topic: Corporations

topic: Corporations

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As miner quells protests in Ecuador, Canadian firms’ rights record faces scrutiny
- In March, violent clashes erupted between Ecuadorian security forces and campesino farmers over prospects for the revival of a mining project that has been rejected by protestors for at least 15 years.
- The company behind the project, Atico Mining, called in hundreds of police and paramilitary personnel to quell the protests, in what critics say is a disturbing pattern of Canadian resource companies running roughshod over human and environmental rights in other countries.
- Human rights advocacy groups and Indigenous organizations say the Canadian government, especially the embassy in Quito, has failed to safeguard human rights and environmental obligations despite its legal duties to do so.
- A spokesperson for the Canadian foreign ministry said the government expects Canadian companies operating abroad to abide by internationally respected guidelines on responsible business conduct — then cited guidelines that aren’t legally binding.

Pemex waste contaminates Mexican communities while talking ‘sustainability’
- A recent investigation found that communities in the Mexican state of Tabasco have been living near toxic waste sites caused by chemical sludge dumped from Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), Mexico’s state-owned oil giant.
- This adds to a growing list of allegations of environmental harm against the oil company. Experts say this shows a pattern of systematically ignoring safety and environmental rules and regulations.
- The massively indebted company recently announced its first-ever sustainability plan in the hopes of cleaning up its reputation and attracting more financing.

Latest palm oil deforester in Indonesia may also be operating illegally
- The biggest deforestation hotspot for palm oil in Indonesia is located on a small island off the southern Borneo coast, new data show.
- Up to 10,650 hectares (26,317 acres) of forest — one-sixth the size of Jakarta — were cleared from 2022-2023 inside the concession of PT Multi Sarana Agro Mandiri (MSAM), part of the influential Jhonlin Group.
- Activists say the company’s operations may be illegal, given the questionable process through which it obtained its permits.
- However, law enforcers have ignored calls to investigate, and previous efforts by journalists to expose the group’s business practices have led to their criminal prosecution on hate speech charges.

Indonesian company defies order, still clearing peatlands in orangutan habitat
- Indonesian Pulpwood producer PT Mayawana Persada is continuing to clear peatlands on critical Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) habitat, despite a government order to stop clearing.
- An NGO coalition analysis found that 30,296 hectares (74,900 acres) of peatland, including 15,560 hectares (38,400 acres) of protected lands, had been converted as of March; 15,643 hectares (38,700 acres) of known Bornean orangutan habitat were cleared between 2016 and 2022.
- Conservationists are calling on the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to revoke the company’s permits.

Pro-business parties accused of holding back Indonesia’s Indigenous rights bill
- Pro-business political parties in Indonesia have deliberately stalled the passage of an Indigenous rights bill for more than a decade, lawmakers and activists allege.
- These parties fear ceding control of natural resources to Indigenous communities by giving them land rights, they add.
- Lawmakers trying to push the bill through have identified the PDI-P and the Golkar Party as the main opponents of the bill, but others say it’s the entire ruling coalition: seven parties that control 82% of seats in parliament.
- Indigenous activists say the bill is urgently needed to formalize Indigenous land rights and stop the hemorrhaging of customary lands and forests to commercial, industrial and infrastructure projects.

In Brazil, half a century of salt mining sinks a city, displacing thousands
- Decades of salt mining in Maceió, in northeastern Brazil, have led to earthquakes and cracks in several of the city’s neighborhoods, making buildings there unhabitable. As a result, about 60,000 people have been displaced.
- Braskem, the chemical giant that acquired the original salt mining company, has agreed with authorities to clean up the affected neighborhoods and compensate locals. But those affected complain that Braskem has offered them meager amounts, with no negotiation; the sums don’t cover the value of their properties, while compensation for moral damage is also extremely low.
- Locals indirectly affected do not receive compensation and continue to suffer losses, as properties within a 1-kilometer (0.6-mile) radius around the disaster zone can no longer be insured and lose value; businesses adjacent to the now unhabitable neighborhoods have also lost customers.

Latest Peruvian oil spill cuts Indigenous communities from life-giving river
- On March 5, a collision between two oil barges in the Peruvian Amazon led to an oil spill in the Puinahua River, near Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, a protected region of rainforest.
- Since the spill, local Indigenous communities, who almost exclusively depend on the river for their livelihoods, have been unable to collect water or fish due to fear of contamination.
- The impacted communities are awaiting compensation for their losses, yet face a deadlock as environmental assessments, which could take weeks, must be conducted first before payments are made.
- The ecological, economic and social impacts of the oil spill have not yet been published; for decades, the Peruvian Amazon has been subjected to hundreds of oil spills and leaks, which experts say have wreaked havoc on the basin.

Hyundai ends aluminum deal with Adaro Minerals following K-pop protest
- The South Korean auto company Hyundai has ended its 2022 agreement for procuring aluminum for its electric vehicles from Adaro Minerals, which plans to build 2.2 gigawatts of coal-fired power plants to power its aluminum smelter.
- The decision follows campaigns coordinated by Kpop4Planet, a climate movement led by K-pop fans who protested Hyundai’s business with Adaro.
- Climate group Market Forces has estimated Adaro’s coal plants would emit 5.2 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year, and activists say Hyundai would be pushed further from reaching its goal of carbon neutrality by 2045.
- The campaign collected more than 11,000 petition signatures from K-pop fans in 68 countries.

Traceability is no silver bullet for reducing deforestation (commentary)
- The European Union, UK and US have passed, or are in the process of passing, legislation which places a duty on companies to prove that products they import do not come from recently deforested land.
- Businesses and governments are ramping up efforts to address emissions and deforestation in their supply chains, but the scale at which these initiatives are being implemented limits their effectiveness in tackling deforestation.
- Investments by companies and governments in farm-level traceability must be backed up by landscape approaches that address the systemic drivers of deforestation, climate change and biodiversity loss, a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

As fires ravaged Indonesia in 2023, some positive trends emerged, data show
- Indonesia’s 2023 fire season saw 1.16 million hectares (2.87 million acres) of land and forest go up in flames, and while this was five times higher than in 2022, experts highlight a positive trend.
- The fires were exacerbated by an intense El Niño weather system, unlike in 2022; the last time similar conditions prevailed, in 2019, the area affected by fires was much larger, suggesting fire mitigation efforts may be working.
- Most of the burning occurred in scrubland and areas of degraded forest rather than in intact forests, meaning greenhouse gas emissions from the burning were also much lower than in 2023.
- But a worrying trend highlighted by the numbers is that severe fires are now occurring in four-year cycles, intensified and exacerbated by the impacts of a changing climate.

Land tenure lesson from Laos for forest carbon projects (commentary)
- Laos has lost approximately 4.37 million hectares of tree cover since 2001, and some suggest forest carbon projects could be a solution.
- However, these haven’t had a good track record in the nation, in part due to its land tenure rules — land is owned by the state but largely used by local communities through customary tenure arrangements — leading to misunderstandings between companies, communities, and government agencies.
- “Forest carbon projects should continuously engage in capacity-building for local communities and authorities, thus creating an enabling environment for just benefit-sharing, securing land tenure, and the sustainability of these projects to reduce emissions over the long term,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Enviva bankruptcy fallout ripples through biomass industry, U.S. and EU
- In March, Enviva, the world’s largest woody biomass producer for industrial energy, declared bankruptcy. That cataclysmic collapse triggered a rush of political and economic maneuvering in the U.S. (a key wood pellet producing nation), and in Europe (a primary industrial biomass energy user in converted coal plants).
- While Enviva publicly claims it will survive the bankruptcy, a whistleblower in touch with sources inside the company says it will continue failing to meet its wood pellet contract obligations, and that its production facilities — plagued by chronic systemic manufacturing problems — will continue underperforming.
- Enviva and the forestry industry appear now to be lobbying the Biden administration, hoping to tap into millions in renewable energy credits under the Inflation Reduction Act — a move environmentalists are resisting. In March, federal officials made a fact-finding trip to an Enviva facility and local communities who say the firm is a major polluter.
- Meanwhile, some EU nations are scrambling to find new sources of wood pellets to meet their sustainable energy pledges under the Paris agreement. The UK’s Drax, an Enviva pellet user (and also a major pellet producer), is positioning itself to greatly increase its pellet production in the U.S. South and maybe benefit from IRA subsidies.

Report links pulpwood estate clearing Bornean orangutan habitat to RGE Group
- NGOs have accused PT Mayawana Persada, a company with a massive pulpwood concession in Indonesian Borneo, of extensive deforestation that threatens both Indigenous lands and orangutan habitat.
- In a recent report, the NGOs also highlighted links that they say tie the company to Singapore-based paper and palm oil conglomerate Royal Golden Eagle (RGE).
- RGE has denied any affiliation with Mayawana Persada, despite findings of shared key personnel, operational management connections, and supply chain links.
- The report also suggests the Mayawana Persada plantation is gearing up to supply pulpwood in time for a massive production boost by RGE, which is expanding its flagship mill in Sumatra and building a new mill in Borneo.

PalmWatch platform pushes for farm-to-fork traceability of palm oil
- PalmWatch, an online, open-source tool, is seeking to bring greater transparency to the global palm oil supply web, to better help consumers trace the impact of the commodity.
- A key hurdle to transparency has long been the fact that batches of palm oil and their derivatives sourced by consumer brands like Nestlé and PepsiCo potentially contain product from hundreds of mills processing palm fruit from thousands of plantations.
- By scraping various websites with mill disclosure data and standardizing the information in one place, PalmWatch can come up with a supply chain map that can link specific mills, suppliers and consumer brands to harms associated with palm oil.
- Advocacy groups have welcomed the launch of the tool, saying it will allow for improved targeting of campaigns to get brands to push for more sustainable practices in their supply chains.

How effective are giant funding pledges by major conservation donors?
- Big-name conservation philanthropy is having a moment, but does the news cycle adequately capture the nuances required when huge new pledges of funding by billionaires or foundations are announced?
- On this episode of Mongabay’s podcast, two experts weigh in on what conservationists and environmental journalists should consider when evaluating climate change or biodiversity conservation pledges.
- Holly Jonas, global coordinator at the ICCA Consortium, and Michael Kavate, staff writer at the news outlet Inside Philanthropy, offer expert advice for conservationists, curious readers and journalists who want to know more about the topic.
- “I think what the public really needs is more critical and more in-depth coverage of the ideologies and the approaches behind their kinds of philanthropy, the billionaire pledges and so on, how they’re being rolled out in practice, where the funding’s actually going,” Jonas says.

Toilet paper: Environmentally impactful, but alternatives are rolling out
- While toilet paper use is ubiquitous in China, North America, parts of the EU and Australia, its environmental impact is rarely discussed. Environmentalists recently began urging people to be more aware of the real price paid for each roll — especially for luxury soft, extra-absorbent TP made from virgin tree pulp.
- Though not the global primary source of tissue pulp, large tracts of old-growth forest in Canada and Indonesia are being felled today for paper and tissue products, impacting biodiversity and Indigenous communities. Eucalyptus plantations to provide pulp for TP are mostly ecological deserts, and put a strain on water supplies.
- The environmental impacts of toilet paper occur all along its supply chain. Making TP is an energy- and water-intensive process, and also requires toxic PFAS and other chemicals. Upon disposal, toilet paper can become an insoluble pollutant that resists wastewater treatment and adds bulk and chemicals to sewage sludge.
- Many large tissue makers are investing in improved technologies to lighten this impact. But emerging markets in the developing world, beyond the reach of environmental watchdogs, are raising alarms. Bidets, recycled paper, bamboo, sugarcane and other alternative pulp sources offer more environmentally friendly options.

Palm oil deforestation persists in Indonesia’s Leuser amid new mills, plantations
- Deforestation for palm oil persists in Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, including inside a national park that’s supposed to be off-limits to plantation activity, a new investigation has found.
- The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) characterizes the current deforestation trend as a “death by a thousand cuts,” with a large number of small operators hacking away at the ecosystem, in contrast to past deforestation carried out by a small number of large concession holders.
- RAN’s investigation also identified two new palm oil processing mills near the deforesting concessions, indicating that the presence of the mills, which need a constant supply of palm fruit, may be a driver of the ongoing deforestation.
- There’s a high risk that mills in the area may ultimately be supplying deforestation-linked palm oil to major global consumer products companies, including those with stated no-deforestation policies.

Norway pension fund breaks with U.K. conglomerate Jardines over endangered orangutan habitat
- Norway’s state pension fund, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, has cut ties with Jardine Matheson (Jardines) due to concerns that the conglomerate’s gold mining activities in Indonesia could damage the only known habitat of the world’s most threatened great ape, the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis).
- The fund joins 29 financiers that have excluded Jardines and/or its subsidiaries from financing due to climate and environmental concerns, according to data from the Financial Exclusions Tracker.
- The Tapanuli orangutan was only first described in 2017, and its estimated population numbers fewer than 800 that survive in a tiny tract of forest; 95% of the ape’s historical habitat has been lost to hunting, conflict killing and agriculture.
- The Martabe mining concession in northern Sumatra lies in the portion of the orangutan’s habitat, the Batang Toru forest, with the largest orangutan population, where the probability of the species’ long-term survival is highest; the fund worried that further expansion of the mine would increase threats to the ape.

Indonesian gold mine expanding in ‘wrong direction’ into orangutan habitat
- A gold mine in the only known habitat of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan is expanding, prompting alarm from activists and conservationists.
- The Martabe mine on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, run by a company associated with the U.K.’s Jardine Matheson Holdings, already cleared 100 hectares (about 250 acres) of forest from 2016 to 2020, and looks set to clear another 100 hectares.
- Advocacy group Mighty Earth says the expansion will impact an area recently established to help protect the orangutan and other threatened species.
- Jardines says an independent forestry and sustainability assessment concluded that the long-term impact of the planned exploration and development work was minimal.

Sumatra community faces up to ‘plasma’ disappointment after palm oil policy shift
- A 2022 investigation by Mongabay, the BBC and The Gecko Project found that hundreds of thousands of hectares of land had not been handed to communities by palm oil companies despite provisions in a 2007 law.
- In 2023, Indonesia’s Directorate-General of Plantations published updated rules stating that companies with licenses issued prior to 2007 would not be required to hand 20% of their concession to local farmers, although companies licensed after 2007 would still be required to do so.
- In Tebing Tinggi Okura on the island of Sumatra, a community is coming to terms with this change after a near two-decade dispute from which they hoped to win rights to farming land for hundreds of families.

Indonesians uprooted by mining industry call for a fairer future amid presidential vote
- Ahead of Indonesia’s presidential election on Feb. 14, people from across the country affected by extractive industries gathered at the site of a notorious mudflow disaster in East Java province.
- The Lapindo mudflow continues to impact thousands of residents with diverse social repercussions, including displacement, environmental pollution, and obstructed access to education and health care.
- The gathering attracted participants from various regions across Indonesia to raise awareness of the impact of mining and extractive industries on affected communities.

Indonesian nickel project harms environment and human rights, report says
- A new report highlights land rights violations, deforestation and pollution associated with a massive nickel mining and processing project on the Indonesian island of Halmahera.
- Community members accuse the developers of the Indonesia Weda Bay Industrial Park (IWIP) of land grabbing and of polluting rivers and the sea.
- The Indonesian government has billed its nickel policy as a push toward clean energy, but mining of the metal has resulted in at least 5,331 hectares (13,173 acres) of deforestation on Halmahera alone.
- The report calls on global automakers sourcing their nickel from IWIP to exert pressure on the miners and smelters to prevent environmental and human rights harms.

Scientists now know how the Brumadinho dam disaster happened, and the lessons to learn
- In 2019, the collapse of an iron-ore tailings dam in Brumadinho, southeastern Brazil, killed 272 people, flattened entire villages, and caused widespread environmental damage.
- Since then, engineers have tried to understand the mechanics of how a dam that hadn’t been in use in three years, and of which there are tens of thousands around the world, could have failed so suddenly and catastrophically.
- A newly published study by researchers at the Swiss institute ETH Zurich proposes a model for the mechanism that caused the collapse and the main causes behind the delayed failure.
- They posit that this model could be useful to help facilitate future risk assessment for other decommissioned tailings dams.

Indonesia to offer tax perks to companies investing in reforestation of its new capital city
- The Indonesian government is appealing to the private sector for investors to help transform 82,891 hectares (204,800 acres) of barren lands around the new capital of Nusantara into tropical rainforests.
- Mining companies that are required to rehabilitate their concessions after their permits have expired will be able to count reforestation in the capital region toward their quota.
- In addition, the government is offering significant tax deductions to companies that invest in rehabilitating degraded lands.
- East Kalimantan, once covered in tropical forests and home to charismatic species and vast regions of biodiversity, is the country’s most intensely mined province with 7 million hectares (17.3 million acres) of coal mining concessions.

Palm oil deforestation makes comeback in Indonesia after decade-long slump
- Deforestation for oil palm plantations has increased for the second year in a row in Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of palm oil, bucking a decade-long decline in forest loss.
- A third of the 2023 deforestation occurred on carbon-rich peatlands, raising the potential for massive greenhouse gas emissions as these areas are cleared and drained in preparation for planting.
- Historically, deforestation for plantations in Indonesia was concentrated on the island of Sumatra, but the surge in the past two years has been mostly on the islands of Indonesian Borneo and Papua.

Jokowi’s land reform agenda stalls as conflicts nearly double, report shows
- Land conflicts in Indonesia have nearly doubled under President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo as his administration pursues an investor-first economic agenda that has sidelined local communities and the environment, a new report shows.
- There were 2,939 pending disputes affecting 1.75 million households in the nine years to date of the Jokowi administration, compared to 1,520 disputes involving 977,000 households during the 10 years of the previous administration.
- The report by the Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA) says the government has largely failed in its reform agenda, having previously promised to register community-owned lands and redistribute expired concessions back to communities.
- A key driver of land disputes are infrastructure projects that the Jokowi administration has designated as projects of “national strategic importance,” which gives the government eminent domain rights to evict entire communities.

