dihub" target="_blank">Research</a> conducted in India and Nepal and published in the journal <em>Ecological Economics </em>has shown that forests do better when women are involved in the decision-making process. But impediments, from patriarchal attitudes to "wife bashing" as domestic violence is viscerally referred to in East New Britain, can stand in the way of that progress on both the conservation and social justice fronts.</p><p><a href="https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=588784240401882;res=IELIND" target="_blank">A 2010 countrywide study</a> , published in the journal <em>Contemporary PNG Studies</em>, found that almost two-thirds of women had suffered gender-based attacks.</p><p>John Suka said addressing the problem of violence is critical. But up until now, it's not been something that's been seen as a priority. In most cases, government agencies don't have the capacity — or the will — to enforce these laws, he said.</p><p>"All the levels of government have the responsibility, but the point is, they don't implement what they are supposed to be implementing," Suka added. "It's a great failure across the board."</p><p>He said that a shift in thinking is called for.</p><p>"Of course, before we were kept in a little box with our own way of life," he said. "Today, we are in a new world."</p><p>Sequeira said she agrees that changing systemic attitudes is paramount.</p><p>"What we need is more than just policies and sanctions," she said. Elsewhere, she added, campaigns and dialogues around gender equality and women's rights have been effective at transforming the "culture of violence." Women, too, have taken control of their own plight, forming "brigades" that accompany vulnerable women on trips outside the community — say, to the forest.</p><p>Sequeira said women in other parts of the world also engage the broader community using "naming and shaming protocols" to call out perpetrators of violence against women. And both men and women partake in neighborhood watch programs.</p><p>She also said that violence on the personal level must be seen through the broader lens of what's happening to people's land in the community traced back to colonial paradigms.</p><p>"Dispossession and loss of land rights and extractivism … are also forms of patriarchal violence," Sequeira said in the interview.</p><p>In their blog post, she and her colleagues wrote that not only must women deal with the traditional ways of thinking that often relegate them to less-than status. They "must often defend their forests against the massive threats from extractivism, whether it be industrial livestock and agriculture (such as the production of soy and palm oil) or mining mega-projects."</p><p>"Forest conservation can never be successful or bring about social justice," they added, "if it does not address the prevalence of the various manifestations of violence against women, and especially so on the front-lines of the environmental and climate crisis."</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/gender-based-violence-shakes-communities-in-the-wake-of-forest-loss/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Land clearing by Digoel Agri. Pusaka
A new company has begun clearing rainforest in an area of Indonesia's easternmost Papua province earmarked to become the world's largest oil palm plantation, in a vast project that has been mired in allegations of lawbreaking.
<p>If seen through to completion, the Tanah Merah project will generate an estimated $6 billion in timber and create a plantation almost twice the size of London, at the heart of the largest tract of intact rainforest left in Asia. It will also release an immense amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, at a time when Indonesia has committed to reducing <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/emissions" rel="noopener noreferrer">emissions</a> from <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation" rel="noopener noreferrer">deforestation</a>.<em></em></p>
<p>Since March of last year, the Digoel Agri Group, founded by a politically connected Jakarta family and now backed by an investor from New Zealand, has bulldozed 170 hectares (420 acres) of rainforest in a section of the project previously spared from land clearing, satellite imagery shows.</p><p>The clearance amounts to a fraction of the 280,000 hectares (692,000 acres) allocated for the project, now controlled by several different conglomerates. But it signals that deforestation could quickly accelerate after a decade of false starts by other investors.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjg5NzQzNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwOTU3MjkwMH0.Dvf-M0hbY-fIaELT0R0DyctTdKkOvGwuLzd1eXrnbJI/img.jpg?width=980" id="78247" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f4d56d58401899bcc49dd41f190d8a9c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A satellite view of Digoel Agri's forest clearance, seen in late November 2019.
<p>Since it was first conceived in 2007, the rights to the project have changed hands several times, involving a string of investors who have deployed crude and complex corporate secrecy techniques to hide their identities.</p><p>The licensing process for the project has been plagued by irregularities. A cross-border <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/11/the-secret-deal-to-destroy-paradise/" target="_blank">investigation</a> by The Gecko Project, Mongabay, Malaysiakini and Tempo, published in November 2018, revealed that key permits were signed by an elected official who was simultaneously serving a prison sentence for embezzling state funds.</p><p>A subsequent <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/revealed-government-officials-say-permits-for-mega-plantation-in-papua-were-falsified/" target="_blank">report</a> found that officials believe other essential permits — for both the plantation and a giant sawmill to process the timber — were falsified.</p><p>Two companies, majority-owned by anonymous firms registered in the United Arab Emirates, began operating on the basis of these permits, to the north of the land now held by Digoel Agri. In response to written questions from The Gecko Project and Mongabay they have denied the allegation that the permits were falsified.</p><p>On paper, Digoel Agri's involvement in the project represents a clean break from those allegations. The firm arrived on the scene after the suspect permits held by earlier investors were revoked and reassigned to it.</p><p>Jackson Iqbal de Hesselle, 32, a member of the Rumangkang family, which is behind Digoel Agri, said its operations were clean. "We're obeying the rules," he said in a recent interview at the firm's office in Jayapura, the capital of Papua province.</p><p>However, while there are no apparent links between Digoel Agri and the previous investors, its ability to operate is partly predicated on the allegedly compromised licensing process that went before.</p><p>The legal basis of Digoel Agri's activities rests partly on decrees rezoning the land to allow development, issued by the Ministry of Forestry in 2012, following requests from earlier investors. The applications were based on the plantation permits that were allegedly falsified.</p><p>As of late last year, Indonesian authorities had yet to investigate the allegations, officials from several agencies <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/revealed-government-officials-say-permits-for-mega-plantation-in-papua-were-falsified/" target="_blank">said at the time</a>.</p><p>NGOs scrutinizing the project assert that officials rushed into reallocating the lands to new investors without properly considering the allegations of irregularities in the licensing process and the environmental and social impacts the project would have.</p><p>Arie Rompas, the head of forest campaigns at Greenpeace Indonesia, called the Tanah Merah project a "public scandal" and said the permits underlying it should be examined and revoked.</p><p>"There is still an opportunity to save this area," he said.</p>
Enter the Rumangkangs
