Greenpeace yesterday made fresh allegations that units of Indonesian paper and palm oil giant Sinar Mas are clearing high conservation-value (HCV) forests, including habitats of endangered orangutans.
Greenpeace Indonesia forest campaigner Bustar Maitar said new investigations showed Sinar Mas subsidiaries logging peat forests and orangutan habitats on the island of Borneo despite repeated promises to end such practices.
“Our photos provide fresh evidence of Sinar Mas’ continued active clearance of remaining rainforests and deep peatlands,” he said as the environmental group released a report on the issue.
PHOTO: AFP
“Contrary to their claims of sustainability, land-clearing is still happening on the ground,” he said.
The allegations are the latest in a string of Greenpeace attacks on Sinar Mas, whose palm oil unit, PT SMART, has recently suffered the loss of major clients Unilever and Nestle over environmental concerns.
“Sinar Mas is the leading palm oil producer in Indonesia. It is their duty to show the way and that’s the reason why we have targeted them. We would be more than happy to stop this campaign,” Maitar said.
In addition to sheltering critically endangered species like orangutans, high conservation-value forests are also rich stores of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
Sinar Mas denies the Greenpeace allegations and SMART has promised to release an audit on Aug. 10 to prove that its operations are sustainable.
Indonesia is considered the world’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, mainly through deforestation, much of which is carried out illegally with the alleged connivance of officials and security forces.
The Greenpeace report published yesterday says Sinar Mas, which is controlled by the Widjaja family headed by company founder Eka Tjipta Widjaja, is planning to aggressively target sensitive forests in Papua province.
“Analysis by Greenpeace of areas targeted by Sinar Mas for oil palm development in Papua indicates that these areas contain 50 percent primary forest cover and significant areas of peatland,” it said.
“Its future expansion into rainforest areas and peatlands will further contribute to habitat loss and climate change,” it said.
SMART president director Daud Dharsono said the company was in fact helping to preserve forests and species such as orangutans.
“We are not responsible for clearing primary forests, which are the natural habitats for orangutans, and high conservation-value areas,” he said in a statement.
“On the contrary, all our concession areas do not contain primary forests and we conserve high conservation-value areas, creating sanctuaries that will continue to preserve biodiversity,” he said.
A company statement said that forested areas in Greenpeace photographs of SMART concession areas showed that the firm was conserving high-value areas on the degraded land it owned or managed.
“They are not remnants of primary forest caused by SMART’s palm oil operations. These are in fact preserved areas, as a result of our commitment to conserve HCV land,” it said.
“SMART is a responsible company ... We reiterate that as part of our sustainability commitments, SMART does not plant oil palm trees on peat land, primary forests nor convert land with HCV,” it said.
Greenpeace earlier this month accused foreign firms like Walmart, Carrefour and Tesco of contributing to forest destruction and species loss in Indonesia by buying from paper and palm oil giant Sinar Mas.
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