Study: Burning wood pellets for energy endangers local communities’ health
- A new peer-reviewed study quantifies broadly for the first time the air pollution and public health impacts across the United States from both manufacturing wood pellets and burning them for energy.
- The study, said to be far more extensive than any research by the US Environmental Protection Agency, finds that U.S. biomass-burning facilities emit on average 2.8 times the amount of pollution of power plants that burn coal, oil or natural gas.
- Wood pellet manufacturers maintain that the harvest of forest wood for the purpose of making wood pellets to burn for energy remains a climate-friendly solution. But a host of studies undermine those claims.
- The Southern Environmental Law Center says the study provides new and rigorous science that could become a useful tool in arguing against the expansion of the wood pellet industry in the United States.

Indonesian palm oil firm fined for fires sues expert a second time over testimony
- Environmental law experts say palm oil company PT Jatim Jaya Perkasa (JJP) is attempting to shirk its liability and fines for a forest fire by suing an expert witness who testified against it.
- The lawsuit is the second that JJP has filed against Bambang Hero Saharjo, an expert on fire forensics at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB); the company dropped its previous lawsuit against him in 2018.
- The company blames Bambang, who testified about the extent of the fire damage on JJP’s concession, for the high amount that it was fined, saying his testimony was “false and exaggerated.”
- Bambang and fellow experts refute this, saying JJP’s repeated lawsuits are a frivolous attempt to avoid having to take responsibility or to pay; to date, the company hasn’t paid any of the $36.7 million that it was fined for the fire.

2023 fires increase fivefold in Indonesia amid El Niño
- Nearly 1 million hectares (2.47 million acres, an area 15 times the size of Jakarta) burned in Indonesia between January and October 2023, according to environment and forest ministry data; El Niño and burning for new plantations contributed to this.
- 2023 was the worst fire season since 2019, when that year’s El Niño brought a prolonged dry season and fires so severe, they sent billowing smoke across Malaysia and Singapore.
- In the absence of local jobs, some people burn abandoned farmlands and turn them into new plantations as a way to make a living and survive.

Activists slam ‘independent’ probe by Indonesian palm oil giant into violations
- A report commissioned by Indonesian palm oil giant Astra Agro Lestari into alleged violations allegedly by its subsidiaries on the island of Sulawesi failed to investigate key issues such as community rights, NGOs say.
- The investigation was triggered by multiple media and NGO reports on the long-running conflict between three AAL subsidiaries and local communities in Central Sulawesi province who allege the companies grabbed their land.
- The investigation failed to verify whether AAL’s subsidiaries had obtained the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of local and Indigenous communities before operating in the area, according to Walhi and Friends of the Earth US.
- Instead, the verification focused on proving whether the communities in the area had legal permits to their land that overlaps with AAL’s concessions, resulting in biased and inaccurate findings, the NGOs say.

Indigenous groups rebuke court OK for palm oil company to raze Papua forests
- Indigenous Awyu tribal members in Papua lambasted a court decision that effectively greenlights palm oil company PT Indo Asiana Lestari’s plans to raze 26,326 hectares (65,000 acres) of primary forest that sit on ancestral lands.
- If developed in full, the project would replace 280,000 hectares (692,000 acres) of the third-largest stretch of rainforest on the planet with several contiguous oil palm estates run by various companies.
- The impending deforestation would subsequently release at least 23 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is 5% of Indonesia’s estimated annual carbon emissions.

As RSPO celebrates 20 years of work, Indigenous groups lament unresolved grievances
- The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) held its annual conference in Jakarta to celebrate 20 years of growth and impact — but activists and Indigenous communities say they’ve been waiting years for RSPO to resolve ongoing conflicts and long-standing complaints.
- Indigenous groups and local communities that have lost their lands and forests say the RSPO grievance system has left them without justice or resolution.
- While the RSPO says it has improved its methods of dealing with grievances, affected communities say their complaints have been dismissed for lack of evidence, they have awaited answers for years and their voices aren’t being heard.

Enviva, the world’s largest biomass energy company, is near collapse
- The forest biomass energy industry took a major hit this month, as Enviva, the world’s largest producer of wood pellets — burned in former coal power plants to make energy on an industrial scale — saw catastrophic third quarter losses. Enviva’s stock tanked, its CEO was replaced and the company seems near collapse.
- Founded in 2004, Enviva harvests forests in the U.S. Southeast, with its 10 plants key providers of wood pellets to large power plants in the EU, U.K., Japan and South Korea — nations that use a scientifically suspect carbon accounting loophole to count the burning of forest wood as a renewable resource.
- A former manager and whistleblower at Enviva told Mongabay in 2022 that the company’s green claims were fraudulent. Last week, he said that much of Enviva’s downfall is based on its cheaply built factories equipped with faulty machinery and on large-scale fiscal miscalculations regarding wood-procurement costs.
- How the firm’s downfall will impact the global biomass for energy market, and worldwide pellet supply, is unknown. European and Asian nations rely on Enviva pellets to supply their power plants and to meet climate change goals, with the burning of forests to make energy erroneously claimed as producing zero emissions.

Control of Africa’s forests must not be sold to carbon offset companies (commentary)
- A forest carbon deal between Blue Carbon and the nation of Liberia would give the company exclusive rights to control 10% of the nation’s land mass for 30 years.
- Blue Carbon has also signed MOUs for similar deals with Tanzania and Zambia (and others) and combined with the Liberia deal, the land controlled by the company in these three African nations represents an area the size of the whole of the United Kingdom.
- “Carbon colonialism is a false solution to the climate crisis,” a new op-ed states. “The only real answer is to end our fossil fuel addiction by dramatically reducing our emissions, while financially supporting countries and local communities to protect their forests, rather than wrest control of them.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

French banks accused of money laundering linked to Amazon deforestation
- A coalition of NGOs has filed a criminal complaint against several French banks for allegedly financing meat companies driving deforestation in Brazil.
- Between 2013 and 2021, the four French banks involved invested a total of nearly $70 million in bonds issued by leading meat companies in Brazil generating about $11.7 million in profits.
- This is the first time that French banks have received a criminal complaint for money laundering, receiving stolen goods related to funding deforestation and profiteering from it.
- An analysis of JBS and Marfrig slaughterhouses in Pará and Mato Grosso found that more than 50% and 40% of suppliers, respectively, showed evidence of irregularities, including deforestation and intrusion into Indigenous lands and protected forests.

Calls for FSC to drop Canada’s Paper Excellence over ties to deforester
- Green groups have gathered mounting evidence that Canada’s biggest pulp and paper company, Paper Excellence, is effectively controlled by notorious Indonesian deforester the Sinar Mas Group, via its subsidiary, Asia Pulp & Paper.
- They are now calling on the Forest Stewardship Council, which certifies millions of hectares of Paper Excellence-managed forests as well as 42 of the company’s mills, to cut ties with it.
- APP was in 2007 “disassociated” from the FSC and remains barred from membership due to “destructive forestry practices”; its control of Paper Excellence should lead to the same outcome for the Canadian company, activists say.
- Both companies have denied allegations of controlling ties — despite the fact that Paper Excellence’s sole shareholder is the son of the APP chair and previously directed APP’s China business, among other revelations.

Burn now, pay later: Fines trickle in from Indonesia’s crackdown on forest fires
- Ten years since a landmark lawsuit over forest fires, the palm oil company at the center of the case has finally begun paying its $23 million fine in installments.
- The case against PT Kallista Alam (KA) was supposed to set an example for how the government is cracking down on companies that allow burning in their concessions, but has instead highlighted the difficulty of collecting on the fines.
- KA has paid just $3.6 million of its total fine, and despite a 2021 regulation barring fine payments in installments, the company has been allowed to stagger its payments over time.
- The company is one of 22 sued by the government since 2013 for fires; 14 of these have been found liable and ordered to pay a combined 5.6 trillion rupiah ($353 million), but only one has paid in full.

As fire season worsens, Indonesian activists report four companies for burning

JAKARTA — Activists have reported four companies — two industrial forest firms and two palm oil firms — to the local police over fires in their concessions in Central Kalimantan as Indonesia is grappling with its worst fire episode since 2019. According to satellite image analysis done Sept. 2-10, the activists found a total of […]
Australia crackdown on climate protesters grows amid fight against gas project
- The Indigenous ancestral land of Murujuga in Western Australia is home to the world’s oldest and largest collection of petroglyphs, which would be partially destroyed by the country’s biggest fossil fuel project, the Burrup Hub, owned by Woodside Energy.
- As the company argues more gas is needed, direct action tactics by protesters, like releasing non-toxic stench gas or painting on art, have erupted across the state, as well as crackdowns by the police who have begun imposing the strongest form of charges on activists — some facing up to 20 years in prison.
- This is on trend with a general increasing intolerance toward environmental protesters in Australia and an uptick in the use of direct action by protesters who feel the time is running out to meet climate targets and protect endangered species.
- Environmentalists and researchers worry the project will endanger marine life through seismic blasting and say studies show it is not necessary to meet the country’s energy needs.

Report alleges APP continues deforestation 10 years after pledge to stop
- A new Greenpeace report alleges that pulp and paper giant APP continues to clear forests and develop peatlands 10 years after adopting its landmark 2013 pledge to stop destroying natural forests for its plantations.
- The report identifies 75,000 hectares (185,300 acres) of deforestation in APP supplier concessions or companies connected to APP between February 2013 and 2022 — an area the size of New York City.
- APP has also changed the start date of its no-deforestation policy from 2013 to 2020, which would allow the company at some point in the future to accept new suppliers that deforested between 2013 and 2020.
- APP denies allegations of continued deforestation and says its suppliers have ceased forest conversions since 2013; the company also says it has committed to peatland restoration.

Indigenous Dayak ‘furious’ as RSPO dismisses land rights violation complaint
- The RSPO, the world’s leading sustainable palm oil certifier, has dismissed a complaint filed by an Indigenous community in Indonesia against a plantation company accused of violating their land rights.
- The company, MAS, arrived on the Indigenous Dayak Hibun’s ancestral land in 1996, and by 2000 had swallowed up 1,400 hectares (3,460 acres) of the community’s land within its concession.
- The community lodged its complaint in 2012, aimed at MAS’s parent company at the time, Malaysian palm oil giant Sime Darby Plantation, which is a member of the RSPO.
- In dismissing the complaint, 11 years later, the RSPO cited no evidence of land rights violations, and also noted that Sime Darby Plantation has sold off MAS — whose current owner isn’t an RSPO member and therefore isn’t subject to the roundtable’s rules.

Oil firm Perenco eyes new blocks in DRC amid criticism of its track record
- Oil multinational Perenco has bid on two new oil blocks being auctioned off by the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- Perenco operates the country’s only oil production facilities, at Muanda, near the mouth of the Congo River.
- Local and international critics accuse the oil company of polluting the environment, affecting fishing and farming, as well as residents’ health; the company denies this.

Young firefighter killed battling inferno in Borneo orangutan habitat
- Said Jaka Pahlawan, an oil palm plantation foreman, was killed on Sept. 30 while fighting a fire in Indonesia’s Tanjung Puting National Park, a key orangutan habitat.
- The 23-year-old worked for PT Kumai Sentosa, a plantation company that had been fined in 2019 by an Indonesian court over wildfires on its concession.
- The fire this time around was in the national park, where Jaka and other employees went to tackle the blaze as government firefighters responded to fires elsewhere.
- Friends of the young firefighter told Mongabay that Jaka was a dedicated professional who had participated in conservation activities in the area.

Deforestation surges in hotspot of critically endangered Bornean orangutans
- Deforestation within a pulpwood concession that overlaps with key orangutan habitat in Indonesian Borneo has escalated in recent months.
- Concession holder PT Mayawana Persada cleared 14,000 hectares (34,600 acres) of forest between January and August, or 40 times the size of New York’s Central Park, of which 13,000 hectares (32,100 acres) were areas identified as orangutan habitat.
- In July alone, the company cleared 4,970 hectares (12,300 acres), the highest monthly deforestation figure recorded.

Report: Half of plantations in Indonesia’s palm oil heartland are illegal
- Nearly half of plantations in Riau province, Indonesia’s palm oil heartland, are illegal, according to a new report by the Eyes on the Forest, a coalition of NGOs based in Sumatra.
- With the illegal plantations spanning 2.52 million hectares (6.23 million acres) of land — an area nearly the size of Hawai‘i — Riau is home to more than half of illegal oil palm plantations in Indonesia.
- EoF has called on the government to focus its amnesty program, which gives operators of illegal plantations a grace period of three years to obtain the proper permits, in Riau.
- It has also called for greater transparency in the amnesty program to avoid corruption in the process.

Indonesian police slammed after protester demanding rightful land is shot dead
- Indonesian police have reportedly shot dead one protester and injured two others in a flareup of yet another land dispute between communities and outside investors.
- Residents of the mostly Indigenous Dayak village of Bangkal in Central Kalimantan province have since Sept. 16 protested over palm oil company HMBP’s failure to allocate land to them as required by law.
- Police claim the protesters attacked security forces in the Oct. 7 clash, but video and witness accounts from the ground strongly suggest otherwise.
- Activists say the Bangkal case is emblematic of how the Indonesian government prioritizes commercial interests over those of communities, including using excessive force against protesters.

Indonesia’s Mandalika project a litany of violations for Indigenous Sasak
- A new investigation has revealed myriad problems plaguing the resettlement and compensation process for Indigenous Sasak families affected by a tourism development project on the Indonesian island of Lombok.
- According to the report by local and international NGOs, the project has impoverished the communities, who have been forced to resettle far from their coastal homes without being properly consulted from the beginning.
- Despite the numerous human rights violations, the project’s main funder, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the project’s developer, the state-owned Indonesian Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC), insist to conclude the resettlement process in September.
- Activists have called on the AIIB and ITDC to not rush the process without properly consulting with affected communities and remedying the rights violations they’ve suffered and continue to suffer.

Indonesia’s peatland restoration claims in question as fires flare up
- The Indonesian government says companies have restored 3.7 million hectares (9.1 million acres) of peatland — an area larger than Belgium — in an effort to prevent the annual peat fires.
- But this claim has come into question following an increase in the number of hotspots in peatlands, including inside oil palm concessions that had burned in past years and went up in flames again this year.
- An investigation by The Gecko Project found the government appeared to have inflated the figure of 3.7 million hectares, with the actual figure derived from the government’s own methodology closer to 2.7 million hectares (6.7 million acres).
- Fires on carbon-rich peatlands are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions from Indonesia, which in turn is one of the world’s biggest emitters.

Bolloré blacklisted over alleged rights violations on plantations in Africa and Asia
- French logistics giant Bolloré SE has been deemed an unethical investment by some of Switzerland’s most powerful pension funds.
- Bolloré failed to act to resolve accusations of human rights abuses committed by its subsidiary, Socfin, around oil palm and rubber plantations in West Africa and Southeast Asia, the Swiss Association for Responsible Investments (SVVK-ASIR) determined.
- Investigators commissioned by Socfin recently found credible claims of sexual harassment, land disputes and unfair recruitment in Liberia and Cameroon; field visits to other sites will take place later this year.

Experts slam massive ‘discount’ in fines for Indonesian palm oil billionaire
- Environmental experts have criticized an Indonesian court ruling that extends a palm oil billionaire’s sentence for corruption by just one year while slashing his fines by nearly 95%.
- The country’s highest court of appeal upheld the initial conviction of Surya Darmadi for conspiring with a local official to illegally obtain licenses for his oil palm plantation, but cut his fines from $2.7 billion to just $144 million.
- Experts who testified in Surya’s prosecution say the latest ruling sets a bad precedent for future law enforcement against corruption and environmental crimes in the country.
- And without fines, they warn, there can be no efforts to recover the carbon-rich and biodiverse peat ecosystems in Sumatra that Surya’s plantations destroyed.

Deforestation for palm oil continues in Indonesia’s ‘orangutan capital’
- Carbon-rich peatlands continue to be cleared and drained in an Indonesian protected wildlife reserve known as the “orangutan capital of the world,” with 26 kilometers (16 miles) of new canals dug so far in 2023, up from 9 km (5.6 mi) in 2022, according to an investigation by the advocacy group Rainforest Action Network (RAN).
- While new plantations appeared to have not been established yet along the new canal channels, there is a mosaic of illegal oil palm around the locations of the new canal, indicating a future development of palm oil.
- As new canals continue to be dug, deforestation has also picked up, reaching 372 hectares (919 acres) in the first six months of 2023, a 57% increase from the same period in 2022.
- RAN has called on global brands like Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever to address the development of new canals and illegal plantations as their supply chains are tainted with illegal palm oil from the wildlife reserve.

Investors over islanders as Indonesia uses force to push development project
- A plan to build the world’s second-largest glass and solar panel factory on an Indonesian island has met with protests from locals set to be evicted for the multibillion-dollar project.
- Security forces have cracked down hard on the protesters, raising concerns about human rights violations, including the use of rubber bullets and tear gas at a middle school.
- The government has justified its response and its insistence on pushing the project through, saying it’s of strategic national importance and that the investors must be accommodated.
- Critics have pointed out that the government previously championed local residents’ rights when it came to disputes like these, and that the U-turn shows preferential treatment for “big capital” over local communities.

El Niño leads to more fires and toxic air pollution in Indonesia
- Indonesia saw an increase in land and forest fires recently as the El Niño weather phenomenon brings a prolonged dry season.
- Official data show a fourfold increase in hotspots up to September, compared with the same period last year.
- Residents in some major cities like Palembang have fallen ill due to toxic smog from the fires.
- Carbon-rich peatlands, which have been protected and partly restored through government policies and measures, are also burning, with more than 14,000 hotspots detected in peat landscapes in August alone.

Kellogg’s latest to freeze Indonesian supplier over palm oil violations
- U.S. cereal giant Kellogg’s has become the latest major consumer goods brand to suspend business ties with Indonesian palm oil giant Astra Agro Lestari (AAL).
- It joins the likes of Hershey’s, PepsiCo and Nestlé, which all stopped buying palm oil from AAL following a 2022 report alleging land grabbing, environmental degradation, and the criminal persecution of environmental and human rights defenders.
- AAL has denied the allegations and launched an independent investigation, but has not yet taken steps to remedy the harm allegedly done.
- Activists say the investigation unfairly puts the onus on local communities to prove their allegations against AAL, and have called on other consumer goods companies and investors to stand up to AAL.