<p>Digoel Agri was set up by members of the Rumangkang family, according to the Indonesian government's corporate registry. The late family patriarch, Ventje Rumangkang, who <a href="https://kumparan.com/kumparannews/pendiri-partai-demokrat-ventje-rumangkang-meninggal-dunia-1stwRMdnjsT" target="_blank">died</a> in February at the age of 74, was a founder of Indonesia's Democratic Party, the vehicle for Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's successful presidential run in 2004.</p><p>At their office in Jayapura, Jackson and his brother Jones Rumangkang, 44, said they had decided to invest in the Tanah Merah project after being encouraged to do so by bureaucrats in Boven Digoel, the district in which the project is located. They then formed several companies under the Digoel Agri brand and set about acquiring the permits.</p><p>The brothers said they were helped along by Fabianus Senfahagi, the head of a local indigenous people's association. He had played a role shepherding through the project in its early stages, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/11/the-secret-deal-to-destroy-paradise/" target="_blank">accompanying</a> surveyors sent by other investors around 2012.</p><p>A paper trail of correspondence among Fabianus and government officials shows he subsequently agitated for the permits to be revoked and reassigned to the Digoel Agri Group.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjg5NzQzOS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMzYxNzczMX0.ZcD-KdlSgXx5kqObg-YRDbnfnUz4QLIR0D7G_E2I25s/img.png?width=980" id="e849c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c7a429fa0a26cf860930a108f7da9c6f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /><p>His letters to the district government in 2014 claimed the local Auyu people were anxiously waiting for the project to begin. By this time, the land concessions that would be transferred to the Rumangkangs were majority-owned by Tadmax Resources, a Malaysian logging and property conglomerate. Minority stakes were retained by the Menara Group, an enigmatic Jakarta firm that brought the project to life in 2010.</p><p>Over the next three years, the permits held by Tadmax and Menara were revoked by the district and provincial governments. The stated rationale for cancelling them was the companies' failure to begin operating. However, bureaucrats at the Papua investment agency had also raised concerns that some of the permits had been falsified.</p><p>Tadmax and Menara have not responded to repeated requests to comment on these allegations.</p><p>By 2017, the concessions previously held by Tadmax and Menara had been reallocated to the Digoel Agri Group.</p>
<p>In early 2019, Tadmax and Menara challenged this decision. A letter to the central government from Dr. Sadino & Partners, a law firm representing the joint investors, accused officials of illegally revoking the permits. They also argued that anyone using the same land on the basis of new permits — like the ones underlying Digoel Agri's operations — was committing a crime.</p><p>Jones and Jackson insisted that Digoel Agri was in compliance with the law and had obtained the permits it needed to begin operating, from the district and provincial governments.</p><p>Ordinarily, to convert rainforest to a plantation, Digoel Agri would also have needed to apply to the forestry ministry in Jakarta to rezone the land for development. But by the time the Rumangkangs arrived in Papua, this process had already taken place.</p><p>The Menara Group and its co-investors had obtained decrees rezoning the land from the then-minister in 2011. These decrees were issued on the basis of permits that provincial government officials have repeatedly reported were falsified.</p>
<p>In an interview last year, Sigit Hardwinarto, the ministry's director-general of forest planning, said the rezoning could be reviewed if the allegation that the permits had been falsified was reported to his department.</p><p>The rezoning of the land is a legacy of the administration of President Yudhoyono and then-Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan. During his tenure, Zulkifli <a href="http://www.greenomics.org/vast-majority-of-palm-oil-permits-granted-by-sby-regime" target="_blank">reportedly</a> rezoned 2.4 million hectares (5.9 million acres) of land for conversion to oil palm plantations.</p><p>Yudhoyono's successor, President Joko Widodo, and the new forestry minister, Siti Nurbaya Bakar, have sought to strike a different path. In 2018, Widodo <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/indonesian-president-signs-3-year-freeze-on-new-oil-palm-licenses/" target="_blank">signed</a> a three-year moratorium on the issuance of new licenses for oil palm plantations.</p><p>The policy had been announced in the wake of Indonesia's 2015 fire and haze crisis, in which Indonesia's vast peat swamps burned as a result of agricultural fires from the oil palm and timber plantation industries. Toxic smoke from the fires drifted into neighboring countries, creating a public health crisis.</p><p>The moratorium explicitly barred the forestry ministry from rezoning land for oil palm development. It also instructed the cabinet to review all existing oil palm permits with an eye toward possibly revoking them. Several weeks after the president first declared he would sign the moratorium, in 2016, Siti singled out the Tanah Merah project as one that merited scrutiny.</p><p>In comments posted on her <a href="http://www.sitinurbaya.com/kegiatan-menteri-lhk/569-unprecedented-steps-taken-to-reinforce-presidents-palm-oil-expansion-moratorium" target="_blank">personal website</a>, Siti referred disparagingly to the fact that the project appeared to have been established so the licenses could be "traded" to Malaysian investors, and said the president had instructed her to prioritize implementing the moratorium in Papua.</p><p>"We really have to safeguard [the forests of Papua] and must formulate and implement a development concept in Papua to the best of our ability," she quoted Widodo as telling her.</p><p>However, neither these policies nor the allegations around the Tanah Merah project have stymied its progress under the direction of new investors. NGOs monitoring the implementation of the moratorium have noted limited progress in Papua.</p><p>"There has been no significant progress in how this policy is implemented," said Arie, the Greenpeace campaigner. "The Tanah Merah project should be a strong case to see how this [policy] can be carried out seriously and effectively."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjg5NzQ0NS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NzM2NTkxNH0.RLGZ7zm1UemDOEwBodOfhoUNpbQLYEYtHN8mU3P9gvw/img.png?width=980" id="59505" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3e81cf5fcb4e682a7e2b84c7c1baa808" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A road cuts through one of the Digoel Agri land concessions, seen in January. Pusaka
Competing Interests
<p>The Rumangkangs insist that the project will benefit the Auyu people. Jones said the ones he met were overjoyed about the prospect of a plantation on their land.</p><p>"They didn't just ask, they cried," he said. "The Auyu tribe is the poorest in Boven Digoel, even though they're so rich [in natural resources]."</p><p>The Rumangkangs have enlisted foreign investors to help them develop the plantation. Their chief partner is a New Zealand property developer named Neville Mahon. In 2018, Mahon became the majority shareholder of the Digoel Agri subsidiaries with land concessions in the project. He could not be reached for comment.</p><p>Mahon associate Thirunavukarasu Selva Nithan, an Australian national, is the sole director of the three companies, corporate records show. Contacted by email, he said he had resigned his position and directed questions to Jackson.</p><p>The involvement of these investors adds to a growing list of actors from across the world with a stake in what could become the world's largest stretch of oil palm. Malaysian logging giant Shin Yang has constructed a sawmill to process timber from the project.</p><p>North of the Digoel Agri concessions, investors whose identities are hidden behind anonymously owned companies in the United Arab Emirates have also begun clearing land, with the Menara Group and the sister of a prominent politician from Indonesia's National Mandate Party as their minor partners. So far, they've bulldozed 8,300 hectares (20,500 acres) of forest, nearly 3% of the project's total area.</p><p>Yet another firm holds the rights to the northernmost block of the project. Corporate records show it is majority owned by two holding companies registered to a letterbox address in Malaysia. The minor shareholder in that venture is the Malaysian logging giant Rimbunan Hijau.</p><p>Many Auyu remain steadfastly opposed to the Tanah Merah project, according to Franky Samperante, the director of Pusaka, an Indonesian nonprofit that advocates for indigenous peoples' rights.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjg5NzQ0Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMjEzMDU3OX0.N5bvUeHwDRD4y0fyN1WJY00sNEoVMmmP9ljXWsmLQ0Y/img.jpg?width=980" id="bdb0a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9b24cd26b8abc8784869535ba9d4a23c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/03/new-player-starts-clearing-rainforest-in-worlds-biggest-oil-palm-project/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>Franky Samperante. Sandy Watt / The Gecko Project
<p>On a recent trip to the area, he found that members of the Kemon clan, whose land has been targeted by Digoel Agri, did not want the plantation to go ahead on the grounds that it would destroy their food and water supplies.</p><p>He questioned the government's decision to allow the plantation to move ahead, without investigating the allegation that permits held by the earlier investors had been falsified.</p><p>"In light of the irregularities that have arisen, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry must review the decrees rezoning the land," he said. "The government must impose sanctions on the perpetrators."</p>From Your Site Articles
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Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue, in the Baka village in the south region of Cameroon, 2017. Greenpeace Africa
By Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue, Greenpeace Africa
When I think of the forest, I remember playing in it. We would build huts of sticks and moss, and vehicles from bamboo trees. Getting lost in the forest was a real adventure. We used to turn the forest into a navigation game. We could get a sense of orientation without a compass or a GPS.