Indonesian regulator gets 12 years’ jail for palm oil permit bribery
- An Indonesian court has sentenced a senior land agency official to 12 years in prison for taking bribes from palm oil and mining companies to expedite their permits.
- Muhammad Syahrir, formerly the head of the land agencies in Riau and North Maluku provinces, was found guilty of taking the equivalent of $1.38 million in bribes from various companies over the course of five years.
- In addition to the jail sentence, the court also imposed fines totaling $1.5 million; failure to pay could incur additional prison time of up to three and a half years.
- The case has spurred calls for a sweeping evaluation of the permitting process, not just in the palm oil industry, but across all sectors in Indonesia, where bribery is common.

Indonesian voters want a clean energy plan, but candidates haven’t delivered
- Candidates running in Indonesia’s presidential election next year must make clear their plans for transition the country away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy, policy experts say.
- A survey shows young Indonesians, who make up the majority of potential voters, view environmental issues in general, and a just energy transition in particular, as crucial issues for a new president to tackle.
- However, none of the three hopefuls who have declared their candidacies to date have addressed these issues, with the survey reflecting a sense of pessimism among respondents.
- Indonesia, a top greenhouse gas emitter, has said it aims to hit net-zero emissions by 2060 and retire its existing fleet of coal-fired power plants, but continues to build more coal plants to serve its growing metal-processing sector.

Activists slam coal pollution from Indonesia’s production of ‘clean’ batteries
- Indonesia’s electric vehicle ambitions have seen it ramp up refining of nickel, a key component in EV batteries, at industrial estates springing up across the country.
- However, these smelters are powered by purpose-built coal-fired plants, which environmental activists say are causing illness, killing crops and polluting fish farms.
- Among the coal plants that activists say are polluting local villages are those that power the nickel smelters owned by Chinese companies PT Gunbuster Nickel Industry (GNI), PT Virtue Dragon Nickel Industry (VDNI) and PT Obsidian Stainless Steel (OSS).
- While Indonesia has stated its commitment to transitioning away from coal in powering its grid, these industry-exclusive “captive” plants aren’t subject to any kind of phaseout, and are in fact encouraged by regulation.

Indonesia permit payoff raises alarm about palm oil industry corruption
- The ongoing trial of an Indonesian official accused of taking bribes from palm oil companies to expedite their permits has prompted calls for greater scrutiny into corruption in the sector.
- Muhammad Syahrir, formerly the head of the land agencies in Riau and North Maluku provinces, is accused of taking 20.9 billion rupiah ($1.36 million) in bribes from various companies over the course of five years.
- In the case at the center of the trial, Syahrir is alleged to have solicited the equivalent of $228,000 from palm oil company PT Adimulia Agrolestari to renew its right-to-cultivate permit, known as an HGU.
- Environmental law experts say the secrecy around HGU permits is what allows corruption to flourish, and have renewed calls for the government to make the permit data publicly accessible.

Jakarta snags ‘most polluted’ title as air quality plunges and officials dither
- Air pollution in Jakarta has hit such dire levels recently that the Indonesian capital has been named the most polluted city on Earth.
- Both the city and national governments blame vehicle emissions for the problem, yet deny that the more than a dozen coal-fired power plants ringing the city are a factor.
- A court in 2021 found the government liable for improving air quality, but the administration of President Joko Widodo chose to appeal rather than comply with the ruling.
- Now, the president himself is reportedly among the more than 630,000 cases of respiratory illness recorded in Jakarta in the first half of this year.

Palm oil, pulpwood firms not doing enough to prevent peat fires, analysis shows
- More than 2 million hectares (5 million acres) of oil palm, pulpwood and other concessions across Indonesia are at high risk of being burned because of companies’ failure to restore the peat landscape, according to a new analysis.
- This represents more than half of the Switzerland-sized area of tropical peatland throughout Indonesia that’s considered a high fire risk.
- With many concession holders still not doing enough to restore the peat landscapes in their concessions, researchers question the effectiveness of government mandates and certification schemes in preventing peat fires.
- The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) credits its early fire detection system with helping member concessions achieve lower numbers of hotspots than noncertified concessions, but groups like Greenpeace dispute the findings.

Investigation confirms most allegations against plantation operator Socfin
- After visits to plantations in Liberia and Cameroon, the Earthworm Foundation consultancy has confirmed many allegations against Belgian tropical plantation operator Socfin.
- Investigators found credible claims of sexual harassment, land disputes and unfair recruitment practices at both of the sites they visited.
- Activists in both countries remain unsatisfied, saying the consultancy should have spoken to a wider range of community members and calling for Socfin to answer directly to communities with grievances.

Macron touts forest conservation while promoting gas project on PNG visit
- During a recent visit to Papua New Guinea, French President Emmanuel Macron spent time with both fossil fuel executives and conservationists.
- Macron attended a presentation on the Managalas Conservation Area, which is supported by France as well as other European countries, and praised Indigenous peoples’ protection of the forest.
- During Macron’s visit, French firm TotalEnergies voted to undertake construction of a $10 billion liquefied natural gas project that will release an estimated 220 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.

‘Sustainability is a continuous journey’: Q&A with RSPO’s Joseph D’Cruz
- The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the industry’s leading certifier of ethical compliance, has long faced scrutiny over its sustainability guidelines and how it responds to member companies’ frequent violations.
- Today, the organization is headed by veteran development professional Joseph D’Cruz, a self-professed newcomer to the industry who says he wants the RSPO to be less reactive and more proactive.
- In a wide-ranging interview with Mongabay, D’Cruz discusses why sustainability should be seen as an unending journey rather than an end goal, how the gap between sustainable and “conventional” palm oil is closing, and what role governments must play in driving greater sustainability.
- “When you watch the progress of platforms like the RSPO, sometimes on the outside it might seem frustratingly slow,” he says. “But that’s because you got to bring everybody along and that’s a very tricky challenge sometimes.”

Massive carbon offset deal with Dubai-based firm draws fire in Liberia
- According to a draft contract seen by Mongabay, Liberia may sign away the rights to nearly 10% of its total land mass to a United Arab Emirates-based firm for carbon offset development.
- The firm is owned by Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, the youngest member of Dubai’s royal family and an investor in energy projects across Africa and the Middle East.
- Environmental groups in Liberia say the deal could violate multiple laws, including those meant to protect community land rights.
- The deal comes as the UAE prepares to host the COP28 climate conference, where rulemaking around carbon markets will be a hot agenda item.

Indonesian oil palm firm slapped with $61m fine for fires on its plantation
- Indonesia’s Supreme Court has upheld a $61 million fine against palm oil company PT Rafi Kamajaya Abadi for fires on its oil palm plantation in western Borneo.
- The fires burned an area spanning 2,560 hectares (6,326 acres), or more than seven times the size of New York City’s Central Park.
- To date, the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry has filed lawsuits against 22 companies for fires on their concessions, 13 of which have been found liable and must pay fines after exhausting all avenues of appeal.

The endless struggle to clean up Rio de Janeiro’s highly polluted Guanabara Bay
- Once a nursery for marine life, Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro is now dying from the dumping of thousands of liters of sewage into its waters; artisanal fishers now survive by picking up the garbage that floats in the bay.
- Faced with failed promises of de-pollution by the government, civil society organized itself, creating areas of environmental protection and pressuring the companies responsible for basic sanitation in the state, which is still deficient today.
- On the shores of the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon, a biologist started replanting the mangroves; life returned and the site has become a model of what can be done to save the Guanabara Bay.

World’s top sovereign fund latest to cut ties with dam in orangutan habitat
- The Norwegian state pension fund has recommended excluding a major Chinese hydropower developer from further investment, due to its association with a dam in Indonesia that threatens the world’s rarest great ape.
- The dam is being built by a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned multinational Power Construction Corporation of China Ltd. (PowerChina) in the only known habitat of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan, a species with a total population of less than 800.
- The Norwegian pension fund’s ethics council launched an investigation into the project and concluded that it will “have a destructive and permanent impact on the environment, which will pose a serious threat to the survival of this orangutan species as well as other critically endangered species.”
- Environmentalists say Norway’s recommendation further reinforces the risks the dam project poses on the orangutan and should prompt the project’s main backers, the Chinese and Indonesian governments, to abandon the project.

Most Indonesian palm oil firms not sharing land with small farmers as required: audit
- Only 21% of Indonesian oil palm plantation companies have fulfilled their legal obligations to allocate land for smallholder farmers under a scheme called plasma, a new government audit shows.
- To address the lack of compliance by companies, the government has established a task force.
- The task force will also address other issues in the plantation industry, such as tax avoidance.

Indonesia slammed for ‘bowing down’ in amnesty for illegal oil palm estates
- The Indonesian government says it has no other option in dealing with illegal plantations than to legalize them under an amnesty program.
- Activists have lambasted the justification, saying it signals the state’s capitulation to environmental violators.
- They say the government has the option of taking legal action against the plantation operators, for which there’s already legal precedent.
- The amnesty program is set to run until the end of this year, with the aim of legalizing illegal plantations spanning an area the size of the Netherlands.

Element Africa: A ‘disaster’ pipeline, an oil-field spill, and a mining pit tragedy
- A report by Human Rights Watch based on interviews with displaced families says an oil pipeline running from Uganda to Tanzania will be disastrous for the people in its path.
- Farms and streams in southern Chad have been contaminated after another spill at an oil installation owned by Anglo-French oil player Perenco.
- Three boys have drowned in a rain-filled mining pit in Ghana, highlighting the dangers that thousands of these pits, abandoned by illegal gold miners, pose to nearby communities.
- Element Africa is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin rounding up brief stories from the commodities industry in Africa.

Forests in the furnace: Can fashion brands tackle illegal logging in their Cambodian supply chains?
- Global fashion brands touting sustainability claims continue to buy from their contract factories in Cambodia that burn illegally logged wood in their boilers.
- Mongabay reached out to 14 international brands that listed factories identified in a report as using illegal forest wood, but they either didn’t respond or evaded questions on illegal logging in their supply chains.
- One prominent brand, Sweden’s H&M, has developed an app that allows its partner factories to identify deliveries of forest wood, but industry insiders say there are ways to circumvent it, and that the government should be playing a bigger role in the issue.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn was a fellow. *Names have been changed to protect sources who said they feared reprisals from the authorities.

Forests in the furnace: Cambodia’s garment sector is fueled by illegal logging
- An investigation has found factories in Cambodia’s garment sector are fueling their boilers with wood logged illegally from protected areas.
- A Mongabay team traced the network all the way from the impoverished villagers risking their lives to find increasingly scarce trees, to the traders and middlemen contending with slim margins, up to the factories with massive lots for timber supplies.
- The garment industry association denies that any of its members uses forest wood, but the informal and opaque nature of the supply chain means it’s virtually impossible to guarantee this.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn was a fellow. *Names have been changed to protect sources who said they feared reprisals from the authorities.

Indonesia’s No. 2 palm oil firm faces global backlash over community conflict
- A growing list of global household brands, from PepsiCo to L’Oréal to Hershey’s, have suspended their purchases from Astra Agro Lestari (AAL), Indonesia’s second- largest palm oil producer.
- The move comes in the wake of reports of land grabbing, environmental degradation and criminal persecution of human rights defenders by AAL and its subsidiaries operating in Central Sulawesi province.
- AAL has launched an independent investigation into the matter, but NGOs say the process is unnecessary as the evidence of violations is plain.
- They say the company should instead focus on returning the land it claims to the farmers and communities who were there first.

Report links paper giant RGE to Indonesia deforestation despite pledges
- A new investigative report alleges that the supply chain of one of the world’s largest producers of wood pulp and products, Royal Golden Eagle, is tainted with wood from deforestation in Indonesia.
- The allegation comes despite the company having adopted a no-deforestation policy since 2015.
- The report also reveals a chain of offshore shell companies pointing to RGE’s control of a new mega-scale pulp mill in Indonesia’s North Kalimantan province.
- This new mill threatens large-scale deforestation once it’s in operation, due to its huge demand for wood, the report says.

Palm oil giants face corruption charges as Indonesia probe widens
- Indonesian prosecutors have charged three palm oil giants with corruption relating to a cooking oil shortage across the country last year.
- Permata Hijau, Wilmar International and Musim Mas are alleged to have benefited from the criminal actions of their executives, who were convicted earlier this year in the same case.
- The executives were found to have bribed a top trade ministry official to issue the companies with permits to export their palm oil for a high price rather than sell it domestically at a capped rate.
- Industry watchdogs have welcomed efforts to prosecute the companies, but say these must be accompanied by an overhaul of the industry in general.

Indonesian coal giant Adaro’s ‘sustainable’ smelter slammed as ‘greenwashing’
- Indonesia’s largest coal miner, Adaro, has been criticized for plans to build coal-fired power plants for a new aluminum smelter, contradicting the company’s claim of a green transition.
- Adaro is marketing the smelter project as a flagship green, renewable development for Indonesia, a move that environmentalists describe as “greenwashing.”
- Adaro is reportedly struggling to secure financing for the project due to the greenwashing allegations as more banks steer clear of fossil fuel projects.
- Adaro has denied the report, saying five banks are committed to funding the project, but hasn’t named them.

In Indonesia, companies defy government’s decision to revoke their permits
- Logging, plantation and mining companies have continued to operate and have been mired in conflicts with communities since their permits were targeted for revocation by the Indonesian government, a new report says.
- In Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua alone, four palm oil companies cleared 943.3 hectares (2,331 acres) of forests in the first four months of 2023 — an area three times the size of New York’s Central Park.
- Civil groups have been calling on the government to redistribute the revoked concessions to local and Indigenous communities, but they say their calls haven’t been heard.

Financial downturn at Enviva could mean trouble for biomass energy
- Enviva harvests trees to manufacture millions of tons of wood pellets annually in the U.S. Southeast to supply the biomass energy demands of nations in the EU, U.K., Japan and South Korea. But a host of operational, legal and public relations problems have led to greater-than-expected revenue losses and a drastic fall in stock price.
- These concerns (some of which Mongabay has reported on in the past) raise questions as to whether Enviva can double its projected pellet production from 6 million metric tons annually today to 13 million metric tons by 2027 to meet its contract obligations. Enviva says its problems pose only short-term setbacks.
- While it isn’t possible to connect Enviva’s stock decline, or the company’s downgrading by a top credit ratings agency, with any specific cause, some analysts say that investors may be getting educated as to the financial risk they could face if the EU or other large-scale biomass users eliminate their subsidies to the industry.
- “The financial risk is there, maybe not today, but in the future, where countries may say, ‘This massive [biomass carbon accounting] loophole is making the climate crisis worse. Let’s close it.’ When that happens, Enviva and all other pellet manufacturers are out of business,” and investors would suffer, according to one industry expert.

As Shell, Eni quit Niger Delta, state-backed report describes legacy of carnage
- A new report commissioned by the governor of Bayelsa state in Nigeria said that over the course of 50 years, oil companies spilled 10-15 times as much oil as the Exxon Valdez disaster in the small riverine state.
- Researchers also took blood and tissue samples from 1,600 people across Bayelsa and found that in some areas the concentration of lead and cadmium was as much as six times higher than the safe limit.
- Ninety percent of the oil spills in Bayelsa took place at facilities owned by just five oil companies: Shell, Eni, Chevron, Total and ExxonMobil.
- The report is the first to be produced with local government backing in Nigeria, and called for oil companies to create a $12 billion fund for cleanup and health services in Bayelsa.

For weary Niger Delta residents, shocking oil pollution report offers little hope
- A new report commissioned by the Bayelsa state government in Nigeria holds international oil companies like Shell, TotalEnergies, and ExxonMobil responsible for spilling at least 110,000 barrels of oil there over the past 50 years.
- Researchers found alarming levels of toxic chemicals in soil, water, and in the air. Blood and tissue samples taken from residents found elevated levels of heavy metals including lead, nickel and cadmium.
- The report calls for extensive cleanup and recovery efforts, as well as sweeping changes to oil industry regulations and the setup of a $12 billion fund for remediation, paid for by the oil companies.
- Activists and residents say they’re largely skeptical of any meaningful changes arising from the report, including the prospect of compelling oil majors to pay into a remediation fund.

EU deforestation tracking regulation sparks division among groups, producers
- The EU is poised to adopt a regulation that bans the trade of commodities from deforestation and illegal sources as the European Parliament recently passed the law.
- The proposed law continues to be divisive, with palm oil producing countries like Indonesia and Malaysia calling the regulation too stringent and unfair, whereas civil society groups say the bill is too weak.
- In a recent joint statement, a group of 44 Indonesian CSOs say the EU regulation only focuses on eliminating deforestation from its supply chain, without addressing the root causes of deforestation in producing countries.

Report links financial giants to deforestation of Paraguay’s Gran Chaco
- Major banks and financial institutions including BlackRock, BNP Paribas, HSBC and Santander continue to hold substantial shares in – or provide financial services to – beef companies linked to illegal deforestation in the Gran Chaco region of Paraguay.
- A report by rights group Global Witness released last month says these financiers knowingly bankroll beef traders accused of having links to deforestation, despite warnings in 2020 by U.K.-based NGO Earthsight about the beef industry’s impact on the Gran Chaco.
- Almost all of the banks, investment managers and pension funds named in the new report are members of voluntary initiatives to eliminate and reverse commodity-driven deforestation from their portfolios.
- Paraguay has one of the highest rates of tropical deforestation in the world, having lost a quarter of its net forest cover between 2000 and 2020 — an area almost twice the size of Belgium.

Peru congress debates stripping isolated Indigenous people of land and protections
- A new bill under debate in Peru’s congress seeks to reevaluate the existence of every Indigenous reserve for isolated peoples to determine whether to keep them or scrap them completely.
- The bill would shift decision-making power into the hands of regional governments and include economic interests in the evaluation process, changes which human rights and environmental experts call legally flawed and a human rights violation.
- Some regional governments and companies backing the proposed bill have questioned studies confirming the existence of isolated peoples and seek to place oil exploitation, logging and economic development as a priority.
- In the event of the bill’s approval, all open proceedings relating to Indigenous reserves and Indigenous peoples in isolation would be suspended.