<p>My family lived in a forest area in the central region of Cameroon. I have known the forest ever since I was a child. My birthday is on the 21<sup>st </sup>of March — the international day of forests — so I feel uniquely connected to forests.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjg4OTM5MS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNDczODc1MX0.gHuSLzWA_Kfb0Qlhq8wtvN4stTEMyhaED7wQevxQqCk/img.png?width=980" id="f3e2b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e6795a5163b9f47dbc549191d80d1e32" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue, in the rainforest in the south region of Cameroon, 2017. Greenpeace Africa
<p>I would go with my brothers, sisters and our friends into the nearby forest to collect seasonal fruits off the trees (bush mango, oranges, lemons). We would collect traditional medicinal herbs and scrape the tree barks with our grandma to treat our stomach aches, especially after eating too much of those fruits.</p><p>Playing and jumping in the bushes, looking for food and building materials, these were some of our favorite moments as children in Cameroon. The forest served me with free therapy sessions. When I was sad or needed to reflect, I used to go and rest under a tree. Alone, I could enjoy the shadow created by the branches. Listening to the squirrels' feet clambering in the trees or the birds singing, chirping, croaking and shrilling, it was a peaceful treatment for my mind.</p><p><span>Life seemed so simple then. We had a place where we found ourselves connected. The air was pure and fresh and we did not know many of the diseases we do now. The tranquil environment in the forest was reflected in the unity of our communities. There were hardly any conflicts over land and when they occurred they were solved peacefully around a fresh cup of palm wine.</span></p><p>But now I've witnessed the consequences of forest destruction for industrial agricultural plantations growing crops, rubber or palm oil or monoculture tree plantations. Seasons rapidly began changing from cold to very hot. Children were killed by speeding trucks carrying timber. Natural treasures were being plundered as resources for the selfish interests of a small group of people.</p><p>The humid rainforest has gone dry in many areas after intense logging, and the rich life that had been there has now turned into a story of displaced communities and fleeing wildlife.</p><p>When I walked in the forest today, as I try to do on every one of my birthdays, I recalled how it was during my childhood. I thought, why are they cutting down so much of the forest and what is the benefit of it for the people living here?</p><p>This is not unique to my country. Everywhere around the world the promise of "development" through logging has never served the people who live there. Only a handful of foreign companies and well-connected insiders are getting wealthier. Are they aware of the climate crisis? Did the loggers ever go through experiences in the forest that were similar to mine? What can we learn from Indigenous and local communities, who have been the natural guardians of the forest for so many years? What richness of knowledge is at risk of being lost, as I've seen them cast out of their homes? And what role do they ever get in the debate around the climate and biodiversity crises?</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjg4OTM5Mi9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNTM2NjYwN30.l8uCfb-UUhR623x3bVtoTVXoNvMMkWW8JaeKzif1LkA/img.png?width=980" id="7d2b6" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a586d9ea193365296293ee3e36d25418" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p><em>Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue is a forest campaigner for Greenpeace Africa, based in Yaounde, Cameroon.</em></p>Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue, in the Baka house in the south region of Cameroon, 2019. Greenpeace Africa
<p>Joining the fight through the forest campaign of Greenpeace Africa six years ago gave me an opportunity to defend my forest and stand for the rights of the people living here. Working with communities and learning to see the forest through their eyes, hearing their cry the forest is destroyed in the name of "development," makes me more eager to continue to stand with them and for their rights.</p><p>Here in Cameroon, many of the plantations that have replaced our natural forests are in fact tree monocultures. But not everyone understands the difference between a tree monoculture plantation and a natural forest. Even some governments. By replacing natural forests with monoculture tree plantations, not only are human communities and endangered species put at risk, but enormous stocks of carbon are released into the air.</p><p>Carbon is mostly stored in the thick stems and deep roots of trees that are hundreds of years old. Planting new trees to replace ancient forests is not a solution. It just serves to greenwash the conscience of executives in oil and gas companies, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-world-economic-forum-davos-switzerland/" target="_blank">declaring one trillion trees</a> will be planted and "offsetting" CO2 emissions from extractive industries with artificial forests is part of the problem. Planting trees with one hand, while the other one is pumping oil out of the ground is like putting a band-aid on an arm that has been dismembered.</p><p>Only a natural forest can be home to rich biodiversity, including rapidly disappearing medicinal plants. Only a natural forest can be a home to Indigenous and local forest communities. The solution requires acknowledging their unique role in good management of forests and recognizing their rights over their land. Give them back the forest. Ensure their participation and inclusion in all policies.</p><p>Seeing the scale of forest destruction in my land and understanding the risks for the entire planet, celebrating my birthday has become more difficult in recent years. I hope that this time around, my cry as someone who always loves to visit the forest — along with the cries of Indigenous and local communities who must live in the forest — will be heard by many more of you. That would be the perfect gift for my birthday. It would help bring a smile to my face and to so many more.</p>
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Coronavirus Jitters Rattle Businesses, Industries, Organizations — 2020 Olympics, Airlines Included
06 February
Business
Medical staff are seen at a makeshift hospital converted from an exhibition center in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Feb. 5. Xinhua / Xiong Qi / Getty Images
Efforts to contain the Wuhan coronavirus and fears that it can spread and form a global pandemic have slowed industries around the world.
Shipping is delayed, cars and electronics are stalled on the assembly line, and commodity markets around the world are predicting losses because of the virus. Fears around the virus even have Olympic officials worried that it could impact Tokyo's planning for the summer games scheduled for the end of July, according to CNN.
<p>In Japan, 45 people have been infected with the novel virus so far, including 20 on a Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined in Yokohama, Japan. </p>
<p>"I am extremely worried that the spread of the infectious disease could throw cold water on the momentum toward the Games," Toshiro Muto, chief executive of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee, said according to Japanese public broadcaster <a href="https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20200205/k10012273461000.html" target="_blank">NHK</a>, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/06/asia/japan-coronavirus-fears-olympics-hnk-intl/index.html" target="_blank">CNN reported</a>. "I hope that it will be stamped out as soon as possible."</p>
<p>While the Olympics are nearly six months away, a more immediate impact is felt in global shipping which has faced a slowdown because of the coronavirus, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/05/business/shipping-coronavirus-impact/index.html" target="_blank">according to CNN Business</a>.</p>
<p>Nearly 80 percent of the world's goods are transported by sea and China is home to seven of the 10 busiest container ports. Nearby, Singapore and South Korea also have large ports. </p>
<p>The lockdown on certain cities and worries over the virus spreading means factories are shut and dockworkers are staying home. That stops many durables like cars and machinery as well as apparel and other consumer staples from getting shipped around the world, meaning the disruption could reach far beyond China, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/05/business/shipping-coronavirus-impact/index.html" target="_blank">according to CNN Business</a>. </p>
<p>Car manufacturer Hyundai has already suspended production at a South Korea plant because it can't get the parts it needs.</p>
<p>"A closure of the world's manufacturing hub impacts container shipping at large, as it is a vital facilitator of the intra-Asian and global supply chains," Peter Sand, chief shipping analyst at BIMCO, an international shipping association, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/05/business/shipping-coronavirus-impact/index.html" target="_blank">said to CNN Business</a>. "This will affect many industries and limit demand for containerized goods transport."</p>
<p>The mobile device industry is already feeling the effects. Just this week, industry giants LG and ZTE both announced that they would skip parts or all of the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona this month, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/4/21123169/lg-electronics-mwc-2020-cornavirus-cancel-withdraw-outbreak-concern" target="_blank">according to The Verge</a>. </p>
<p>"With the safety of its employees and general public foremost in mind, LG has decided to withdraw from exhibiting and participating in MWC 2020 later this month in Barcelona, Spain. This decision will prevent needlessly exposing hundreds of LG employees to international travel, which most health experts have advised," an LG spokesperson <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/4/21123169/lg-electronics-mwc-2020-cornavirus-cancel-withdraw-outbreak-concern" target="_blank">said in a statement given to The Verge</a>.</p>
<p>While global industries try to protect themselves from the coronavirus, it may have a positive effect on <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/emissions">emissions</a>. Airlines are cancelling flights between China and the U.S., as well as between Hong Kong and the U.S., <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/02/us/coronavirus-us-travel-restrictions/index.html" target="_blank">according to CNN Travel</a>. There has been a 30 percent decrease in flights to and from China. Key international airlines including British Airways, Lufthansa, American Airlines, United Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines and Austrian Airlines, suspended or reduced flights due to the outbreak, <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/en/research-insights/articles/commodity-tracker-coronavirus-and-commodity-markets" target="_blank">according to S&P Global</a>.</p>
<p>That has led to a decrease in <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oil">oil</a> demand, sending the price of crude oil plummeting. There has also been sharp declines in the price of liquid <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/natural-gas" rel="noopener noreferrer">natural gas</a>, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/palm-oil" rel="noopener noreferrer">palm oil</a>, <a href="http://ecowatch.com/tag/copper" rel="noopener noreferrer">copper</a> and iron. The reduced demand may actually be a boon to emissions targets.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.spglobal.com/en/research-insights/articles/commodity-tracker-coronavirus-and-commodity-markets" target="_blank">S&P Global noted</a> that even a one percent drop in China's annual CO2 emissions from energy consumption would amount to 96 million metric tons of carbon removed from the atmosphere, which is equivalent to France's annual regulated CO2 emissions.</p>
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Fireflies Face Extinction From Habitat Loss, Light Pollution and Pesticides, Study Says
05 February
Animals
A firefly perched on a blade of grass, its abdomen lit in bright yellow light. James Jordan Photography / Moment / Getty Images
Human activity threatens to make summer nights a little less magical.
<p>A study <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biz157/5715071" target="_blank">published in BioScience</a> Monday set out to assess the greatest threats to the world's approximately 2,000 species of fireflies. While very little population data exists for most species of the "iconic" glowing beetles, researchers in the field have observed a decline in recent years.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjY1ODM5MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NDA4NjU0Mn0.BVy-RrkdRIdjtZC_vbIE0Vwh7ssUNYDMvarjUFkCOR4/img.jpg?width=980" id="ab6b3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="be754bc91d791e59e7f163c83287b533" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
This is a composite of several long exposure photographs of fireflies in a yard in Milo, Maine, U.S. Mike Lewinski / Unsplash
<p>"We looked around and said, 'huh, there just don't seem to be as many fireflies around as there used to be,'" lead study author and Tufts University biology professor Sara Lewis, who has spent her career studying the mating rituals of a few firefly species, <a href="https://www.popsci.com/story/environment/firefly-extinction/" target="_blank">told Popular Science</a>.<br></p><p>So the <a href="https://www.iucn.org/" target="_blank">International Union for Conservation of Nature</a> (IUCN) established a Firefly Specialist Group in 2018 to assess the glowing <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/insects" target="_self">insects</a>' <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">conservation</a> status. As part of that work, they sent out a survey to 350 members of the Fireflyers International Network asking them the chief risks faced by the species they studied.</p><p>The answer? Habitat loss, artificial light and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides" target="_self">pesticides</a>, in that order.</p><div id="ecefd" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9OT1ZM1580917242"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1224781418791874560" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">According to a Tufts University-led team of biologists associated with the International Union for the Conservation… https://t.co/CbObfkRmJx</div> — Tufts University (@Tufts University)<a href="https://twitter.com/TuftsUniversity/statuses/1224781418791874560">1580845620.0</a></blockquote></div>
Habitat Loss
<p>"Lots of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife" target="_self">wildlife</a> species are declining because their habitat is shrinking," Lewis said in a <a href="https://now.tufts.edu/news-releases/lights-out-fireflies-face-extinction-threats-habitat-loss-light-pollution-pesticides" target="_blank">Tufts press release</a>, "so it wasn't a huge surprise that habitat loss was considered the biggest threat."</p><p>However, some firefly species are particularly vulnerable because they require very specific conditions. The Malaysian firefly <em>Pteroptyx tener</em>, famous for its synchronized light shows, needs mangroves to flourish. Previous research had noted the species' decline due to the clearing of mangroves to plant <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/palm-oil">palm oil</a> plantations and aquaculture farms.</p>Light Pollution
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/light-pollution" rel="noopener noreferrer">Artificial light</a> is a major problem for fireflies because they use their famous bioluminescence to find mates, and bright human lights can disrupt these courtship signals.</p><p>"In addition to disrupting natural biorhythms – including our own – light pollution really messes up firefly mating rituals," study coauthor and Tufts PhD candidate Avalon Owens explained in the press release.</p>Pesticides
<p>The use of agricultural pesticides like organophosphates and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/neonicotinoids" rel="noopener noreferrer">neonicotinoids</a> threatens fireflies, especially during their larval stages, when they spend as many as two years living below the ground or underwater. This makes them especially sensitive to pesticides that end up on lawns or in the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/soil" rel="noopener noreferrer">soil</a>, according to Popular Science.</p><p>While more specific research is needed on the impact of these chemicals on fireflies, the evidence suggests that they are harmful to the glowing bugs as they are to other insects, the Tufts release explained.</p>'Insect Apocalypse'
<p>Indeed, the plight of fireflies is reflected across the insect class. A <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/insect-apocalypse-will-have-dire-con-sequences-for-all-life-on-earth-report-warns-2641341433.html" target="_self">November 2019</a> study warned that 41 percent of insects are threatened with <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/species-extinction" rel="noopener noreferrer">extinction</a>, which could lead to an "insect apocalypse" with serious consequences for humans and other life on Earth.</p><p>Dave Goulson, the University of Sussex biology professor who authored that study, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/03/world/fireflies-extinction-risk-scn/index.html" target="_blank">told CNN</a> that the threats of habitat loss and pesticide use were also the leading causes of the overall insect decline.</p><p>"Of course fireflies are particularly vulnerable to light pollution, more so than perhaps any other insect group, so it makes sense that this also emerges as a major concern," Goulson said.</p><p>Lewis expressed hope that focusing the spotlight on fireflies could raise awareness about the plight of insects generally and build the will to save them.</p><p>"Fireflies are actually an insect that everybody can get behind," she told Popular Science.</p>From Your Site Articles
- Acting Now Could Save Bugs From Insect Apocalypse - EcoWatch ›
- 'Insect Apocalypse' Will Have Dire Con sequences for All Life on ... ›
- Pesticide Touted as Neonicotinoid Replacement Still Harms Bees ... ›
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Residents of La Chiquita say they don't have adequate access to safe drinking water. David Silva
By Alejandro Pérez, translated by Romina Castagnino
Fifteen years ago, Martha Valencia relied on the nearby river for water and for food. But then oil palm crops arrived in the area and polluted the river, say Martha and her neighbors. The community took the oil palm grower to court, which ultimately resulted in a ruling in their favor.