Companies eye ‘carbon insetting’ as winning climate solution, but critics are wary
- A tool that wields the techniques of carbon offsets is surging among companies claiming that it reduces their carbon footprints. The tool, known by some as “insetting,” had simmered for more than a decade on the fringes of climate action among brands that rely on agriculture, but is now expanding to other sectors.
- Insetting is defined as company projects to reduce or remove emissions within their own internal supply chains. Proponents say it is valuable for agriculture-based firms struggling to address indirect emissions from land that has already been deforested. Like offsets, insetting can bring social and economic benefits to communities.
- Some oppose the tool outright, saying it is subject to the same problems as offsets (including lack of permanence and enforceable standards), but can also be worse as it can lead to double-counting climate benefits and can have weaker oversight.
- Having now become popular with major corporations such as Nestlé and PepsiCo, insetting as a climate tool is poised to see increased scrutiny as companies and researchers figure out its place in corporate action and reckon with the urgency to reduce emissions from agriculture.

Conservationists decry palm oil giants’ exit from HCSA forest protection group
- Palm oil giants Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) and IOI Corporation Berhad have withdrawn from the High Carbon Stock Approach (HCSA), a mechanism that helps companies reach zero deforestation targets by distinguishing forest lands that should be protected from degraded lands that can be developed.
- The companies’ exit brings the total number of firms quitting the HCSA to four, with Wilmar International and Sime Darby Plantation stepping away from the committee in 2020.
- Environmentalists say this points to a startling industry trend in which industry giants are shirking responsibility for their harmful business practices.
- Both GAR and IOI say they remain committed to using the HCSA toolkit.

The Netherlands to stop paying subsidies to ‘untruthful’ biomass firms
- On December 5, 2022, Mongabay featured a story by journalist Justin Catanoso in which the first ever biomass industry insider came forward as a whistleblower and discredited the green sustainability claims made by Enviva — the world’s largest maker of wood pellets for energy.
- On December 15, citing that article and recent scientific evidence that Enviva contributes to deforestation in the U.S. Southeast, The Netherlands decided it will stop paying subsidies to any biomass company found to be untruthful in its wood pellet production methods. The Netherlands currently offers sizable subsidies to Enviva.
- Precisely how The Netherlands decision will impact biomass subsidies in the long run is unclear. Nor is it known how this decision may impact the EU’s Sustainable Biomass Program (SBP) certification process, which critics say is inherently weak and unreliable.
- Also in December, Australia became the first major nation to reverse its designation of forest biomass as a renewable energy source, raising questions about how parties to the UN Paris agreement can support opposing renewable energy policies, especially regarding biomass — a problem for COP28 negotiators to resolve in 2023.

Nations adopt Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
- After multiple delays due to COVID-19, nearly 200 countries at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal sealed a landmark deal to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.
- The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), with four goals and 23 action-oriented targets, comes after two weeks of intense negotiations at COP15, in Montreal, Canada. This agreement replaces the Aichi Biodiversity Targets set in 2010.
- Among the 2030 goals, countries pledged to protect at least 30% of terrestrial and marine areas, while also recognizing Indigenous and traditional territories.
- Concerns have been raised about the ambitions of the framework, with many criticizing the agreement for its corporate influence, vague language and watered-down targets, many of which are not quantitative.

Bolivia looks to opaque methods, firms to build lithium powerhouse
- As fossil fuel use aggravates climate breakdown, companies and governments are looking to lithium-ion batteries to replace carbon-intensive technologies. Lithium prices have hit all-time highs, pushing the market to seek more sources to meet forecasted demand.
- To fill the gap, companies have turned to Bolivia, whose 2019 election was marred by turmoil exacerbated by allegations of foreign powers seeking its lithium that some called an attempted coup.
- Six foreign firms expect a decision from the Bolivian government about which will earn the opportunity to use new technologies, collectively called direct lithium extraction, to speed up the country’s production of the world’s largest recorded reserves of lithium.

As EU finalizes renewable energy plan, forest advocates condemn biomass
- The EU hopes to finalize its revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED) soon, even as forest advocates urge last minute changes to significantly cut the use of woody biomass for energy and make deep reductions in EU subsidies to the wood pellet industry.
- Forest advocates are citing a new commentary published in Nature that argues that the EU’s continued expansive commitment to burning forest biomass for energy will endanger forests in the EU, the U.S. and elsewhere — resulting in a major loss in global carbon storage and biodiversity.
- Changing RED to meet forest advocate recommendations seems unlikely at this point, with some policymakers arguing that woody biomass use is the only way the EU can achieve its 2030 coal reduction target. The woody biomass industry is pressing for sustained biomass use and for continued subsidies.
- Russia’s threat of reducing or cutting off its supply of natural gas to the EU this winter is also at issue. In the EU today, 60% of energy classified as renewable comes from burning biomass. If RED is approved as drafted, bioenergy use is projected to double between 2015 and 2050, according to the just published Nature commentary.

No justice for Indigenous community taking on a Cambodian rubber baron
- A land dispute that has simmered for a decade pits an Indigenous community inside the Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary against a politically well-connected rubber company.
- The company, Sambath Platinum, cut off the Indigenous Kuy residents of the village of Ngon from the forests from which they have gathered herbs and medicinal plants for generations.
- The community have followed all the procedures to obtain a communal land title, but continue to be stonewalled by various government ministries, but now face questionable criminal charges.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.

Whistleblower: Enviva claim of ‘being good for the planet… all nonsense’
- Enviva is the largest maker of wood pellets burned for energy in the world. The company has, from its inception, touted its green credentials.
- It says it doesn’t use big, whole trees, but only uses wood waste, “tops, limbs, thinnings, and/or low-value smaller trees” in the production of woody biomass burned in former coal power plants in the U.K., EU and Asia. It says it only sources wood from areas where trees will be regrown, and that it doesn’t contribute to deforestation.
- However, in first-ever interviews with a whistleblower who worked within Enviva plant management, Mongabay contributor Justin Catanoso has been told that all of these Enviva claims are false. In addition, a major recent scientific study finds that Enviva is contributing to deforestation in the U.S. Southeast.
- Statements by the whistleblower have been confirmed by Mongabay’s own observations at a November 2022 forest clear-cut in North Carolina, and by NGO photo documentation. These findings are especially important now, as the EU considers the future of forest biomass burning as a “sustainable” form of renewable energy.

Report calls on palm oil firms to make up for nearly 1m hectares of forest loss
- Palm oil companies across Southeast Asia are liable for the recovery of a Puerto Rico-sized area of forest because of their history of environmental harm, a new report shows.
- The Earthqualizer Foundation derived the figure of 877,314 hectares (2.17 million acres) based on the deforestation that the companies continued to carry out after they became aware that an increasing number of buyers had adopted sustainability policies.
- The report also calls on buyers who bought from these suppliers to shoulder some of the liability, which it said could count toward the forest restoration goals pledged by many of the buyers, including Nestlé, Kellogg’s and Unilever.
- The Earthqualizer report highlights some palm oil companies that are already undertaking recovery initiatives, but notes that these are few and far between, and any progress will need to be assessed over the long term.

Indonesia’s Supreme Court rules President Widodo not liable in 2015 fires
- Indonesia’s highest court has ruled President Joko Widodo not liable in the 2015 fires, overturning three previous court rulings that found him to be liable for the disaster.
- The plaintiffs, a group of citizens and environmental activists affected by the 2015 fires, have lambasted the court’s decision, saying it raises questions over the government’s seriousness in tackling the annual fire problem.
- The plaintiffs also questioned the process behind the ruling, saying they hadn’t been given the chance to refute new evidence presented by the government.

Alleged macaque-smuggling ring exposed as U.S. indicts Cambodian officials
- U.S. federal prosecutors have charged eight people, including two Cambodian forestry officials, for their alleged involvement in an international ring smuggling endangered long-tailed macaques.
- The indictment alleges forestry officials colluded with Hong Kong-based biomedical firm Vanny Bio Research to procure macaques from the wild and create export permits falsely listing them as captive-bred animals.
- One of the officials charged was arrested in New York City on Nov. 16, en route to Panama for an international summit focused on regulating the global trade in wildlife.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.

Blue jeans: An iconic fashion item that’s costing the planet dearly
- The production of blue jeans, one of the most popular apparel items ever, has for decades left behind a trail of heavy consumption, diminishing Earth’s water and energy resources, causing pollution, and contributing to climate change. The harm done by the fashion industry has intensified, not diminished, in recent years.
- The making of jeans is water intensive, yet much of the world’s cotton crop is grown in semiarid regions requiring irrigation and pesticide use. As climate change intensifies, irrigation-dependent cotton cultivation and ecological catastrophe are on a collision course, with the Aral Sea’s ecological death a prime example and warning.
- While some major fashion companies have made sustainability pledges, and taken some steps to produce greener blue jeans, the industry has yet to make significant strides toward sustainability, with organic cotton, for example, still only 1% of the business.
- A few fashion companies are changing their operations to be more sustainable and investing in technology to reduce the socioenvironmental impacts of jeans production. But much more remains to be done.

Report unveils ties between Indonesian conglomerate Sinar Mas and Canada’s Paper Excellence
- An investigative report has revealed that Indonesian conglomerate Sinar Mas has hidden ties with Canadian paper company Paper Excellence, which indicates that the former is secretly controlling the latter.
- The ties are hidden through a multilayered corporate structure with holding companies in numerous offshore jurisdictions that are characterized by high levels of corporate secrecy, such as the Netherlands, Labuan (Malaysia), the British Virgin Islands and Hong Kong, according to the report.
- Paper Excellence could soon become one of the biggest pulp and paper suppliers in North America, as it’s in the process of acquiring Resolute Forest Products, Canada’s third-largest producer of sawn wood.

With FSC rule change, deforesters once blocked from certification get a new shot
- The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has adopted a number of significant changes during its recent general assembly in Bali, chief among them moving its cutoff date for eligibility from 1994 to 2020.
- With the change, logging companies that have cleared forests since 1994, but before 2020, will be allowed to obtain certification from the body, something they weren’t allowed to do before.
- To qualify, companies will have to restore forests and provide remedy for social harms done in the 1994-2020 period in their concessions.
- The decision has sparked responses from both critics and supporters, with the former saying the new rule rewards known deforesters, and the latter saying it opens opportunities for forest restoration and remedies for Indigenous and local communities.

Sustainability pledges help Indonesia produce palm oil with less deforestation
- Deforestation that’s associated with palm oil has fallen by 82% over the past decade in Indonesia, the world’s top producer of the commodity, according to a new analysis.
- This is despite a rise in palm oil prices, which historically has been associated with a rise in deforestation as land is cleared for new plantings.
- Researchers attribute the continued decline in palm oil deforestation to the rising adoption of zero-deforestation commitments as well as public supply chain reporting by companies.

Indonesian program pays fishers to collect plastic trash at sea
- The Indonesian fisheries ministry has launched a four-week program to pay fishers to collect plastic trash from the sea.
- The initiative is part of wider efforts to reduce Indonesia’s marine plastic pollution by 70% by 2025.
- The country is a top contributor to the plastic trash crisis in the ocean.
- Each of the 1,721 participating fishers will receive the equivalent of $10 a week for collecting up to 4 kg (9 lbs) of plastic waste from the sea daily.

Palm oil firms not acting fast enough on no-deforestation vows: Report
- Only 22% of companies sourcing or producing palm oil in Indonesia have public and comprehensive no-deforestation policies, a new report by London-based nonprofit CDP says.
- The report also finds that only 28% of companies have robust public no-deforestation commitments that cover 100% of production and include a cutoff date before 2020.
- In light of the report, experts are calling for more companies to adopt robust no-deforestation policies that incorporate social elements including remediation, restoration, compensation of past harms, and/or commitment to protect rights and livelihoods of local communities.

Indonesia amnesties 75 companies operating illegally inside forest areas
- As many as 75 companies that operate illegally inside forest areas in Indonesia have been pardoned under an amnesty scheme.
- These companies paid fines totaling 222.7 billion rupiah ($14.93 million) to receive the pardons.
- Hundreds more plantation and mining companies will be pardoned, officials say, as the government has identified at least 616 companies operating illegally inside forest areas.

‘More responsible forest management is needed’: Q&A with FSC’s Kim Carstensen
- The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is widely considered the gold standard for certifying sustainable forest use, but has frequently been criticized for failing to uphold the standards that it touts.
- Kim Carstensen, the FSC’s director-general, says some of the complaints have a basis, and that while the FSC will never be the perfect system in everyone’s view, it’s still “the best that can be done” and “provides the basis for a lot of opportunities to be created.”
- In an interview with Mongabay, Carstensen discusses long-awaited updates to the FSC’s rules, how to deal with problematic member companies, and why certification should be more than just a logo.

Three-fourths of waste in Jakarta’s notoriously polluted rivers is plastic
- Most of the waste collected from the rivers and holding facilities in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, is plastic, new field-based research has found.
- Researchers note that the plastic debris recovered from the surface water amounted to 9.9 grams, or a third of an ounce, per person on average, which is lower than an estimate from a widely cited 2015 study.
- The researchers have called for a better mitigation strategy to eliminate plastic pollution in rivers and subsequently the ocean.
- Indonesia, a country of more than 270 million people, is the No. 2 contributor to global marine plastic pollution, behind only China.

FSC-certified paper plantation faces farmer backlash in Colombia
- Smurfit Kappa Cartón de Colombia (SKCC), a paper company with multiple plantations certified by the FSC ethical wood label, is facing backlash from Indigenous and local farmers over land disputes and environmental impacts.
- Mongabay was able to confirm three cases of plantations violating Colombia’s legal forest code. Communities living close to the company’s paper plantations say they are to blame for water shortages and a decrease in biodiversity and soil fertility.
- There is little agreement over the effects of these plantations on water availability, but many activists and academics say agroforestry or silvopasture systems can be alternative solutions to increase biodiversity and contribute to farmers’ livelihoods.
- A SKCC forestry division manager said SKCC carries out rigorous legal and background analyzes of the properties to operate according to the law and practices respect for the environment.

No permit? No problem for palm oil company still clearing forest in Papua
- A field observation by Greenpeace Indonesia has confirmed reports that a palm oil company has resumed clearing land on its concession in Indonesia’s Papua region despite its permit having been revoked.
- As of June, the company, PT Permata Nusa Mandiri (PNM), had cleared more than 100 hectares (247 acres) of land, according to data from Greenpeace Indonesia.
- The resumption of land clearing has prompted the district head to reprimand PNM, and raised the possibility that the company is committing a crime.

Palm oil producer mired in legal troubles still razing Sumatran forest
- A palm oil company has resumed clearing forest in its concession in Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, the only place on Earth where tigers, orangutans and rhinos coexist.
- Analysis of satellite imagery by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) shows the company, PT Cemerlang Abadi (CA), cleared 309 hectares (761 acres) of secondary and regenerating forests between September 2021 and February 2022.
- RAN says it’s possible that palm oil from trees grown on this deforested land may have entered the global supply chain, as CA isn’t blacklisted by any of the major brands or traders that buy palm oil.

Plantations threaten Indonesia’s orangutans, but they’re not oil palm
- A significant portion of orangutan habitat in Indonesia lies within corporate concessions, but industrial tree companies, like pulp and paper, don’t have strong enough safeguards and commitment to protect the critically endangered apes, a new report says.
- According to the report by Aidenvironment, there are 6.22 million hectares (15.37 million acres) of orangutan habitat within corporate oil palm, logging, and industrial tree concessions.
- Of the three types of concessions, industrial tree companies are the “key stakeholder” as they operate with much less transparency and scrutiny than the palm oil sector, Aidenvironment says.

As dry season starts in Indonesia, risk of fires — and haze — looms
- There’s a degree of risk that Southeast Asia may see the return of transboundary haze this year from forest fires in Indonesia, according to a new report by a Singaporean think tank.
- The key driver of that risk is the currently high price of palm oil on the world market, which could pose an incentive for farmers in Indonesia, the world’s top producer of palm oil, to expand their plantations, including by clearing land with fire.
- In anticipation of the dry season, which starts in July, some local governments in Indonesia are putting in place policies to prevent fires, including sanctions for companies using fire to clear their concessions.

Indonesian palm oil audit a chance to clean up ‘very dirty’ industry
- The Indonesian government plans to audit all palm oil companies operating in the country, in a bid to tackle an ongoing shortage and high prices of cooking oil.
- Experts attribute the crisis to the fact that the country’s palm oil industry is dominated by a small number of big companies.
- These companies have large concessions, in excess of the limit imposed by the government, allowing them to wield outsized power to dictate prices, policies and supplies.
- Analysts say the audit should address this land ownership issue, as well as other problems that plague the industry, such as lack of clear data and transparency.

Indonesia’s Sangihe islanders score legal victory over mining company
- Residents of Sangihe Island in Indonesia have won a lawsuit against a Canadian-backed company planning to mine gold on their island.
- In its ruling, the court in the city of Manado declared the environmental permit issued to miner PT Tambang Mas Sangihe (TMS) and ordered the local government to revoke it.
- The judges found that the permit was issued without following the proper procedures, and that the environmental impact analysis was inadequate.
- The victory comes a month after another court, in Jakarta, rejected a separate lawsuit by the villagers seeking to have TMS’s mining contract revoked; the court said the case was outside its jurisdiction.

Second Indonesian province moves to retake forests from palm oil companies
- The government of Indonesia’s Papua province has recommended that district officials revoke the permits of 35 of the 54 oil palm concessions operating there.
- These concessions cover a combined 522,397 hectares (1.29 million acres) of land, and are being targeted for revocation because of a range of administrative violations by the license holders.
- If revoked, the large swaths of forests still standing inside these concessions could be saved from being cleared and converted into plantations, and returned to Indigenous communities, activists say.
- The move by the Papua government mirrors a round of revocations ordered last year by the government of neighboring West Papua province, which has also successfully warded off lawsuits filed by affected companies.

Sumatra palm plantations the usual suspects as unusual burning razes peatlands
- Fires have swept through large swaths of peatland forest in the western part of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island since the start of the year, an area that usually sees much smaller, controlled fires.
- Environmental activists say they suspect the fires might be linked to palm oil companies with plantations in and around the burned areas.
- They warn the burning could get worse in the coming months, with the dry season in this part of Sumatra expected to peak only in August.

Legal defeats pile up for palm oil companies stripped of permits in Papua
- Two more palm oil companies in Indonesia that sued a local official for revoking their permits have had their lawsuits rejected.
- They join a growing list of palm oil firms being held to account for legal and administrative violations that were uncovered in a May 2021 audit of oil palm concessions across West Papua province.
- Four other lawsuits filed on similar grounds by other companies have also been thrown out since December 2021.
- Activists have welcomed the verdict, saying it’s an opportunity for the government to give the concessions back to the Indigenous communities who live on the land.