<p>"It is determined that there had been serious environmental effects in the territory of the communities … which should have been prevented by the Ecuadorian government," the ruling read, and a judge ordered compensation for those affected.</p><p>That was two years ago. And Martha and her neighbors say they are still waiting for things to change.</p>
<h3>No Clean Water</h3><p>The river and the community, both named La Chiquita, are located within the municipality of San Lorenzo in the Esmeraldas province of Ecuador. Logging and oil palm plantations, in addition to its proximity to the Colombian border where drug trafficking and armed conflict is rife, contribute to the area's dubious honor of having the highest levels of poverty and violence in the country.</p><p>Every eight to 15 days, the municipality sends a <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drinking-water">water</a> truck to La Chiquita. The tank fills a 1,500-liter blue plastic tank "but not even that water is clean. We were told by the Municipality to put chlorine before drinking it," says Olga, another community member.</p>
<p>When a new truck does not arrive in town before their tank runs dry, residents say they can buy 20-liter water canisters in San Lorenzo, which last three or four days. However, this option often proves too expensive for community members who must subsist off meager profits from small farms. They say that in that case, they are forced to walk great distances to other rivers.</p><p>There's little in the way of alternatives for people living in the area. According to the National Statistical System and the National Statistics and Census Institute (INEC), 16% of San Lorenzo residents are illiterate, which is more than double the national rate of 6.8%. Almost half of its population is engaged in agriculture and fishing due to a lack of industrial development in the area.</p><p>Two years have passed since the Jan. 2017 ruling of Esmeraldas' Provincial Court of Justice, and those affected in La Chiquita are still waiting for the judge to order the provision of drinking water, among other compensations. The ruling also requires the construction of a health center and a school.</p><p>La Chiquita lies in the the Chocó-Darién, an ecosystem that extends from Panama to northwest Ecuador and is known for its unique <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/forests">forests</a> and vast biological wealth – both of which are disappearing at a fast clip due to <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/agribusiness">agribusiness</a> and other human pressures.</p><p>Oil palm companies are required to have a buffer zone between planted fields and water sources. They must remove any crops that are located less than ten meters (33 feet) from community water sources and replace them with endemic species such as guadua bamboo. According to former environment ministers, a fine is applied "for obvious negligence in the performance of their duties."</p><p>"It is a historic ruling, although it has objections and inaccuracies that must be corrected in its execution," says Manolo Morales, a lawyer and representative of the Corporation of Management and Environmental Law (Ecolex) that sponsored the lawsuit.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjQ4OTkwMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMzkxNTg3Nn0.CxCctPkqgMZ_Bm8EGMQbHz_ee8IfkUzAqZ8-tKI5r9g/img.jpg?width=980" id="75b3e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5beed33c898dbf531c01db76efda48b7" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Oil palm cultivation is one of the primary drivers of deforestation in the province of Esmeraldas. Eduardo Rebolledo
<p>The ruling also calls for the Ministry of Environment, together with affected communities, to reforest 500 hectares of degraded land with native species. However, La Chiquita resident Isaha Ezequiel says this is absurd. "Companies are the ones that have polluted and killed the forest but they want <em>us</em> to reforest," he told Mongabay.</p><p>Violence is common in the region. The murder rate in San Lorenzo in 2018 was 96 per 100,000 inhabitants – almost ten times the national rate. The area gained further notoriety that year when a reporting team from the El Comercio newspaper was kidnapped and then killed by FARC dissident groups. The incident occurred in Mataje, a border town near Guadalito, Colombia.</p><p>Although four companies were referenced during the trial, two were included in the ruling: Palmera de los Andes and Palmar de los Esteros (Palesema). Only Palmera de los Andes agreed to comment for this story.</p>
<h3>Never-Ending Battle</h3><p>Oil palm plantations in Ecuador cover about 250,000 hectares (617,763 acres) and are distributed among several provinces. Due to its suitable growing conditions, Esmeraldas has the lion's share.</p><p>Palm oil companies arrived in San Lorenzo in the late 1990s and early 2000s, settling in an area of around 30,000 hectares (74,131 acres) that was later expanded to 50,000 (123,552 acres). The inhabitants of La Chiquita, who are mostly the descendants of enslaved people of African ancestry, say local children began to develop stomach diseases and that they noticed oil and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pesticides">pesticide</a> residue in a river that was their primary water source.</p><p>When La Chiquita residents went into the forest to investigate the cause of this pollution, they discovered that one of the oil palm growers had installed a palm oil mill less than three kilometers upriver that was dumping liquid waste into the water. The same thing was reported by members of the Awá Guadalito indigenous community, who also joined the demand for change and reparations.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjQ4OTkwNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNjI1MTkzMX0.S2TpMCNsFN-rFlwVPso_oU7Kh-JZndeSZcumt7GSN8s/img.jpg?width=980" id="7364f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ac0a4e2a548cd1ddafc72293e13e4ad6" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Aerial view of a young oil palm plantation in Esmeraldas. Eduardo Rebolledo
<p>However, a representative of Palmera de los Andes contends claims of pollution.</p><p>"We have 11 processing pools with strict environmental controls," said Fabián Miño, a lawyer and director of the company's legal department. "It is false that we are the cause of any contamination." He explained that, after the palm oil refinement process, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wastewater">wastewater</a> is treated in each pool until it is decontaminated. "To confirm that the liquid comes out clean from our building, in the last two pools we have fish and seaweed," he said.</p><p>Miño says communities have been manipulated by NGOs with ulterior motives. He claims Ecolex is an environmental organization that receives funds from abroad, and that the organization attacks oil palm growers to justify its activities and budget regardless of the employment and development opportunities plantations create.</p><p>Manolo Morales, of Ecolex, says Miño's accusations are absurd. He says the organization has worked in the area since 1998 helping local communities gain legal rights to their ancestral territories. He claims that in the intervening years the government promoted and encouraged the cultivation of oil palm and that many inhabitants were persuaded to sell their territories to agroindustry companies. He said he made the decision to advise La Chiquita and Guadalito when he learned of the problems they face.</p><p>In 2005, a water quality study by the Al Tropic environmental foundation detected the presence of endosulfan and terbufos in the tributaries that provide water for these two communities. Commonly used as pesticides, these compounds can cause severe illness and death in humans, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies both as Category 1 toxins – a designation reserved for the most dangerous substances. This information was included in a <a href="http://suia.ambiente.gob.ec/documents/10179/242256/03+PLAN+DE+MANEJO+CAYAPAS+MATAJE.pdf/300e86f9-31ef-492a-8b3f-da397583949c" target="_blank">report from the Ministry of Environment (MAE) in 2009</a> and served as the basis for initiating the trial. However, subsequent water studies were not decisive enough to directly hold oil palm companies accountable. Therefore, the judge only partially accepted the claim, ordering the government to fulfill some of the requested reparations to affected communities.</p><p>Ecolex reported that oil palm grower companies were alerted by government authorities before officials went to take water samples looking for the presence of toxins. Meanwhile, Fabián Miño, from Palmera de los Andes, claims that the organization was trying to obtain samples of stagnant water.</p><p>"They went out of their way to find pollution," Miño said. "We have all the environmental certifications, national and international."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjQ4OTkwOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NjY1NTc3MH0.JQOvJIM0B7E8d7CWqu_ThpEiuXOtJOQKeM5EHAgOkEY/img.jpg?width=980" id="cea9d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="575e74bb5ddd0eae2eaa648e152525c3" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Satellite image of oil palm plantations in San Lorenzo. Rodrigo Sierra
<p>Isaha Ezequiel and his neighbors say two years have passed and they have seen no progress towards court-mandated reparations. According to Nathalia Bonilla, an environmental engineer and coordinator with the NGO Ecological Action in Ecuador, this is because the judge did not report the verdict to the ministries responsible for carrying them out.</p><p>Because there is a mountain between the towns of Guadalito and La Chiquita, the judge ordered the building of a school in each. However, Bonilla says the Ministry of Education was also not made aware of this ruling.</p><p>Palmera de los Andes reports that it has already begun fulfilling the reparations required by the ruling. However, company representatives say it is doing so because such activities are within its environmental responsibilities and protocols, not because it considers the ruling to be right.</p><p>"We are reforesting as required by the ruling," says lawyer Fabián Miño. He adds that the company has a 1200-hectare (2,965-acre) forest reserve, which was not requested in the reparations, and that the company has an environmental license and provides upwards of 700 jobs to local residents. "They should applaud us and not judge us," he said.</p>