Slick operator: Indonesian cooking oil probe may spread to biodiesel industry
- A top economist in Indonesia has been charged for his alleged role in helping palm oil companies export the commodity instead of selling it domestically — a practice blamed for a shortage of cooking oil in the world’s top producer of palm oil.
- The arrest of Lin Che Wei, who prosecutors allege was “involved in every palm oil policy,” also puts the spotlight on the state palm oil fund that he helped create and that disproportionately channels subsidies to many of the same companies implicated in the cooking oil scandal.
- President Joko Widodo has called for a thorough investigation to “find out who is playing a game here,” but the palm oil lobby has pushed back against what it says is a vilification of the industry — even threatening to stop producing cooking oil for the domestic market.
- The cooking oil shortage has battered domestic trust in Indonesia’s powerful palm oil industry, whose reputation abroad has long been tarnished by its links to deforestation, labor abuses, and conflicts with Indigenous and local communities.

Banks bet big on coal in Indonesia, bucking global shift away from fossil fuel
- Loans from banks and leasing firms to coal-mining companies in Indonesia are increasing on the back of soaring global coal prices.
- Analysts say financial institutions are capitalizing on the high demand for capital from miners, effectively helping keep the fossil fuel industry afloat.
- The increase in lending to coal miners in Indonesia bucks a global trend that has seen financial institutions and investors increasingly avoid coal and other fossil fuel industries because of their environmental and climate impacts.
- Energy policy experts say that besides risking reputational damage, the banks financing Indonesia’s current coal boom could be left holding a lot of bad debt once the cycle inevitably turns into a bust.

Court setback doesn’t sway Indonesian villagers fighting a mining firm
- Residents of remote Sangihe Island in Indonesia will mount an appeal after their lawsuit against a company planning to mine gold on their island was thrown out by a court on a technicality.
- Their case centered on concerns that the operations of PT Tambang Mas Sangihe (TMS), linked to Canada-based Baru Gold Corp., would cause widespread destruction on their island home.
- They alleged in their lawsuit that there were several administrative violations that should have nullified the contract issued to TMS by the government, but the court said the matter was out of its jurisdiction.
- The same court issued a similar dismissal in a previous case involving a coal-mining company, but an appeal by the plaintiffs in that instance led to the company’s permit being revoked; given that precedent, the Sangihe islanders say they still have a fighting chance.

With ban on palm oil exports, Indonesia reaps condemnation and praise
- Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of palm oil, announced it would ban exports of the commodity starting April 28 to address a domestic cooking oil shortage.
- The move has elicited a mixed response, with economists and a leading oil palm farmers’ union saying it will destroy the lucrative industry, including hurting small farmers.
- But another farmers’ group says the move is a necessary step toward a wider reform of the industry to devolve control from a handful of conglomerates to small farmers.

Mine pits expose the holes in Indonesia’s plan to relocate its capital
- Critics of the Indonesian government’s plan to build a new capital city in the coal-mining heartland of East Kalimantan province have long warned about the abandoned mining pits dotting the landscape.
- The government has now acknowledged that these will be a problem: it says it has identified 2,415 of these pits at the site of the new city, covering a combined area of 29,000 hectares (71,700 acres).
- It also says it’s been working to rehabilitate these decommissioned mines since 2021 — a revelation that has raised concerns that the public is paying for work that, by law, should be done by the coal companies.
- The government’s solutions for dealing with the rainwater-filled pits have also been panned, such as using them as sources of fresh water for the new city, despite the fact that the water is as acidic as stomach acid.

Indonesian trade official, palm oil execs charged in cooking oil crisis
- A trade ministry official and three palm oil executives have been charged by prosecutors in Indonesia in connection with a cooking oil shortage that has rocked the world’s biggest vegetable oil-producing country.
- The suspects are alleged to have conspired to secure export permits to sell crude palm oil at record-high prices internationally instead of complying with a domestic market obligation.
- The cooking oil shortage has prompted widespread outrage in a country that produces more than half of the world’s palm oil, driving up prices and forcing the government to step in with subsidies.
- The companies named in the conspiracy are the Permata Hijau Group, Wilmar Nabati Indonesia, Multimas Nabati Asahan, and Musim Mas.

Podcast: Who owns the companies destroying rainforests in the heart of New Guinea?
- New Guinea, home to the world’s third-largest rainforest, also contains the world’s largest planned oil palm plantation.
- Covering 2,800 square kilometers (1,100 square miles) the Tanah Merah project is nearly the size of the U.S. state of Rhode Island.
- However, the true owners of the seven concessions that make up the project remain hidden through a shroud of corporate secrecy.
- We speak with Philip Jacobson, senior editor at Mongabay, and Bonnie Sumner, investigative reporter at the Aotearoa New Zealand organization Newsroom, to discuss the project from inception to present day, the involvement of a New Zealand businessman, and where the project could go next.

Sustainable fashion: Biomaterial revolution replacing fur and skins
- Innovators around the globe are achieving inspiring results using natural sources, traditional knowledge, and advanced biotechnology techniques to develop sustainable materials for the fashion industry, replacing fur, leather and skins, and slashing the impacts of one of the world’s most polluting industries.
- Although companies of this type still represent a tiny part of the global textile chain, such firms grew fivefold between 2017 and 2019. Executives of apparel companies recently surveyed say they “aspire to source at least half of their products with such materials by 2025.”
- This shift in production and corporate mentality is due to several factors, including pressure from animal rights activists and environmental organizations, along with consumer demand, comes as the climate and environmental crises deepen.
- “Sustainable materials are pivotal if we are to transform the fashion industry from one of the most polluting industries to one that is transformative, regenerative and more humane, caring both for the environment and the people it touches in its complex supply chain,” says fashion designer Carmen Hijosa.

Stranded coal barge spills cargo, disrupts fishery in Indonesian waters
- An Indonesian coal barge that ran aground off East Java has reportedly spilled much of its cargo and disrupted the local fishery.
- Local fishers blame the spill for turning the water in the area dark and affecting their fishing activities.
- An environmental group has called for an investigation by fisheries and environmental agencies into the incident.
- Indonesia is one of the world’s biggest producers of coal, but has paid a heavy price for that standing, including the massive deforestation wrought to mine the fossil fuel, as well as the numerous environmental and safety incidents associated with transporting and burning it.

Palm oil firm that cleared Papuan forest after losing its permit is still at it
- Satellite monitoring shows continued deforestation within an oil palm concession in Indonesia’s Papua province, long after the local government ordered concession holder PT Permata Nusa Mandiri (PNM) to halt land-clearing activities.
- The local government issued the order because PNM was among 137 palm oil firms whose permits were revoked by the environment ministry on Jan. 6.
- The Namblong Indigenous community, whose ancestral lands overlap with the company’s concession, say they never wanted PNM in their area and have called on the government to take firm action to stop it from clearing more forest.

For Indonesians, palm oil is everywhere but on supermarket shelves
- Indonesia is the world’s top producer of palm oil, but has in recent months been hit by scarce supplies and high prices for vegetable oil.
- The country’s business competition regulator points to indications of cartel practices by the handful of conglomerates that dominate the industry.
- But government policies may also be to blame, experts say, including incentivizing palm oil producers to sell to the government’s biofuel program instead of to cooking oil refiners.
- Parliament has called hearings on the issue, while the competition watchdog has launched a formal investigation.

FSC-certified Moorim Paper linked to massive forest clearing in Indonesia’s Papua
- A subsidiary of South Korean paper company Moorim has cleared natural forests a tenth the size of Seoul in Indonesia’s Papua region over the past six years, a new report alleges.
- The report, published by various NGOs, alleges that the cleared areas consisted of primary forests serving as a habitat for threatened species and a source of livelihood for Indigenous Papuans.
- Moorim’s Indonesian subsidiary, PT Plasma Nutfah Marind Papua (PNMP), which holds the concession to the land, also allegedly cleared the forests without obtaining the free, prior and informed consent of the Indigenous and local communities.
- Moorim has denied the allegations, but the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which certifies its paper products as being sustainably sourced, says it has begun assessing the case to determine whether there’s enough substantial information to indicate a violation of its policies.

Deforestation for palm oil falls in Southeast Asia, but is it a trend or a blip?
- Deforestation for oil palm cultivation in Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea dropped in 2021 to its lowest level since 2017, according to a new analysis by Chain Reaction Research (CRR).
- This marks the second straight year of declining palm-linked deforestation in this region, which produces more than 80% of the world’s palm oil, despite the price of the commodity hitting all-time highs last year and this year.
- Researchers attribute the decline in deforestation to an increasing number of companies adopting no-deforestation policies, and smaller companies without such commitments simply running out of forest to clear.
- But concerns over future deforestation persist as the Indonesian government ramps up its palm-oil based biodiesel program, which sources some of its palm oil from companies that are known deforesters.

At a plantation in Central Africa, Big Oil tries to go net-zero
- In March 2021, French oil giant TotalEnergies announced that it would be developing a 40,000-hectare (99.000-acre) forest in the Republic of Congo that will sequester 500,000 tons of carbon per year.
- The project is part of a renewed global push for governments and corporations to hit their emissions targets partially by the use of carbon credits, also known as offsets.
- But advocates say what TotalEnergies describes as a “forest” is a commercial acacia plantation that will produce timber for sale, with little detail on who stands to profit or lose access to land.

California is the world’s number one importer of Amazonian oil, report finds
- California is the biggest importer of oil from the Amazon rainforest, with Ecuador being the largest exporter, a report from Stand.Earth and Amazon Watch finds.
- The report comes months after Indigenous organizations filed a motion to protect 80 percent of the Amazon by 2025 and the Ecuadorian president announced plans to double the country’s oil production.
- Ecuador’s ministry of the environment and water told Mongabay that it is “encouraging extractive activities to compensate for biodiversity loss” and that it is adapting secondary legislation to further comply with Indigenous rights and environmental regulation.

Brazil’s Suzano boasts its pulpwood plantations are green; critics disagree
- Suzano, the world’s largest pulp exporter, is strongly promoting a new green agenda. Its plantations, now being grown in association with native forests, could help curb the global climate crisis, the company says.
- Some conservation groups agree, and are working with the firm to ensure it gets greener.
- But other environmentalists say that the expansion of eucalyptus monoculture is causing widespread environmental damage in Brazil. Plantation carbon sequestration is minimal, they argue, while pulpwood factories are highly polluting and eucalyptus forests lack the biodiversity of rainforests.
- Moreover, they say, eucalyptus plantation expansion is resulting in the usurpation of natural lands and the expulsion of traditional and Indigenous communities who have much more to offer in the fight against climate change and efforts to protect intact forests.

Is colonial history repeating itself with Sabah forest carbon deal? (commentary)
- To the surprise of Indigenous and local communities, a huge forest carbon conservation agreement was recently signed in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo.
- Granting rights to foreign entities on more than two million hectares of the state’s tropical forests for the next 100-200 years, civil society groups have called for more transparency.
- “Is history repeating itself? Are we not yet free or healed from our colonial and wartime histories?” wonders a Sabahan civil society leader who authored this opinion piece calling for more information, more time, and a say.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Details emerge around closed-door carbon deal in Malaysian Borneo
- Leaders in Sabah have begun to reveal information about a nature conservation agreement signed in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo for the rights to carbon and other natural capital.
- The deal allegedly covers rights to more than 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of the state’s tropical forests for the next 100-200 years.
- Indigenous and civil society groups have called for more transparency.
- In response to the public reaction to news of the agreement, its primary proponent, Deputy Chief Minister Jeffrey Kitingan, held a public meeting but has declined to make the agreement public yet.

Indonesian official busted over alleged bribe for palm oil permit
- A district head in Riau, the heartland of Indonesia’s palm oil industry, has been arrested for allegedly taking bribes from a plantation company.
- The 2 billion ($141,000) payment was allegedly in exchange for the district head, Andi Putra, facilitating the extension of a permit for palm oil company PT Adimulia Agrolestari.
- Activists say the case is only the tip of the iceberg, with Riau blanketed in illegal plantations and plagued by corrupt officials.
- They are also worried that corruption in the palm oil industry will become more rampant in the future due to the weakening of the national anti-corruption agency.

Oil executives deny misinformation on climate change, despite evidence
- While funding past and present climate denial campaigns, four CEOs rejected accusations of past or present wrongdoing in a landmark congressional hearing
- The CEOs of ExxonMobil, BP America, Chevron and Shell Oil testified before the U.S. House Oversight Committee on Oct. 28 in a landmark hearing into how these companies spent decades lying about the climate crisis.
- Just days before the U.N.’s COP26 climate summit, hopes for more ambitious commitments to stopping the climate emergency were frustrated as the CEOs repeated industry talking points on green energy, but shied away from concrete commitments or admissions. An independent report on Chevron documented a $50.5 billion bill in unpaid environmental fines and damages around the world, only 0.006% of which the company has paid.
- While the CEOs pointed to their low-carbon investments, a report released earlier this year shows that clean energy accounted for just 1% of oil and gas capital investments in 2020, with 99% going into fossil fuels.

Banking on deforestation: Top lenders make $1.7b from agribusiness deals
- Some of the world’s leading banks — JPMorgan, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Rabobank and Bank of China — allegedly made $1.74 billion in five years from funding businesses implicated in deforestation and human rights abuses, a new report says.
- Lenders in the U.S. alone made $538 million by doing business with companies accused of clearing forests, according to the investigation by the UK-based NGO Global Witness.
- Lenders in the U.S. alone made $538 million by doing business with companies accused of clearing forests, according to the investigation by the UK-based NGO Global Witness.
- Voluntary commitments are falling short, the report’s authors argued, and called on countries to pass laws against bankrolling forest destruction and human rights abuses.

Paper giants’ expansion plans raise fears of greater deforestation in Indonesia
- Two paper giants, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) and Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL), plan to significantly expand their production capacity in Indonesia.
- Activists warn that these plans could lead to increased deforestation of natural forest and peatlands in Indonesia to plant the pulpwood trees needed to meet this capacity, exacerbating the annual fire season.
- They say the projects are benefiting from the Indonesian government’s deregulation initiative that strips away environmental and social protections across a wide swath of industries, including pulp and paper.
- In response to the expansion plans, a coalition of 33 NGOs has sent a letter to APP’s financiers and buyers, asking them to refrain from doing business with the company.

Amazon, meet Amazon: Tech giant rolls out rainforest carbon offset project
- Tech giant Amazon has announced a nature-based carbon removal project in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest in partnership with The Nature Conservancy (TNC).
- The project will help small farmers produce sustainable agricultural produce through reforestation and regenerative agroforestry programs, in exchange for carbon credits that will go to the internet company.
- Called the Agroforestry and Restoration Accelerator, the initiative is expected to support 3,000 small farmers in Pará state and restore an area the size of Seattle in the first three years, and in the process remove up to 10 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through 2050.
- In addition to addressing climate and social issues, the partners say the project intends to address the shortcomings of the carbon credit market by creating new standards for the industry.

How to find the right NGO partner without shooting yourself in the foot (commentary)
- Aida Greenbury, the former Managing Director of Sustainability at APP Group and currently a board member and advisor to several organizations including Mongabay, explores the complexities of corporate – NGO engagement.
- Greenbury says there is a wide spectrum of NGOs and companies, each with differing levels of commitment, ethics, and willingness to meaningfully engage. Finding the right partners is critical for collaborations to be effective at driving change.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Palm oil firms in Papua hit back with lawsuit after permits are revoked
- Three palm oil companies are suing local officials in Indonesia’s West Papua province after their permits were revoked for a series of violations.
- The companies are seeking a reversal of the revocation, which locks them out of a combined 90,031 hectares (222,471 acres) of land in Sorong district, an area larger than New York City.
- The Sorong district head says he revoked the permits after a province-wide audit found a litany of violations by plantation license holders, including violations of the rights of Indigenous communities.
- The district head has received an outpouring support from civil society groups, Indigenous peoples, and a national parliamentarian, who have all condemned the lawsuits.

Rio Tinto-owned mine is polluting Malagasy water with uranium and lead, NGOs say
- Some sites near a Rio Tinto-owned mine in Madagascar have recorded uranium and lead levels 52 and 40 times in excess of WHO safe drinking water standards, a recent analysis found.
- Around 15,000 people in Madagascar’s Anosy region depend on these water sources, including for drinking, a coalition of NGOs in the U.K. and Madagascar, pointed out, calling on the company to provide safe drinking water to the communities.
- Mine operator QIT Madagascar Minerals (QMM), which is 80% owned by Rio Tinto, extracts ilmenite at the mine, a process that generates wastewater rich in minerals like uranium and lead, according to a report commissioned by the Andrew Lees Trust UK.
- QMM in its response to the NGOs indicated that the high concentrations were naturally occurring and denied that it was polluting the water.

North American paper industry merger sets off environmental alarms
- Canadian firm Paper Excellence plans to acquire U.S. pulp and paper giant Domtar, with shareholders overwhelmingly approving the proposed merger.
- The acquisition signals Paper Excellence’s expansion in North America, something that environmentalists say will threaten Canada’s boreal forest.
- This is because Paper Excellence is reportedly controlled by the owners of Indonesia’s Asia Pulp & Paper, which has a long track record of deforestation, forest and peat fires, and human rights violations.

Palm oil grower looks to make amends for past deforestation in Indonesia
- A major palm oil grower in Indonesia plans to rehabilitate 38,000 hectares (94,000 acres) in Borneo and New Guinea to make up for its past deforestation and peatland clearing.
- The recovery by KPN Plantation will be achieved through peat rewetting, reforestation, and assisting local communities to secure land tenure and access rights.
- Environmentalists have lauded the plan, but noted that challenges remain in the monitoring and implementation of the plan.

Top brands failing to spot rights abuses on Indonesian oil palm plantations
- A new report highlights systemic social and environmental problems that continue to plague the Indonesian palm oil industry and ripple far up the global palm oil supply chain.
- The report looked at local and Indigenous communities living within and around 10 plantations and found that their human rights continued to be violated by the operation of these plantations.
- The documented violations included seizure of community lands without consent; involuntary displacement; denial of fundamental environmental rights; violence against displaced Indigenous peoples and communities; harassment; criminalization; and even killings of those trying to defend their lands and forests.
- The problems have persisted for decades due to ineffective, and sometimes lack of, due diligence by buyers and financiers along the global supply chain, the report says.