<h3>A Refuge for Many Species</h3><p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/deforestation">Deforestation</a> in northern Esmeraldas began well before oil palm moved in. In the 1960s, the government implemented its Northwest Forestry Development project that established 14 forest concessions. According to project data, more than 400,000 hectares (988,421 acres) of dense forest was cleared between 1966 and 1975. Five more concessions were subsequently created.</p><p>"This is how the primary forests of Esmeraldas were cut down," says Walter Palacios, a forest engineer and associate researcher at the National Institute of Biodiversity (Inabio). He explains that the primary forests of northwestern Ecuador are home to around 4,000 species of plants, and says many may have disappeared due to habitat loss without biologists ever knowing them.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjQ4OTkxMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5OTUwNjA2NX0.3xXSRR5sv5AAoGwphXFzvxiiPtRDdI4A5LjzDknFD1E/img.jpg?width=980" id="74194" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="133882db4ceb21be266165fcc98e3592" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Oil palm plantations in San Lorenzo, Ecuador. Eduardo Rebolledo
<p>The region's protected areas preserve what has been lost to agriculture elsewhere: reserves, rich in orchids and giant ferns, extend to the paramos of the Ecuadorian highlands, providing vital habitat for a multitude of species including jaguars and ocelots. A microcosm of the biodiversity of the Chocó-Darién can be seen in just one of its massive trees. A Sande tree, for example, can be covered by as many as 60 species of ferns, orchids and other plants, its fruit important food for birds and insects.</p><p>According to Walter Palacios, when the palm plantations first appeared in the area, the secondary forests that had regenerated after the mass clearing of the 1960s were cleared once again.</p><p>"A secondary forest no longer has the same species density, it has less wildlife," Palacios said. "However, it is better to preserve them than to turn them into monocultures."</p><p>Of the region's remaining primary forest, Palacios says he hopes that the government spares these areas from the expansion of the agricultural frontier.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjQ4OTkxNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNTUzODY3M30.AMtr4PbjviNuTaKDjgG5VYLcla7IEAb88QKW-tYYhBs/img.jpg?width=980" id="dc715" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c0cfb8c7cf43e3cfcfca0f4addafea4b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Oil palm crops near the town of San Lorenzo. Eduardo Rebolledo
<p>Residents say conversion of forest to plantations has affected their lives.</p><p>"I used to make with my mother wicker baskets out of Piquigua – an endemic plant," Martha Valencia said. "We used the baskets to transport fish, or the meat of guanta, deer and other animals that we hunted. The forest and the river gave us everything, now we have to go to San Lorenzo to buy the food that was taken from us."</p><p>Residents like Valencia say they know everything they had before will not return in their lifetimes, but that they should still be able to expect clean water. "That is why we need the reparations promised by the ruling," says Wilberto Valencia, another community member.</p><p>The current Minister of Environment in Ecuador is Raúl Ledesma, who assumed the position four months ago. In an appearance before the National Assembly, together with the affected community members, Ledesma offered to further investigate the situation in La Chiquita to verify the damage that Wilberto Valencia and others say is affecting their ability to live. At that same meeting, Ledesma said he was aware that Energy Palma is breaking environmental standards.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjQ4OTkxNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMDI0NzkzN30.NMhg3Xk97VtVikarIHlwl4T6QZolIunwrA_X8_DB340/img.jpg?width=980" id="328fe" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e529de6f36be9c720473d60a5000571c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Inhabitants of La Chiquita are fighting against the pollution of their water sources. David Silva
<h3>What Does the Future Hold?</h3><p>Large-scale plantations aren't the only places where oil palm is grown in Ecuador, and advocates of the crop say stricter regulations on its cultivation could hurt small farmers.</p><p>"If there are infractions, justice must act," says Wilfredo Acosta, executive director of the National Association of Palm Oil Growers (Ancupa). "But 89% are small producers and for us, it is an agricultural activity, like any other, that encourages the development of the country."</p><p>In recent years oil palm crops have been beset with "bud rot." As of October 2019, the fungal disease had wiped out 15,000 hectares (37,065 acres) of plantations, according to Acosta. His proposed solution: support farmers with credits and provide, through the Ministry of Agriculture, new seeds that are resistant to this disease.</p><p>Assemblyman Lenin Plaza, a native of Esmeraldas and president of the Committee on Food Sovereignty, together with Ancupa, is promoting a bill in the National Assembly, which has already passed the first debate. One of its objectives is to double palm oil yields for biofuel production, but Plaza says that does not necessarily mean expanding the agricultural frontier with new plantations. "This will depend on the country's demand," Plasa said. "The important thing now is to help the producers."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjQ4OTkyMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MDY4ODQzMX0.lsGtkv969Gr1Xh1dJ1eRaPwu3Twsf-23NbO77s5KBuQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="90ff7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="226012e8b64a58ccdbdaf69da704e26a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Assemblyman Lenin Plaza has proposed a law to increase palm oil production. He says it is necessary to help small producers. Cecilia Puebla
<p>Acosta says oil palm expansion could take advantage of underutilized land once used for <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/agriculture">agriculture</a> but which has since been abandoned.</p><p>"It's not necessary to expand, it's about optimizing crops," Acosta said. "With that, we take the pressure off the forests."</p><p>However, even if the majority of producers may be small, environmental organizations say large companies control around 80% of land used for oil palm cultivation.</p><p>"The big companies are the ones that benefit," said Nathalia Bonilla of Ecological Action. "What they say about small producers is just a story. [Oil] palm is an activity that uses chemicals that seep into the earth [and] needs large areas, and working conditions are precarious."</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2020/01/communities-in-ecuador-fight-back-against-palm-oil/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>Related Articles Around the Web
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Fires in peat land in Cengal of South Sumatra's Ogan Komering Ilir district, Indonesia. Nopri Isim / Mongabay Indonesia
By Hans Nicholas Jong
The makers of Oreo cookies and KitKat chocolate bars are among the companies getting some of their palm oil from producers linked to the fires that have razed large swaths of land in Indonesia, a new report says.
<p>The fires, started mostly to clear land for planting, have <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/indonesia-fire-burning-forest-haze-hotspots-peatland-deforestation/" target="_blank">burned 8,578 square kilometers</a> (3,304 square miles) as of the end of September — an area the size of Puerto Rico. Many of the companies on whose concessions they've occurred are affiliated with groups that supply palm oil to companies like Mondelēz, Nestlé, Unilever and Procter & Gamble (P&G), according to the report published Nov. 4 by Greenpeace.</p><p>Many of the companies involved across the supply chain have made sustainability pledges that commit them to not sourcing palm oil from growers linked to deforestation and/or burning. The new findings show they've clearly fallen short, said Annisa Rahmawati, a Greenpeace Indonesia senior forest campaigner.</p><p>"Companies have created a facade of sustainability," she said. "But the reality is that they source from the very worst offenders across the board. The companies responsible for the fires and those who financially benefit from them should be held accountable for these environmental atrocities and the devastating health impacts caused by the fires."</p>
<p> <em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/oreos-kitkat-mondelez-nestle-palm-oil-greenpeace-indonesia-fire/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em><em></em></p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA3MTgzNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMDk5NzQ1NH0.EgXUq1lYPBE--Xdghgc7oEv2NxjhOq_YV1ycn-cZOcc/img.jpg?width=980" id="4195b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8c4f44fff85922adbd0d381e86c04b69" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Land burning in an oil palm concession owned by PT Agro Tumbuh Gemilang Abadi (ATGA).
Elviza Diana / Mongabay-Indonesia
Household Brands
<p>The report first looks at the plantation companies with the highest number of fires on their concessions between January and September this year, the largest areas of burned land on their concessions between 2015 and 2018, and/or those that have been sanctioned for fires.</p><p>Greenpeace identified 30 such groups, 21 of which are current members of the leading certification body for ethical sourcing of the crop, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). The RSPO has a strict "no burning" and "no deforestation" policy for its members.</p><p>Greenpeace then looked at whether the palm oil produced by these groups was present in the supply chains of major brands and traders. It found that all 30 of the palm oil producer groups most closely linked with the fires in Indonesia trade in the global market, supplying to leading consumer goods companies.</p><p>Four household names — Mondelēz, Nestlé, Unilever and P&G — are each linked to up to 10,000 fire hotspots, as they buy from palm oil producer groups with the highest numbers of fire hotpots in 2019. Mondelēz and Nestlé, the respective producers of Oreo and KitKat, among other brands, buy from 28 of these groups. Unilever buys from at least 27, and P&G from at least 22, according to Greenpeace.</p><p>These big brands also source from companies with legal problems or that are currently under public investigation for fires. Unilever, for instance, is supplied by eight plantation companies with court actions or sanctions against them, and 20 companies whose operations have been sealed for investigation as a result of the 2019 fires, according to the report.</p><p>Major palm oil traders are also still getting some of their supply from producers linked to the burning.</p><p>Wilmar, the world's largest palm oil trader, for example, is supplied by palm oil groups responsible for more than 1,400 square kilometers (540 square miles) of burned land between 2015 and 2018 and nearly 8,000 fire hotspots in 2019 to date.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA3MTgzOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxOTExMzkxOX0.ZOoODCnULQSQMApoKDFUoO-Tppt80IYF8nAtDeOB3qM/img.jpg?width=980" id="6764c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d10da3c6dad6f724823192a32245f48b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Burned area in oil palm concession owned by PT ATGA.
Elviza Diana / Mongabay-Indonesia
Poor Monitoring
<p>Greenpeace's Annisa said burning-linked palm oil was being allowed to circulate through the global supply web because of weaknesses in the respective companies' monitoring of their supplies' provenance.</p><p>Some of the consumer goods companies failed to identify palm-fruit processing mills that were on their supplier lists as belonging to producer groups that they had in fact already banned. For instance, both Nestlé and Unilever's supply chain disclosures still show supply chain links to mills owned by Salim Ivomas Pratama, a member of Indonesia's Salim Group.</p><p><a href="https://www.eco-business.com/news/major-brands-break-ties-with-indonesian-palm-oil-giant/" target="_blank">Nestlé</a> and <a href="https://www.unilever.com/Images/unilever-response-to-allegations-against-salim-group_tcm244-523124_1_en.pdf" target="_blank">Unilever</a> previously removed the Salim Group from their respective lists of suppliers in light of longstanding allegations of <a href="https://www.ran.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Salim_Peat_Report_04102018.pdf" target="_blank">environmental</a> and <a href="https://www.ran.org/wp-content/uploads/rainforestactionnetwork/pages/15889/attachments/original/1467043668/The_Human_Cost_of_Conflict_Palm_Oil_RAN.pdf?1467043668" target="_blank">labor violations</a>.</p><p>In a response to Greenpeace, Nestlé said that since April 2018, following a supply chain mapping process, "several mills have been suspended or otherwise removed. This includes ten upstream supply chain companies published on our website, like the Korindo Group and Salim. This underscores our commitment to achieving deforestation-free supply chains."</p><p>Unilever said it had "suspended sourcing from six of the indirect suppliers identified in the Greenpeace tables. These are: Austindo Nusantara Jaya [ANJ]; Best Agri Plantation; Citra Borneo Indah [SSMS]; Jaya Agra Wattie; Salim Group …; Sungai Budi/Tunas Baru Lampung. These six suspended groups are no longer in our Supply Chain and will not appear in the next scheduled update to our mill list."</p><p>However, they failed to attribute Salim Ivomas Pratama mills as belonging to the Salim Group, according to the report.</p><p>Nestlé says "Salim Ivomas Pratama isn't one group with Salim Group. But they're clearly one group," Annisa said. "This is amazing because it means [the brands] aren't aware of what's happening at the level of traders and producers. So most of them don't know. They just believe what they've been told by their suppliers."</p><p>This is also happening with traders such as Cargill, Annisa said.</p><p>Cargill's grievance tracker states that as of May 2018, Indofood, an arm of the Salim Group, is no longer in its supply chain. However, Cargill's most recent supply chain disclosure reveals purchases from "Gunta Samba" mills, which are part of the Salim Group but not classified as such by Cargill.</p><p>Greenpeace identified 332 fire hotspots within the concessions associated with the Salim Group (including subsidiaries IndoAgri, Indofood and IndoGunta) between January and September this year, and 78 square kilometers (30 square miles) of burned area from 2015 to 2018. Plantation company PT Kebun Ganda Prima, which had its concessions sealed off by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry this year, is also identified by Greenpeace as belonging to the Salim Group.</p><p>The Salim Group declined to respond to Greenpeace's fire hotspot and burn scar data on the grounds that "your information and data is neither specific nor detailed," according to the report.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA3MTgzOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNzY0OTIzMn0.7aM0aG0JBCrlQqqwxyV3oXfIIEOza0g0n28NqdwN-W4/img.jpg?width=980" id="5f668" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f3597721b4313f90c67a8b3f10c02ee1" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A patrolling team hired by oil palm company PT ATGA to douse fires in the concession.
Elviza Diana / Mongabay Indonesia
Defining Producer Groups
<p>Exposure to producer groups with links to environmental and social violations is common among big brands, but difficult to trace, the report says.</p><p>"[A]s a result of serious transparency failings, much of this exposure is not made explicit in their public supply chain disclosures, which require painstaking analysis to reveal the full extent of the companies' links to fires, deforestation, and human exploitation," it says.</p><p>This is in part because there's still disagreement over how producer groups are defined, Annisa said, even as many consumer goods brands and traders state that their sustainability policies are intended to apply to entire producer groups.</p><p>She said the definition should extend beyond formal parent-subsidiary corporate relationships because a large segment of the plantation industry, especially in Southeast Asia, has always been controlled by complex conglomerates owned by individuals and families.</p><p>Therefore, a group definition should take into account not only common ownership but also shared financial, managerial and/or operational control, Annisa said.</p><p>"So the definition of a group isn't firm yet, it's very elastic," she said. "But it's clear that if there's shared managerial and financial control, then it's a group. We also found many companies with the same addresses. Don't we include these companies in one group? So the definition of producer group has to be revised. Otherwise, companies can evade their responsibilities repeatedly."</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA3MTg0MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNzA4ODE1M30.oiT3sAtw5ZTJjkEFLzdUQgfcT6LsCM4aomIO8dH-CDI/img.jpg?width=980" id="ed4ff" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1bbe4b0314f53e8bfb94b0d0b5b23983" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Smoke rises from an oil palm plantation on a peatland in Sumatra.
Rhett A. Butler / Mongabay
‘No Business on a Dead Planet’
<p>Annisa said there was an urgent need for drastic transformation in the palm oil industry, especially as the fires in Indonesia were contributing significantly to carbon emissions and hence climate change.</p><p>According to data from the <a href="http://www.globalfiredata.org/index.html" target="_blank">Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED)</a>, this year's fires have released an estimated 465 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent as of Oct. 22 — almost the entire total greenhouse gas emissions of the U.K. in a year.</p><p>"If the forests are gone, we can't do anything," Annisa said. "This is what [the companies] fail to realize. We all know that there's no business on a dead planet."</p>From Your Site Articles
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Journalists were found dead at a palm oil plantation like this one in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia. ILO Asia-Pacific / Flickr
By Ayat S. Karokaro and adapted by Basten Gokkon
Two Indonesian journalists who had reported on an illegal oil palm plantation in Sumatra while also allegedly trying to gain control of the crop have been found dead at the plantation.