Deforestation of orangutan habitat feeds global palm oil demand, report shows
- Palm oil giant Royal Golden Eagle (RGE) has allegedly sourced the commodity from a plantation responsible for deforesting prime orangutan habitat in Sumatra, which would constitute a violation of the group’s no deforestation and no peatland destruction policies.
- An investigation by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) detected deforestation within the plantation operator’s concession in Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, home to some of the rarest species on Earth.
- According to the investigation, palm oil from the concession ended up in RGE’s supply chain, and subsequently the global market; RGE is a key supplier to major brands like Unilever, Kao, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Mondelēz, Nestlé and Colgate-Palmolive.
- RGE’s palm oil arm, APICAL, said it had put a monitoring system in place and carried out risk engagement and supplier engagement measures in its supply chain, but RAN said these efforts were not enough as deforestation-tainted palm oil from the Leuser Ecosystem was still ending up in its supply chain.

Indonesia’s biodiesel program fuels deforestation threat, report warns
- A new report adds to warnings that Indonesia’s biodiesel program will drive greater deforestation by boosting demand for palm oil.
- It says contradictory and opaque government policies “create conditions for producers to maintain business-as-usual production systems, instead of investing in more sustainable production innovations, such as increasing land productivity.”
- Experts also say the biodiesel program should only serve as a transition to more sustainable forms of renewable energy, and not the long-term solution that the government is touting.
- Palm oil plantations are the single biggest driver of deforestation in Indonesia.

Brazil ‘Adopt-a-Park’ program may negatively impact traditional peoples
- Brazil has launched an ambitious “Adopt-a-Park” program, inviting local and transnational companies to provide goods and services and help manage 132 conservation units of all types in the Brazilian Amazon. Should the program be successful, it would be extended to preserves across Brazil.
- Private response has been weak so far, with only eight companies, five Brazilian and three transnationals, signing up. That includes French-owned supermarket chain Carrefour, U.S. beverage maker Coca-Cola, and Dutch brewer Heineken. Details as to how the initiative will function have been scant.
- The Jair Bolsonaro government says it hopes that during a time of deep federal budget cuts to environmental programs, Adopt-a-Park will add the equivalent of $600 million in goods and services to conservation coffers. But the initiative has unleashed a firestorm of criticism from socioenvironmental NGOs and traditional communities.
- They say Adopt-a-Park is a way of greenwashing Bolsonaro’s anti-environmental agenda, that the program is failing to carry out required consultations with traditional peoples — such as rubber tappers and Brazil nut gatherers, who live inside extractive reserves — and that it could further the dismantling of federal agencies.

98% of Bunge shareholders back proposal to reduce deforestation
- The proposal by activist investment funds Green Century Capital Management and Storebrand Asset Management was approved with 98% of the votes.
- Bunge’s decision follows those recently made by other big companies such as Procter & Gamble’s, Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, and JPMorgan Chase.
- According to Green Century, the measure would help the Brazilian Cerrado, a savanna ecosystem known as “reverse forest” due to its extensive root system that stores large amounts of carbon.

Oil palm growers’ misdeeds allow an opportunity to save West Papua’s forests
- An area of forest two and a half times the size of London sits inside oil palm concessions in Indonesia’s West Papua province but can still be spared from being cleared, a government review indicates.
- Clearing the forest to plant oil palms would release the equivalent of two-fifths of Indonesia’s total annual greenhouse gas emissions, which is why leaving it intact is important, according to experts and local government officials.
- The concession holders have been prevented from developing the land because of a lack of permits and a litany of administrative and legal violations, according to the government review.
- This gives local authorities leverage to win back control of the concessions from the companies on administrative and procedural grounds, although officials say the process could take at least a year, even if the companies relinquish the land voluntarily.

‘The river will bleed red’: Indigenous Filipinos face down dam projects
- For more than five decades, Indigenous communities in the northern Philippines have pushed back against the planned construction of hydropower dams on the Chico River system.
- The river is of great importance to Indigenous communities in the provinces of Kalinga and Mountain Province, who call it their “river of life” and have depended on it for generations.
- The Upper Tabuk and Karayan dams have been proposed in some form or another since the 1970s, but are now backed by corporations created by Indigenous groups, causing divisions among communities.
- Critics of the dams have questioned the Indigenous consent process, a requirement for a project on tribal lands, alleging that some of the community support was obtained through bribery.

Grim toll from Indonesia’s abandoned mines may get even worse, report warns
- The proliferation of abandoned mining pits throughout Indonesia has led to the deaths of 168 people, mostly children, from 2014-2020, according to a new report.
- Mining companies are required to fill in and rehabilitate their mining sites after their operations end, but many fail to do so, allowing the pits to fill with rainwater and become a drowning hazard.
- There has also been little to no law enforcement against companies that fail to rehabilitate their mining pits, leaving the families of those killed without any recourse to justice, activists say.
- They warn the problem will only get worse as operations at thousands of mines draw to a close and new deregulation measures undercut environmental and social safeguards.

‘Hungry’ palm oil, pulpwood firms behind Indonesia land-grab spike: Report
- Land conflicts in Indonesia escalated in 2020, with palm oil and pulpwood companies taking advantage of movement restrictions to expand aggressively, according to a new report.
- These disputes have historically waned during times of economic downturn, but last year’s increase was driven by “land-hungry” companies, according to the NGO Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA).
- Most of the conflicts involved palm oil and pulpwood companies, while infrastructure developments backed by the government were also a major contributor.

Indonesia’s top palm oil deforesters are the usual shady suspects: Report
- Repeat offenders dominate the 2020 list of top 10 palm oil companies responsible for palm oil-linked deforestation in Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea, according to a new analysis.
- Some of the top deforesters are shrouded in secrecy, with scant information about them publicly available.
- Overall, 2020 saw the lowest amount of palm oil-driven deforestation in three years, likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- However, a resurgent domestic market in Indonesia, coupled with rallying palm oil prices, could fuel further deforestation in 2021.

Soy moratorium averted New Jersey-size loss of Amazon rainforest: Study
- A new study sought to quantify the impact of the Amazon soy moratorium, signed in 2006 by companies accounting for around 90% of the soy sourced from the Brazilian Amazon.
- The companies agreed that they would not purchase soy grown on plots that were recently deforested.
- The research demonstrates that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon between 2006 and 2016 was 35% lower than it would have been without the moratorium, likely keeping 18,000 square kilometers (6,950 square miles) of the Amazon standing.
- Despite the success, observers question whether the ban on soy from deforested areas of the Amazon will prevent the loss of rainforest over the long term.

Podcast: Indigenous land rights and the global push for land privatization
- We discuss the importance of securing Indigenous land rights within the context of a global push for land privatization on today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast
- Cultural Survival’s Daisee Francour joins us to discuss why land rights are so vital to the wellbeing of Indigenous communities and the cause of conservation.
- The Oakland Institute’s Anuradha Mittal discusses the think tank’s new report on the global push by governments and corporations to privatize land in the name of economic development and how that can dispossess Indigenous and local communities of their land.
- “In the midst of a pandemic and a growing climate crisis, we are seeing that governments, corporations, and international finance institutions–instead of addressing the crises–are wanting to exploit even more natural resources, like land,” Mittal says.

Peruvian Indigenous groups thwart oil drilling in their territory — for now
- An immense oil concession known as Lot 64 overlaps with much of the Indigenous Achuar Nation’s 8,020-square-kilometer (3,100-square-mile) homeland, as well as a portion of the neighboring territory of the Wampis people.
- The Achuar and the Wampis say they do not consent to drilling for oil on Lot 64, and thus, any exploitation of the lot would be illegitimate under Peruvian law.
- They argue that drilling for oil and transporting it to the coast would almost certainly contaminate rivers vital to their existence in this corner of the Amazon.
- In July, the private company that had a 75% stake in the concession withdrew from its contract, but the Indigenous communities see this as a temporary victory, as the government-backed oil company, Petroperu, has indicated it will seek a new partner to tap into Lot 64’s reserves.

P&G shareholders vote in landslide to address supply-chain deforestation
- A shareholder proposal filed in September 2020 by Green Century Funds was approved by a 67% affirmative vote in the annual Proctor & Gamble (P&G) shareholder meeting in mid-October.
- The vote was brought as a call for the international corporation to cull forest degradation and deforestation from the company’s supply chain.
- Such corporate commitments are not uncommon, but the P&G vote signals a shift in shareholder awareness of the long-term implications of a supply chain that’s potentially destructive to forests.

Paper giant APRIL linked to Borneo forest clearing despite zero-deforestation vow
- One of the world’s biggest pulp and paper producers, APRIL, is alleged to have violated its own zero-deforestation commitment by sourcing wood from a company clearing rainforest in Indonesian Borneo, a new report says.
- APRIL denies the allegation and insists it sourced zero-deforestation wood from AHL; the NGOs say the company’s claim is premised on an exceedingly narrow definition of what constitutes deforestation.
- APRIL denies the allegation and insists it sourced zero-deforestation wood from AHL; the NGOs say the company’s claim is premised on an exceedingly narrow definition of what constitutes deforestation.

Two deaths, zero accountability: Indonesia’s mining pits claim more lives
- Two boys drowned in a rain-filled mining pit in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province in early September, highlighting once again the danger posed by abandoned pits.
- Police have ruled the deaths accidental, but a mining watchdog plans to file a criminal complaint against the mining company, PT Sarana Daya Hutama (SDH), for failing to rehabilitate the site at the end of its operations, as required by law.
- There are more than 1,700 of these abandoned pits throughout East Kalimantan, Indonesia’s coal-mining heartland, which have claimed 39 lives since 2011.
- The companies behind them are rarely ever punished; the only one to be prosecuted was fined the equivalent of just 7 U.S. cents.

In Indonesia’s coastal villages, the plastic crisis is both homegrown and invasive
- Proper management of plastic waste is lacking in Indonesia’s coastal communities, where the use of plastics is outpacing mitigation efforts, according to a newly published study.
- The paper found that nearly 6,700 households in the Selayar and Wakatobi island chains had relatively low knowledge about plastic and how to manage it properly, while their use of it, particularly, single-use plastic packaging, was growing.
- The researchers have called for producers to take greater responsibility for managing the waste generated by their products, and for a transition to a circular economy.
- Indonesia is the second-biggest contributor of the plastic waste in the world’s oceans, behind only China.

Just half of major timber and pulp suppliers committed to zero deforestation: Report
- The world’s 100 most significant timber and pulp companies score just 22.6%, on average, when assessed across 175 environmental, social, and governance indicators, according to the latest assessment by the Zoological Society of London using its Sustainability Policy Transparency Toolkit (SPOTT).
- 2020 is the first way-point towards the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests’ goal of eliminating natural forest loss by 2030, but 44% of companies still don’t have a robust commitment to halting the conversion of natural ecosystems.
- Climate change risk assessments, which are not a requirement of current forest management certification programs, are often viewed by companies as an “optional extra,” and only 4% of firms provided an assessment of their future climate risk.
- More than half of companies are committed to respecting the rights of local communities, but only 9% have published procedures for obtaining free, prior informed consent from local communities on all new developments. Just 11 firms provided evidence they’re paying all workers minimum wage.

‘Criminalizing’ dissent, martial law fuel attacks on Philippine environmental defenders
- Attacks on environmental and land defenders in the Philippines have escalated under President Rodrigo Duterte, with at least 43 deaths in 2019, watchdog group Global Witness says in its latest report.
- It recorded a total of 119 defender deaths in the Philippines since Duterte took office in mid-2016.
- Martial law in Mindanao, which was only lifted last December, combined with Duterte’s counterinsurgency campaigns and wide-scale anti-drug war, exacerbated the threats against defenders, local groups say.
- A plurality of the casualties in the global tally are in mining and agribusiness; the Philippines registered the most number of deaths in both sectors, the report says.

Canada not walking the talk on its miners’ abuses abroad, campaigners say
- Canada is home base for nearly half of the world’s mining companies, but the country’s efforts to improve corporate accountability for environmental and human rights violations have fallen short, observers say.
- Internal documents show the government has stressed a voluntary approach to regulation, despite campaign promises to address abuses and outcry from campaigners.
- A government spokesperson says Canada has launched new initiatives to safeguard environmentalists and land-rights activists and to promote corporate responsibility.
- A recent Supreme Court decision could open the country’s legal system to allow victims of corporate abuses overseas to sue companies in Canada.

New report asks, do land titles help poor farmers?
- A new report by the Oakland Institute, a policy think tank, outlines cases of land privatization around the world.
- The report’s authors caution that privatizing land, especially when it has been traditionally managed communally, could sideline the interests of Indigenous groups and local communities.
- They cite evidence that governments and agencies see private land titles as a way not to help poor farmers, but rather to “unlock the economic potential of the land.”

Philippine court rejects OceanaGold’s bid to keep mining on expired permit
- The Philippine Court of Appeals has dismissed a bid by a Canadian-Australian mining company to allow it to continue operating after its mining permit expired last year.
- OceanaGold Philippines Inc. (OGPI) was challenging a provincial directive encouraging residents to block the operations of the mining giant after the June 20, 2019 expiration.
- The company cites a letter from the national government’s mining bureau that it claims allows it to continue operating its Didipio gold and copper mine pending its application for a permit renewal.
- But the appellate court upheld a regional court’s ruling, saying that there’s no Philippine law that lets the company continue mining beyond the expiry of its permit or during the renewal application process.

Groups demand financial, human rights probes into palm conglomerate Korindo
- Activists have called for a financial probe into the Korindo Group, a conglomerate that paid a $22 million “consultancy fee” for the permits to expand its oil palm operations in Indonesia’s Papua province.
- The circumstances around the payment were recently uncovered in an investigation by Mongabay, The Gecko Project, the Korean Center for Investigative Journalism-Newstapa and Al Jazeera.
- Activists want Indonesia’s anti-corruption agency to look into the possibility that the money was channeled as bribes to officials.
- They also want the government to ensure the safety of Papuan communities featured in the Al Jazeera documentary about the payment, in light of a record of rights abuses associated with Korindo’s operations.

Indonesia lavishes $195m subsidy on palm biodiesel producers over smallholders
- The Indonesian government is allocating $195 million from the state budget to subsidize producers of palm oil biodiesel, justifying the move as necessary to boosting the economy out of a pandemic-induced slump.
- Campaigners have blasted the move, noting that the fund through which the money will be channeled is meant to empower small oil palm farmers and not subsidize the giant multinationals that produce biodiesel.
- Since 2015, the government has used the fund to both subsidize producers and artificially lower the price of biodiesel at the pump to keep it competitive with regular diesel.
- Studies have shown that the deforestation inherent in the production of palm biodiesel means it emits up to three times as much CO2 as fossil fuels, making crop-based biofuels counterproductive to efforts to cut emissions.

For investors concerned about deforestation, there’s a guide for that
- The sustainability nonprofit Ceres has released a new Investor Guide to Deforestation and Climate Change intended for institutional investors who want to engage with the companies in their portfolios to address deforestation.
- Agricultural commodities such as palm oil, soy, beef, and pulp and paper are major drivers of deforestation. Identifying investments in these sectors is a first step for investors looking to address deforestation risks in their investment portfolios.
- The guide outlines key expectations for investors to look for in companies’ deforestation and climate commitments, provides investors with example questions for companies and gives action items to address deforestation risks.

With new law, Indonesia gives miners more power and fewer obligations
- Indonesia’s parliament has passed a mining bill that activists say will lead to unbridled exploitation by a mining industry that already operates with impunity over environmental and social violations.
- The new law removes a limit on the size of mining operations and allows automatic permit extensions up to 20 years.
- Critics say the law effectively echoes the talking points of the mining industry while shutting out longstanding demands from civil society groups, villagers and others for greater reforms.
- The bill failed to pass last year in the face of massive street protests; lawmakers have been accused of exploiting the current period of social distancing restrictions to pass it largely unopposed.

Canadian company positions for mining ban lift in Argentine province
- Yamana Gold, a Canadian mining company, has partnered with a real estate and investment firm in Argentina to handle “all environmental, social, and governance” issues associated with a potential gold mining project in the province of Chubut.
- Mining has been banned in Chubut since 2003, primarily as a result of local protests that have continued through early 2020.
- The COVID-19 pandemic has restricted the movement of Argentina’s citizens, but activists say the moves by Yamana and government leaders toward a reopening of the project are taking advantage of the crisis.

Trendy, cheap, and dirty: Fashion is a top global polluter
- The fashion industry is a major global polluter and source of greenhouse gas emissions, driven in large part by the “fast fashion” business model that treats cheap clothing as a perishable good that can be disposed of after brief use.
- Globalization has aided this trillion-dollar trend, allowing brands to outsource different links of their supply chains to countries with little to no environmental and labor protections in order to keep costs down.
- That has led to widespread pollution and labor rights abuses, particularly against women workers, epitomized by the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh on April 24, 2013, in which more than 1,134 workers were killed. This week, to marks the seventh anniversary of the tragedy and advocates for a return to a more sustainable “slow fashion” model have launched the “Fashion Revolution Week.”
- A newly published review paper in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment highlights the environmental consequences of fast fashion, fashion’s complex international supply chain, and proposes solutions to bring us into a cleaner fashion future.

Companies use COVID-19 to weaken standards, secure subsidies: Report
- A report from the U.S.-based NGO Mighty Earth identifies major corporations representing industries ranging from logging in Indonesia to automakers in the U.S. and outlines their attempts — successful in many cases — to garner subsidies, loosen restrictions, and walk back commitments to climate-related targets amid the global COVID-19 pandemic.
- In Indonesia, regulators have relaxed requirements for legality verification of timber.
- U.S. lawmakers have awarded grants and loans to agricultural companies accused of promoting deforestation in the Amazon.
- Officials in the U.S. have also relaxed fuel mileage requirements and regulation enforcement, bowing to pressure from the auto, airline and oil and gas industries.

Decades-old mine in Bougainville exacts devastating human toll: Report
- A new report by the Human Rights Law Centre in Australia details the continuing devastation wrought by a copper and gold mine that closed more than 30 years ago in the Papua New Guinean territory of Bougainville.
- The 17-year-long operation of the mine generated more than a billion metric tons of mining waste, which continues to seep into the region’s water sources, fouling drinking water supplies and causing disease.
- The British-Australian mining company Rio Tinto divested from its majority stake in the local operating company in 2016 and says that the governments of Bougainville and Papua New Guinea, now the majority shareholders, are best placed to address the problems.
- The Human Rights Law Centre and other groups contend that Rio Tinto has the ultimate responsibility to facilitate and finance the cleanup.

Philippine government flips local officials’ entry ban for mining ship
- The central government in the Philippines has overturned a decision by local authorities to ban a foreign ship from docking and taking on chromite ore on the island of Homonhon.
- Local community officials had imposed the block as part of efforts to lock down the province in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The central government, through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, initially supported the move by suspending the export permit of miner Techiron Resources Inc., but later overturned its own decision and allowed the company to continue operations.
- The incident should push mining industries to suspend operations amid the pandemic, an anti-mining group says, as it endangers locals.

Pandemic staple: Report links top tuna company to forced labor, illegal fishing
- A new report based on interviews with migrant fishers on three tuna fishing vessels operating out of Taiwan suggests that forced labor and illegal fishing practices continue within major tuna supply chains, despite efforts by companies and governments to stamp them out.
- The fishers’ allegations included deception, physical violence, wage deductions, debt bondage, passport confiscation, and excessive working hours, according to the report by environmental NGO Greenpeace.
- The fishers also provided evidence that the vessels took part in unlawful fishing practices, such as shark finning and transferring shark fins between vessels, according to the report.
- Two of the vessels that interviewees accused of these practices supply tuna to the Taiwan-based Fong Chun Formosa Fishery Company (FCF), one of the world’s largest tuna traders and the new owner of major U.S. canned-tuna brand Bumble Bee.

Complaint alleges oil company left Peru communities’ environment in ruins
- Indigenous communities and human rights NGOs contend that Pluspetrol violated a set of business standards issued by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
- The complaint, delivered March 11 in the Netherlands, says the company has avoided paying taxes and has failed to address damage to the environment in the Peruvian Amazon caused by its oil-drilling activities through 2015.
- The groups allege that the release of toxic heavy metals into the water supply have caused numerous health problems for community members.

Brazilian meat giant JBS expands its reach in China
- Brazilian meatpacker JBS has agreed to supply WH Group, a Hong Kong-based meat processor with access to retail outlets across China, with beef, pork and poultry products worth around $687 million a year beginning in 2020.
- Investigations have shown that JBS sources some of its beef from producers who have been fined for illegal deforestation in the Amazon.
- The push for cattle pasture drives most of the deforestation in the Amazon, while soybean plantations to supply pig and chicken feed have replaced large tracts of the wooded savannas of the Cerrado.

Tuna supply chains under scrutiny as Bumble Bee brand changes hands
- Last month, Taiwan-based Fong Chun Formosa Fishery Company (FCF), one of the top three global tuna traders, bought U.S. canned-tuna brand Bumble Bee Foods for $928 million.
- The acquisition will significantly boost FCF’s economic clout and give it a public face through the sale of Bumble Bee products.
- FCF president Max Chou emphasized the companies’ mutual “commitment to sustainability and global fisheries conservation.”
- But differing definitions of what constitutes sustainability in the complex tuna industry, as well as concerns over workers’ rights, suggest there’s work to do to build confidence in the environmental and ethical pedigree of the cutely cartooned tuna cans on supermarket shelves.

Plans for a new Indonesian capital put Borneo’s abandoned mines in the spotlight
- Two inactive coal open-pits, each of which has claimed the life of a child in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan, have been set for a restoration initiative led by the government.
- The government insists that owners of the abandoned mine pits will be held fully responsible for the costs of restoration work.
- The move comes amid a national plan to relocate the country’s capital from Jakarta to the Bornean province, so the abandoned pits have been identified as a top problem that needs solving.
- Environmentalists welcome the initiative to restore the abandoned open-pits, but said that turning them into agritourism sites was not a solution, as it would likely create new problems.

Coal spill bedevils Indonesian beach more than a year later
- Coal from a barge that spilled onto a beach in Indonesia’s Aceh province in July 2018 still hasn’t been fully cleaned up.
- Lampuuk Beach, on the northern tip of Sumatra, is hosting a surfing championship this weekend, but participants and residents say that coal continues to litter and contaminate the site.
- The coal was destined for a power plant run by a cement producer, which had experienced an identical spill in 2016 at a nearby beach.
- While authorities have ordered the cement producer to clean up the site, the company says the barge operator should be held responsible.

A Philippine community fights a lonely battle against the mine in its midst
- A tribal community in the Philippines has since July maintained a blockade of a controversial gold mine whose permit has expired but whose operator insists is allowed to continue working pending a renewal.
- The expiration in June of the permit held by OceanaGold Philippines Inc. (OGPI) for the Didipio mine has sparked a policy tangle, given that it’s the first permit of its kind in the Philippines to end, with no precedent for how the renewal application should proceed.
- The provincial government supports the end of mining operations, but has been largely bypassed in the permit renewal process, which existing laws place under the authority of the national government.
- President Rodrigo Duterte, who has criticized destructive mining practices in the past, omitted to do so in his latest state of the nation address, but has thrown the community a lifeline by requiring that OGPI seek free, prior and informed consent for its renewal application.

Companies’ solutions to global plastic crisis miss the mark: Report
- A new report from Greenpeace contends that multinational consumer goods companies are addressing the global plastics crisis with “false solutions.”
- Some of those solutions, the group says, harm the environment, such as the replacement of plastic straws with paper ones.
- Others, such as bioplastics, amount to little more than greenwashing, the report’s author writes, as they don’t provide the purported benefits compared to conventional plastics.
- Greenpeace argues for the phaseout of single-use packaging and investments in developing reusable containers that would substantially cut down on plastic waste.

Despite a decade of zero-deforestation vows, forest loss continues: Greenpeace
- Nearly a decade after the Board of the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) passed a resolution to achieve zero net deforestation by 2020 when sourcing commodities such as soya, palm oil, beef, and paper products, these commodities continue to drive widespread deforestation, a new report from Greenpeace says.
- Greenpeace contacted 66 companies, asking them to demonstrate their progress in ending deforestation by disclosing their cattle, cocoa, dairy, palm oil, pulp and paper and soya suppliers. Of the companies that did respond, most came back with only partial information.
- The report concludes that not a single company could demonstrate “meaningful effort to eradicate deforestation from its supply chain.”
- Other experts say that transparency in supply chains is improving, and that measuring compliance to zero-deforestation goals requires more nuanced research.

Exposing coal-fueled politics: Q&A with investigative journo Dandhy Laksono
- In the days leading up to the Indonesian presidential election in April, a documentary film exposed how the two candidates were deeply tied to the country’s coal oligarchs.
- The 90-minute film, Sexy Killers, describes the expansion of coal mines in East Kalimantan, the Bornean province known as Indonesia’s coal heartland, and how the industry has wrought environmental, financial and social damages on local communities.
- The documentary has racked up more than 22 million views on YouTube since its public release shortly before the April 17 election.
- Mongabay recently spoke with Dandhy Laksono, the investigative journalist behind the documentary, about the key revelations it raises regarding Indonesia’s political elite and the coal industry.

Indonesia electricity chief charged with bribery over coal-fired power plant
- Indonesian anti-graft investigators have charged the head of state-owned power utility PLN, Sofyan Basir, with bribery in connection to a coal-fired plant on the island of Sumatra.
- Sofyan was responsible for awarding contracts for the $900 million Riau-1 plant, whose construction has been suspended following a raft of corruption allegations and arrests.
- Among those already tried and convicted in the case are a government minister, a member of parliament, and a shareholder in one of the companies awarded the Riau-1 contract; Sofyan himself faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
- Environmental activists have praised the anti-graft commission for pursuing the case, which they say should spur the government to move away from coal and shift toward renewable energy.

In ‘Sexy Killers,’ journos probe Indonesian candidates’ ties to Big Coal
- A documentary film was recently published online showing the links between Indonesian coal and energy companies and the country’s political elites.
- The release came ahead of Indonesia’s presidential election on April 17 where more than 190 million people are set to vote.
- The documentary has been received more than 6.5 million views on YouTube within two days after its public release.

Palm oil, logging firms the usual suspects as Indonesia fires flare anew
- Fires have flared up once again on concessions held by palm oil and logging companies in Riau province on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
- For many of the companies involved, this isn’t the first time fires have sprung up on their land, prompting activists to question the government’s ability to enforce its own regulations against slash-and-burn forest clearing.
- Much of the affected area is peat forest, some of it being developed in violation of a ban on exploiting deep peatland, whose burning releases massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
- A failure by the government to collect on fines levied against the few companies prosecuted for setting fires on their concessions means there’s little deterrent effect for other companies that see slash-and-burn as the cheapest way to raze forests for plantations.

Experts warn: As G-20 tariffs drop, carbon emissions skyrocket
- A study published by researchers in Japan shows that tariff reductions by G-20 countries will sharply increase global carbon dioxide emissions.
- In some countries, cheaper imports would lead to “embodied carbon emissions” rising by more than 100%.
- Experts say the findings demonstrate that trade arrangements have a heavy impact on emissions that outweighs the effect of national climate policies.

Report highlights secretive business dealings of Indonesian VP hopeful
- A new report links two of Indonesia’s most prominent political figures, one of them a vice presidential candidate, with mysterious offshore financial transactions related to coal companies they owned.
- The report, from the international anti-corruption NGO Global Witness, suggests that businessmen and politicians Sandiaga Uno and Luhut Pandjaitan both may have taken advantage of corporate secrecy techniques that obscured ownership of companies and flows of millions of dollars in cash.
- While there is no evidence that Luhut or Sandiaga have engaged in any illegal activity, the issues raised in the report are at the heart of a global financial system that has allowed the tools of corporate secrecy, which can facilitate corruption, tax dodging and conflicts of interest, to spread unchecked.
- Sandiaga is running for vice president in the April 17 election on a ticket led by former military general Prabowo Subianto. Luhut, himself a former general, is a senior minister and close adviser to the incumbent, President Joko Widodo.

Dam holding mining waste collapses in Brazil
- The collapse of a dam in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil on Jan. 25 left at least 58 people dead and hundreds missing.
- The dam held the waste by-product of iron ore mining from a nearby mine run by a company called Vale.
- Vale was involved in another dam collapse in 2015 — called Brazil’s worst environmental disaster — that resulted in criminal charges for several of the company’s leaders and nearly $100 million in fines.
- Critics of mining practices say that the recent failure of the dam shows that authorities should step up the enforcement of regulations in Brazil.

COP24: Fossil Fuel Inc.’s outsize presence at talks reflects its influence
- A confrontation between activists and an oil executive at the U.N. climate talks has highlighted just how much influence fossil fuel producers continue to have over global climate policies.
- The confrontation involved the same Shell executive who, days earlier, boasted about the company influencing one of the key provisions in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
- Fossil fuel companies, from oil producers to coal operations, are enjoying a prominent presence at the climate talks in Poland, including as sponsors and as speakers at events throughout the summit.
- Activists have blasted the U.N. for giving the companies such an important platform, saying that it only confirms their long-held suspicions that the very corporations contributing to the climate crisis are the same ones pushing supposed solutions to the problem.

COP24: Coal casts a shadow over U.N. climate talks in Poland
- Activists have questioned the integrity and effectiveness of the U.N. climate talks in Poland, in light of its close associations with the coal industry.
- Among the event’s sponsors are three Polish coal companies, and in his opening speech, the Polish president said his country’s continued use of coal did not go against efforts to tackle climate change.
- Activists say the influence of the coal lobby at the conference amounts to greenwashing and could undermine the effectiveness of any outcome from the discussions.

Indonesia leans on businesses to do more about plastic waste
- The Indonesian government will issue a policy this year requiring producers and retailers to take greater responsibility for the waste generated by their products.
- Under the extended producer responsibility (EPR) policy, producers will have to boost the percentage of recyclable content in their products and packaging, as well as provide post-retail recycling solutions.
- The country is the second-biggest contributor, after China, to the plastic trash crisis in the ocean.

Local fishers oppose $2.7 billion deal opening Madagascar to Chinese fishing
- Two months ago, a little-known private Malagasy association signed a 10-year, $2.7 billion fishing deal — the largest in the country’s history — with a group of Chinese companies that plans to send 330 fishing vessels to Madagascar.
- Critics of the deal include the country’s fisheries minister, who said he learned about it in the newspaper; environmental and government watchdog groups; and local fishers, who are already struggling with foreign competition for Madagascar’s dwindling marine stocks.
- Critics say no draft of the deal has been made public and the association that signed it did not conduct an environmental impact assessment or any public consultation.
- The issue has drawn media attention in the run-up to the presidential election on Wednesday. The incumbent and a leading candidate, Hery Rajaonarimampianina, was present at the fisheries deal’s signing, although he later claimed not to be familiar with it.

Colombia: Dying of thirst, Wayuu blame mine, dam, drought for water woes
- The struggle for access to safe and sufficient water for drinking and irrigation defines life for the indigenous Wayuu of La Guajira, Colombia’s northernmost department.
- Activists have described the Wayuu as being in the throes of a humanitarian crisis, with Wayuu children suffering high rates of malnutrition and death as a result of water and food scarcity.
- The Wayuu blame their thirst mainly on the Cerrejón coal mine, which they say drains water from the local river and groundwater and pollutes what’s left. A dam built by the government to provide water in times of drought has only made matters worse, they say.
- However, Cerrejón disputes the notion that it is seriously affecting the tribe, while the government defends decisions that have compromised the Wayuu’s water access.

Top Madagascar shrimp co. moved millions among tax-haven shell companies
- Aziz Ismail, 85, a French citizen born in Madagascar, bought into Madagascar’s shrimp business in 1973. His empire, known generally as Unima, now includes at least eight privately held companies in Europe and Africa that are mainly involved in seafood from Madagascar, where operations are centered.
- Ismail has also owned a British Virgin Islands-based shell company called Ergia Limited since 2000. In the last decade, Ergia appears to have had financial transactions totaling several million dollars with another apparent shell company in Mauritius that has close ties to Unima, and with Unima companies in Europe.
- Although owning and using offshore companies is generally legal, tax and law enforcement officials are increasingly scrutinizing transactions through tax havens like the British Virgin Islands and Mauritius. Tax inspectors from Madagascar and other experts said Unima’s use of multiple offshore companies raises the risk of lost taxes for one of the world’s poorest countries.
- Files obtained from the now-defunct Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca as part of the “Panama Papers” were the basis for this investigation by Mongabay and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Indonesia demands cleanup after coal spill pollutes beach
- A coal barge spilled 7,000 tonnes of the fossil fuel just off a beach in northern Sumatra on July 30.
- The coal was reportedly destined for a nearby cement plant run by a subsidiary of Swiss giant LafargeHolcim, but now blankets a popular beach.
- Local fishermen and activists say the coal has damaged coral and killed marine life, devastating the livelihoods of the community.
- Officials have called on the cement firm and barge operator to clean up the coal, while environmental experts are pushing for a lawsuit against the companies.

As planned excise flops, Indonesia ponders how to give up plastic bags
- The proliferation of free plastic shopping bags, coupled with a lack of recycling infrastructure and a general disregard for waste management have turned Indonesia into one of the major contributors to the global plastic waste crisis.
- The government has backed down from imposing an excise on plastic shopping bags, planned for this month, following opposition from manufacturers and the Industry Ministry.
- The plan is the second to fall through, after a pilot program to charge consumers for plastic bags was abandoned by retailers in 2016.
- Plastics producers say the main problem is the inadequate waste management system to deal with all the waste.

Solution to ocean’s plastic waste problem ‘starts with product design’
- Solutions aimed at tackling the problem of plastic in the ocean need to focus on the design of plastic products, a group of researchers said at the ESOF18 conference in Toulouse, France.
- Some of the proposed solutions, such as those aimed at gathering plastic rubbish at sea with nets, are “concerning,” chemist Alexandra Ter Halle said, as they could also harm marine life.
- Though plastics themselves do pose significant dangers to marine life, plastic products can also help to limit our environmental footprint, marine biologist Richard Thompson said, so we should find ways to make them reusable and easily recyclable.

In pursuit of traceability, palm oil giant tests GPS-based solution
- Golden Agri-Resources (GAR), one of the world’s biggest palm oil companies, is testing new GPS-based technology to establish traceability for the palm oil it sources from third-party mills in Indonesia.
- GAR says it has already achieved traceability, down to the plantation level, for the palm fruit processed by the 44 mills that it owns. But these mills account for just 39 percent of the palm oil that GAR sells.
- The company has long acknowledged the difficulty in extending that traceability standard to the more than 400 third-party mills from which it buys the bulk of its palm oil. This is in large part because of the unregulated nature of the middlemen who buy the palm fruit from farmers and sell it to the mills.

Bridgestone aims for full sustainability by 2050
- Bridgestone is the world’s largest tire and rubber manufacturer.
- The company joins Pirelli and Michelin in committing itself and its suppliers to a sustainable supply chain by 2050.
- The move could be particularly beneficial in places like Cambodia, where deforestation has closely tracked the global price for rubber.

Zero-deforestation pledges need help, support to meet targets, new study finds
- The study’s authors reviewed previous research to understand the impact that zero-deforestation commitments are having on reducing the loss of forests.
- Nearly 450 companies made 760 such commitments by early 2017.
- These pledges can reduce deforestation in some cases, but in others, they weren’t effective or had unintended effects, according to the study.
- The authors advocate for increased public-private communication, more support for smallholders, and complementary laws that support these pledges.

Poor grade for Malaysia, Singapore brands in palm oil sustainability: WWF
- Two out of three companies in Malaysia and Singapore are not transparent about their palm oil use, the World Wildlife Fund contends.
- Most of these companies do not source palm oil that has been certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.
- Malaysia and Singapore’s brands have lower sustainability grades compared to global brands.