<p>The body of Maraden Sianipar, 55, was found on Oct. 30 in a ditch in the concession of palm grower PT Sei Alih Berombang (SAB). The body of Martua Siregar, 42, was found the next day in the bushes near a warehouse at the same site. Both men worked for a <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2019/11/04/press-groups-condemn-killings-north-sumatran-journalists-call-thorough-probe.html" target="_blank">weekly publication</a>, Pindo Merdeka, based in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra province.</p><p>Local media <a href="https://www.posmetro-medan.com/2019/10/dua-wartawan-tewas-mengenaskan-tubuh.html" target="_blank">reported</a> that Maraden had been found with his left arm hacked off and wounds to his head, while Martua appeared to have stab wounds in his abdomen, back and head.</p><p>Police have launched an investigation into the case amid mounting calls from Indonesian press groups <a href="https://nasional.tempo.co/read/1267447/aji-kecam-pembunuhan-2-orang-yang-diduga-wartawan-di-medan/full&view=ok" target="_blank">condemning the deaths</a> and demanding that the perpetrators be brought to justice. But it's not clear whether they were killed because of their critical reporting on SAB, whose concession was <a href="https://simantab.com/blog/dinas-kehutanan-sumut-laksanakan-eksekusi-lahan-pt-sab-ksu-amelia-di-labuhanbatu/" target="_blank">sealed off by authorities</a> a year ago after it was found to have cleared 750 hectares of forest to plant oil palms.</p><p>Witnesses said the pair were also known to be part of a community group that had for years been <a href="https://www.gosumut.com/berita/baca/2019/11/01/polres-labuhanbatu-masih-selidiki-kematian-2-pria-di-kebun-pt-sab" target="_blank">locked in a dispute</a> with the plantation company and had sought to take control of the oil palms once the local forestry office had ruled that the company's expansion onto forested land was illegal.</p><p>Other witnesses said Maraden and Martua had gone by motorbike to the plantation on Oct. 29 with a group of locals seeking to harvest the palm fruit. One witness said he had warned Maraden that plantation guards armed with machetes were guarding a checkpoint in anticipation of the group.</p><p>"We have questioned eight witnesses, and we're collecting as much evidence [as possible] to solve the deaths of the two victims," Budiarto, a local police chief, told reporters on Nov. 2.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA1OTk3OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MDU4ODQ3NX0.1Ws5Ad2dqW9rV7OWV6By9uCjl64sFDOQ8O6WarxWuUw/img.jpg?width=980" id="61ff3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="231e613c62b1002765121d7110126d7c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
An oil palm worker harvesting palm fruit at a plantation in North Sumatra. Nanang Sujana for RAN / Oppuk
<p>Locals reported that violent conflicts were common between the plantation's security guards and people trying to take the palm fruit. The latter, who say they have just as much claim to the illegally cultivated crop as SAB, have sought assistance from environmental groups, including the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), to resolve the land dispute that has simmered since 2015.</p><p>"We suspect the deaths [of the two] to be unusual," said Khairul Buchori, who heads the advocacy and legal department at Walhi's North Sumatra chapter.</p><p>Maraden and Martua's deaths come less than a month after the suspicious death of <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/environmental-activist-death-murder-indonesia/" target="_blank">Walhi environmental activist Golfrid Siregar</a>, also in North Sumatra. He was found unconscious with severe head injuries on a traffic overpass in Medan, and died in hospital three days later, on Oct. 6, without ever regaining consciousness.</p><p>Golfrid was best known for his legal advocacy work for local communities ensnared in land conflicts with oil palm companies. At the time of his death he was also involved in a lawsuit against the North Sumatra government over <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/02/allegation-of-forged-signature-casts-shadow-over-china-backed-dam-in-sumatra/" target="_blank">alleged forgery</a> in the permitting process for a controversial hydropower project in an orangutan habitat.</p><p>Police, however, ruled Golfrid's death the result of a <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/weird-police-probe-rules-indonesian-activist-died-in-drink-driving-crash/" target="_blank">drunken-driving crash</a>. But his former colleagues dispute that claim, pointing to several holes in the evidence cited by police, including independent testimony from his family that he wasn't a drinker.</p><p>While the motives behind each of the recent deaths remain unclear for now, press and environmental activists agree that they ring alarm bells about the state of the free press and activism in the country.</p><p>The number of reported cases of violence against journalists rose to 64 in 2018 from 60 in 2017, according to the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI). The group says the main perpetrators of abuse against journalists are companies and the state.</p><p>There were also 171 recorded cases of violence against activists in Indonesia between 2010 and 2018, according to the Indonesian Human Protection Foundation (YPII), with most of the victims environmental activists.</p><p>Walhi's Khairul called for the National Police to take over the North Sumatra police's investigations into the recent deaths, saying the latter had "failed to resolve" these cases.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjA2MDA5MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNTUyMTA2NH0.zrjf78lr4EKv2BtWUwmEPuJzJ__Ik9PioZQHs8PYLrU/img.jpg?width=980" id="44df8" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="845d4e18726bcebad0705e58c5092211" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/indonesia-palm-oil-violence-journalists-plantation-sab/" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>Golfrid Siregar, left, protests against the proposed Batang Toru hydropower project, which threatens the only known habitat of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan. Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi)
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Golfrid Siregar, left, at a protest against the proposed Batang Toru hydropower project, which threatens the only known habitat of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan. Indonesian Forum for the Environment
Environmental activists in Indonesia have raised suspicions over the death this week of a human rights defender who was a staunch advocate of communities threatened by palm oil plantations.
<p>Golfrid Siregar, 34, a member of the legal advocacy team for the North Sumatra chapter of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), was found unconscious on a traffic overpass in Medan, the provincial capital, in the early hours of Oct. 3 and taken to hospital. He was found next to his motorbike, but personal items including his laptop computer, ring and wallet were missing.</p>
<div id="8e0e7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="24JHHN1576661327"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1181359653378150400" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Human rights activist and the legal council coordinator for the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), Golfr… https://t.co/mz410gJCeh</div> — WALHI Nasional (@WALHI Nasional)<a href="https://twitter.com/walhinasional/statuses/1181359653378150400">1570493064.0</a></blockquote></div><p>On Oct. 6, he passed away from severe injuries to his head.</p><p>Preliminary police reports suggested he was injured in a motorbike accident or in an attack by bike-riding robbers. But fellow activists have questioned this theory, saying that a traffic accident would have flung him away from his motorbike, and that in the case of a violent theft, the assailants would have taken his motorbike in addition to his other personal belongings. They also note that the injuries were only to Golfrid's head, and not the rest of his body, ruling out a bike crash.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMTk4ODQ5MS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMzI0MjkzNH0.Xz4Mcg-GDSaevrPMV1ABKTGPAfMjzJHuKwalMt44CjQ/img.png?width=980" id="aea33" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8a66eccf4c1f069c3c06cf58abbe5190" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/environmental-activist-death-murder-indonesia/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>.</em></p>Golfrid Siregar, center, and his colleagues show the lawsuit they filed against the North Sumatra government over an alleged forgery in the permitting process for a hydropower project in Batang Toru, Sumatra.
Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi).
<p><br>"We suspect the victim was beaten up at another location," Roy Lumbangaol, Golfrid's manager at Walhi, told reporters on Oct. 7. "To eliminate the evidence, he was brought to the location where he was eventually found."</p><p>Walhi has called on police to launch a thorough and transparent investigation into Golfrid's death. The group also asked the National Commission on Human Rights to monitor the police investigation.</p><p>Associates last had contact with Golfrid on the afternoon of Oct. 2, when he left home to deliver a package and have a meeting. By the evening, he couldn't be contacted. At 1 a.m. on Oct. 3, a rickshaw driver found his body on the overpass.</p><p>The police have said they will call in the rickshaw driver for further questioning and check footage from CCTV cameras installed near the location where Golfrid was found.</p><p><span></span>Golfrid was best known for his work with legal aid and civil society groups in helping local communities ensnared in land conflicts with palm oil companies.</p><p>His most recent work was on a lawsuit against the North Sumatra government over the <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/02/allegation-of-forged-signature-casts-shadow-over-china-backed-dam-in-sumatra/" target="_blank">alleged forgery of a researcher's signature</a> in an environmental impact assessment for a proposed hydropower project. Activists say the planned dam would threaten the only known habitat of the <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2017/11/the-eighth-great-ape-new-orangutan-species-discovered-in-sumatra/" target="_blank">Tapanuli orangutan</a> (<em>Pongo tapanuliensis</em>), a critically endangered species. According to Walhi, Golfrid had recently lodged a complaint to the National Police against the North Sumatra Police's decision to drop the investigation into the alleged forgery.</p><p>Golfrid's death is the latest in a disturbing pattern of environmental defenders dying under suspicious circumstances in Indonesia. From 2010 to 2018, there were 171 recorded cases of violence against activists in Indonesia, according to Ainul Yaqin from the Indonesian Human Protection Foundation (YPII). Most of the victims were environmental activists.</p><p>Earlier this year, the head of Walhi's West Nusa Tenggara chapter <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/02/arson-attack-leaves-activist-in-indonesia-shaken/" target="_blank">survived an arson attack</a> after assailants barricaded him inside his home and set it on fire.</p><p>"The struggle as human rights defenders will always continue," Walhi said in a <a href="https://walhi.or.id/pembela-hak-azasi-manusia-hrds-sumatera-utara-terindikasi-korban-percobaan-pembunuhan-meninggal-dunia" target="_blank">statement</a>.</p>From Your Site Articles
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