CETA: environmentally friendly trade treaty or corporate Trojan horse?
- As early as September 21st, the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) could come into provisional effect, linking international commerce between Canada and all of the nations in the European Union (EU).
- Supporters claim CETA includes new mechanisms that make it a blueprint for future trade treaties, chief among them the replacement of the controversial Investor State Dispute System (ISDS), with the new investor court system (ICS).
- Opponents argue CETA’s rules guarantee numerous benefits for foreign investors and transnational corporations, while the agreement includes no enforceable rules to guarantee labor rights, environmental protection or food safety. “Profit comes before people and the planet,” argues one expert.
- Though it could come into provisional effect as early as this week, big roadblocks remain before CETA is fully approved, with resistance possible from the public, NGOs and government.

Charcoal and cattle ranching tearing apart the Gran Chaco
- The year-long probe of Paraguay’s charcoal exports by the NGO Earthsight revealed that much of the product was coming from the Chaco, the world’s fastest-disappearing tropical forest.
- Suppliers appear to have reassured international supermarket chains that it was sustainable and that they had certification from international groups such as FSC and PEFC.
- But further digging by Earthsight revealed that the charcoal production methods used may not fit with the intent of certification.
- Several grocery store chains mentioned in the report have said they’ll take a closer look at their supply chains, and the certification body PEFC is reexamining how its own standards are applied.

Transforming business as usual in Indonesia: an interview with Aida Greenbury
- Aida Greenbury is the former Chief Sustainability Officer at Asia Pulp & Paper, a forestry giant with extensive operations in Indonesia.
- Greenbury was the lead internal architect for APP’s 2013 forest conservation policy, which is today one of the most ambitious zero deforestation commitments in the plantation sector.
- Greenbury left APP in May and is today working on collaborative initiatives to protect and restore ecosystems.

Industry-NGO coalition releases toolkit for making ‘No Deforestation’ commitments a reality on the ground
- Numerous companies involved in the global palm oil supply chain, from producers and traders to consumer companies that use the commodity in their products, have adopted Zero Deforestation commitments — but pledging to address the deforestation and human rights abuses associated with palm oil supply chains is one thing, while making those commitments a reality on the ground is another.
- Companies have said they need more support from governments of tropical forest nations to make their Zero Deforestation commitments a reality, citing a maze of administrative and regulatory frameworks across palm oil producing countries as hampering their efforts.
- The new HCS Approach Toolkit might help address this very issue, however, as it is intended to standardize the methodology for protecting tropical forests and identifying suitable landscapes for the sustainable production of palm oil.
- The revised HCS Approach Toolkit lays out the fundamental elements of a methodology for protecting high carbon stock (HCS) forests and other high conservation value (HCV) areas such as peatlands. Simply achieving “no deforestation” is not the only goal of the revised HCS Approach, though.

‘Killed, forced, afraid’: Philippine palm oil legacy incites new fears
- Following a rush of corporate investment in the 1960s, agroindustry company NDC-Guthrie set up camp on the Philippine island of Mindanao. The company hired a private security force dubbed the “Lost Command” to protect its oil palm plantations.
- Sources say the Lost Command used violence to expand NDC-Guthrie’s land holdings in the 1980s, with allegations ranging from forcibly displacing residents of local communities and extorting business-owners to looting, rape, and even murder.
- In the 1990s NDC-Guthrie was bought by Filipinas Palm Oil Plantations Inc. (FPPI), which continues to operate in the region today. A company representative said “issues have been blown up” and that FPPI is interested in expanding further in Mindanao.
- The administration of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (2001-2010) touted oil palm propagation as a way to elevate the national economy and even stem armed conflict. But industry watchdog groups disagree, saying palm oil’s track record of conflict in the Philippine archipelago does not bode well for the future.

Suppliers of Lowe’s in the US and Walmart in Brazil linked to slave labor in the Amazon
- Slave labor-analogous conditions were revealed by investigation of logging camps in Pará, Brazil.
- A supply chain investigation of the timber harvested through these camps has found links to markets in Brazil and the U.S.
- Major retailers with links to intermediaries that sourced wood from logging camps found to use slave labor practices include Lowe’s, Timber Holdings, and Brazilian Walmart stories. Timber Holdings has used wood from Brazil in major renovation projects for New York’s Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park.

Nutella manufacturer: Palm oil in product is ‘safe’, despite cancer concerns
- In May 2016, the European Food Safety Authority recommended limitations on the consumption of foods containing several compounds found commonly in products that use refined palm oil, such as baby formula.
- The refining process results in the formation of several potentially carcinogenic esters in many types of vegetable oils, but the average levels in palm oils and fats were substantially higher than those found in other types of oil.
- Ferrero, the Italian manufacturer of Nutella, said that the palm oil its product contains is processed at ‘controlled temperatures’ and is ‘safe.’

The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund just announced a groundbreaking human rights policy
- Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) manages the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global, which has funds invested in some 9,000 companies in 75 countries.
- As far as NBIM is concerned, the responsibility to respect human rights applies to all companies.
- NBIM outlined its expectation that companies not only integrate their human rights policies into their operations, but that they also report on their human rights performance on a regular basis and establish grievance mechanisms for individuals and communities impacted by their operations.

New report reveals human rights abuses by corporations, governments in the Amazon

Regnskogfondet (the Rainforest Foundation of Norway) recently released a 52-page report entitled “Human Rights and Resource Conflicts in the Amazon.” The report took over six months to complete and gives an in-depth account of the conflicts activists and indigenous peoples (IPs) are having with corporations and governmental agencies. It relays a situation that does not […]
The best of the worst: fossil-fuel extractors pave the way for the low-carbon revolution

At the end of last year, the world got some good news on the green business front concerning a very unlikely set of participants. A recent market review revealed that Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell, Duke Energy, PG&E Corporation, American Electric Power Company, ConAgra Foods and Walmart, among others, are including shadow […]
Frankenfish or scientific marvel?: giant GM salmon await U.S. approval

It is hard to think of a more unlikely setting for genetic experimentation or for raising salmon: a rundown shed at a secretive location in the Panamanian rainforest miles inland and 1,500m above sea level. But the facility, which is owned by an American company AquaBounty Technologies, stands on the verge of delivering the first […]
Ten U.S. cities pledge to kick fossil fuel investments to the curb

The cities of San Francisco and Seattle have pulled their money out of fossil fuel companies, taking a climate divestment campaign from college campuses to local government. The campaign group 350.org said on Thursday it had won commitments from a total of 10 cities and towns to divest from 200 of leading fossil fuel companies. […]
Citizen group finds 30 toxic chemicals in air following tar sands oil spill in Arkansas

Independent air samples by locals have yielded “a soup of toxic chemicals” in Mayflower, Arkansas where an Exxon Mobil pipeline burst on March 29th spilling some 5,000 barrels of tar sands oil, known as bitumen. Chemicals detected included several linked to cancer, reproductive problems, and neurological impacts such as benzene and ethylbenzene. Air samples were […]
Mining companies must turn to recycling as demand for metals grows

Demand for metals is likely to increase tenfold as developing economies surge ahead, putting severe stress on the natural environment, a new report from the United Nations Environment Program (Unep) has warned. The organization has suggested a novel response: bring in the mining companies—often seen as the environmental villains—to sort out the recycling. At present, […]
What if companies actually had to compensate society for environmental destruction?

The environment is a public good. We all share and depend on clean water, a stable atmosphere, and abundant biodiversity for survival, not to mention health and societal well-being. But under our current global economy, industries can often destroy and pollute the environment—degrading public health and communities—without paying adequate compensation to the public good. Economists […]
Amazon: the world’s greatest rainforest or internet giant?

When you see the word “Amazon”, what’s the first thing that springs to mind—the world’s biggest forest, the longest river or the largest internet retailer—and which do you consider most important? These questions have risen to the fore in an arcane, but hugely important, debate about how to redraw the boundaries of the internet. Brazil […]
Human rights court favors indigenous tribe over Ecuadorian government in oil battle

Oil industry infrastructure in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has found in favor of a Kichwa community’s right to consultation prior to industrial projects on their land in a ruling that could have implications for many indigenous peoples across the Americas. The court found that the government […]
‘National scandal:’ foreign companies stripped Papua New Guinea of community-owned forests

The beginnings of a palm oil plantation on newly deforested area in Pomio District. Photo by: Paul Hilton/Greenpeace. Eleven percent of Papua New Guinea’s land area has been handed over to foreign corporations and companies lacking community representation, according to a new report by Greenpeace. The land has been granted under controversial government agreements known […]
Indigenous tribes hold 3 engineers hostage over Belo Monte dam

Three engineers are being held hostage by the Juruna and Arara indigenous tribes as tensions rise over the on-going construction of the Belo Monte dam in Brazil, reports the Indigenous rights NGO Amazon Watch. The company building the dam, Norte Energia, has confirmed that three of its employees were being held against their will. Tribal […]
President of Czech Republic to give keynote at Heartland climate summit despite backlash over murderer billboards

The Heartland Institute’s billboard campaign, which was pulled after 24 hours, has led to repercussions for the climate-denialist group. Companies are abandoning the Heartland Institute left-and-right following the conservative group’s controversial climate change billboard campaign, but Czech President, Václav Klaus, is sticking with the group, reports the Guardian. Although he criticized the Heartland’s short-lived campaign, […]
Heartland Institute losing major corporate sponsors after comparing climate change advocates to mass-murderers

The Heartland Institute’s billboard campaign, which was pulled after 24 hours, has led to repercussions for the climate-denialist group. The Heartland Institute has lost two corporate supporters since it unveiled a billboard campaign that compared those who accept the science of climate change to mass murderer Ted Kaczynski also known as the Unabomber. Yesterday, State […]
Fallout for Heartland Institute after it likens those who accept climate change to ‘murderers’ and ‘madmen’

The Heartland Institute’s billboard campaign, which was pulled after 24 hours, has led to repercussions for the climate-denialist group. According to the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank, those who accept the science of climate change are “on the radical fringe” with the movements most “prominent advocates” being “murderers, tyrants, and madmen.” The Heartland Institute’s […]
Oil company Perenco endangering ‘uncontacted’ indigenous people, says Peru

A Perenco boat in the Amazon. Photo courtesy of David Hill. The company hoping to exploit the oil deposits slated to transform Peru’s economy has been declared to be endangering the lives of indigenous people living in “voluntary isolation” by the country’s indigenous affairs department (INDEPA). Perenco, an Anglo-French company with headquarters in London and […]
Whole Foods bans ‘red’ fish from its stores

Octopus will no longer be available at Whole Foods as the fishery has several sustainability problems. Photo by: Bigstock. Whole Foods has announced it will be the first grocery chain in the U.S. to no longer sell any seafood in the “red.” Based on sustainability ratings by the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Blue Ocean Institute, […]
Mining cancellation throws wrench into Sarawak dam-building spree

Bakun dam during construction. Photo by: Mohamad Shoox. The world’s third largest mining company, Rio Tinto, and a local financial and construction firm, Cahya Mata Sarawak (CMS), have cancelled plans for a $2 billion aluminum smelter to be constructed in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. The cancellation calls into question Sarawak’s plan to build a […]
Indigenous groups fight for recognition and illumination in Peru

Amazon community on the Rio Corrientes. Photo by: Patrick le Flufy. “Shh, wait here,” Wilson told me. I ducked down behind the buttress of a large tree to wait. We had been walking through the jungle for a few hours. At first we followed a path through the undergrowth, a wet world of ferns, trunks […]
U.S. legislation threatens oldest, tallest trees in Tongass rainforest

Old-growth tree in Tongass temperate rainforest. Such trees may be as old as 800 years. Photo by: John Schoen. Up to 17 percent of the tallest old-growth trees in the Tongass temperate rainforest could be cut under new U.S. legislation, according to a report by Audubon Alaska. The report argues that the legislation under consideration […]
More big companies disclosing impacts on forests

Largescale clearing of Amazon rainforest for soy fields in Brazil. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. More companies are reporting on the impact of their operations on global forests, finds a new report. Eighty-seven global corporations disclosed their “forest footprint” in 2011, according to the third Forest Footprint Disclosure (FFD), which asks companies to report on […]
Keystone pipeline company hand-picked US government’s environmental assessor

A little over a month after 1,252 people were arrested in two weeks of civil action against the Keystone XL Pipeline, The New York Times has revealed that the Obama administration allowed a consulting firm with financial ties to the pipeline to conduct the project’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). While it is not uncommon for […]
Activists protest Australian forest destruction from top of the Sydney Opera House

A series of actions protesting forest destruction in Australia led to seven arrests last week. Led by a new NGO, The Last Stand, the activists targeted Australian retail giant Harvey Norman for allegedly being complicit in the destruction of native forests in Australia, which harbor many imperiled species found no-where else. “Climbers have abseiled from […]
Malaysian court blocks rainforest tribes’ fight against mega-dam in Borneo

Indigenous tribes in Borneo suffered a stinging defeat Thursday after Sarawak’s highest court ruled against them in 12-year-long legal battle. Tribal groups had challenged the Malaysian state government for seizing indigenous lands in order to build a massive hydroelectric power plant, dubbed the Bakun dam, but the three-person top court found unanimously against the tribes. […]
WWF to investigate program that partners with notorious loggers

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has announced an independent review of its Global Forest and Trade Network (GFTN) following a report from Global Witness that criticized the conservation organization for working with a number of logging companies that destroy forests, imperil species, and abuse human rights. While WWF’s GTFN is meant to support […]
Taking corporate sustainability seriously means changing business culture

Clare Raybould at the Auckland Zoo where she volunteers. Photo courtesy of Clare Raybould. As more and more people demand companies to become sustainable and environmentally conscious, many corporations are at a loss of how to begin making the changes necessary. If they attempt to make changes—but fall short or focus poorly—they risk their actions […]
WWF partnering with companies that destroy rainforests, threaten endangered species

A new report finds that conservation giant WWF may demand too little when working with logging companies. Screenshot of WWF website. Arguably the globe’s most well-known conservation organization, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), has been facilitating illegal logging, vast deforestation, and human rights abuses by pairing up with notorious logging companies in a […]
South Sudan’s choice: resource curse or wild wonder?

This commentary was originally published in February, but given that South Sudan has just celebrated independence over the weekend, we thought it apt to re-publish. Oryx and WCS Cessna shadow, Boma National Park. Photo by Paul Elkan and J. Michael Fay. ©2007 National Geographic/ Wildlife Conservation Society. After the people of South Sudan have voted […]
Shareholders to Chevron: company showing ‘poor judgment’ in Ecuador oil spill case

After being found guilty in February of environmental harm and ordered to pay $8.6 billion in an Ecuador court of law, Chevron this week faced another trial: this time by shareholders in its Annual General Meeting in California. While Chevron has appealed the Ecuador case and a US court has put an injunction barring the […]
Shipping firm pledges to disconnect itself from rainforest destruction

Maersk shipping containers, each with a wood floor, stacked up along the Panama Canal. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The Danish shipping giant Maersk pledged this week to stop purchasing containers with floors made from uncertified tropical hardwood, reports Deutsche Welle press. In an effort to reduce illegal logging and combat climate change, the company […]
Locals clash with ‘sustainable’ FSC logging company in the Congo

Two separate protests against logging companies by local communities have turned violent in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), leaving at least one dead. According to Greenpeace, one of the companies involved in the violence, Sodefor, is sustainably certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Given that the industry in DRC is rife with social […]
Australia forest destruction connected to local products

Some of Australia’s most popular stores are driving the destruction of native forests, according to a report by a new environmental group Markets for Change (MFC). Furniture, building materials, and paper products were found to be coming at the expense of native forests in Australia and being sold by over 30 businesses in the country, […]
Green jeans: big companies start sustainable clothing initiative

Ever wonder how ‘green’ one pair of shoes was over another? Or how much energy, water, and chemicals went into making your pair of jeans? A new effort by over 32 companies, environmental organizations, and social watchdogs may soon allow shoppers to compare not only price and appeal, but sustainability too. Dubbed the Sustainable Apparel […]
Oil company charged after allegedly forcing entry into Virunga National Park
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) national parks authority, ICCN, has filed a suit against oil company, SOCO International, for allegedly forcing entry into Virunga National Park. The legal row comes amid revelations that two oil companies, SOCO and Dominion Petroleum, are exploring the park for oil. According to park director Emmanuel de Merode rangers […]
Chevron found guilty, ordered to pay $8.2 billion in epic oil contamination fight

It was the environmental legal battle that some believed would never end (and they may still be right). But today in Lago Agrio, Ecuador, after 18 years of an often-dramatic court case, Chevron was found guilty of environmental harm and ordered to pay $8.2 billion in damages, however the oil giant says it will appeal […]
As South Sudan eyes independence, will it choose choose to protect its wildlife?

After the people of South Sudan have voted overwhelmingly for independence, the work of building a nation begins. Set to become the world’s newest country on July 9th of this year, one of many tasks facing the nation’s nascent leaders is the conservation of its stunning wildlife. In 2007, following two decades of brutal civil […]
Logging concession could extinguish endangered Sumatran elephant population

Local conservationists are urging the Indonesian government to halt the destruction of a 42,000 hectare forest in the renowned Bukit Tigapuluh Forest Landscape for a pulpwood plantation. According to researchers, the forest concession—owned by PT Lestari Asri Jaya, a subsidiary of Barito Pacific Group—contains the last population of Sumatran elephants (Elephas maximus sumatranus) in the […]
Consumer goods industry announces goal of zero deforestation in Cancun

While governments continue to stall on action to cut greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, global corporations are promising big changes to tackle their responsibilities. The Board of Consumer Goods Forum (BCGF) has approved a resolution to achieve net zero deforestation by 2020 in products such as palm oil, soy, beef, and paper. Announced yesterday at the […]
50 NGOS tell big oil to get out of uncontacted natives’ territory

A letter signed by over 50 NGOs is calling on three big oil companies—Perenco, Repsol-YPF, and ConocoPhillips—to withdraw from Peruvian territory inhabited by uncontacted indigenous tribes. The letter states that the oil companies’ presence in the area threatens the uncontacted tribe with diseases, for which they have little immunity, and puts the lives of oil […]
BP funneling money to climate change denying candidates in US

BP, who was responsible for the US’s worst environmental disaster to date, has been funneling thousands of dollars to politicians in the US known for denying the science of climate change according to the Guardian. A report by Climate Action Network Europe has found that a number of big European companies have been funding candidates […]

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