Oil Palm Plantations threat Indonesia’s forests and peatlands

blogger remark:
widjaja family is one of the world biggest pulp （paper）producer, this family can trace its history to the smoke havoc from Riau province,indonesia.


博主注明：
widjaja家族是全球主要纸业生产者，是印尼廖内省烟雾问题制造者。



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One of the most menaces to Indonesia’s forests is the ‘gold rush’ for new oil palm plantations, caused by the increasing global demand for palm oil for food, soaps, cosmetics and bio fuels. Indonesia, the world’s largest palm oil producer has the fastest deforestation rate of any major forested country.

Forest destruction is responsible for about one fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. Indonesia is widely seen as the world’s third –largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and United States, a major contributor to climate change, by virtue of the pace of its deforestation.

One of the big companies that has been blaming for destruction of the country’s forest is Sinar Mas Group. Greenpeace’s investigation proves Sinar Mas had cleared carbon-rich peatland, a key source of greenhouse gases when burnt to a depth greater than three metres which is illegal according Indonesian law.

Sinar Mas Group is Indonesia’s largest palm oil company which has about 125,000 hectares of palm oil plantations, and boasts of ‘aggressive plantation expansion’. It has grown its palm oil plantation area by over a third in the last two years and has further expansion plans in Kalimantan (in Lake Sentarum National Park in Borneo’s West Kalimantan) and the largely untouched provinces of Papua (near Papuan Town of Lereh), where it plans to develop a rainforest area of up to 2.8 million hectares. Judging by past operations and known concessions that Sinar Mas holds, the vast majority of future expansion is likely to involve deforestation, some on peatlands and in the habitats of the critically endangered orang-utans.

Sinar Mas is also heavily involved in the pulp and paper industry through its holding company, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP). APP has extensive plantation areas on peatlands and in 2007 was found to be buying illegal timber originating from a peatland area in Riau Province, Sumatra. The peat in this area was more than 4 metres deep, which is illegal to develop, clear or drain under Indonesian law. It is also illegal to buy timber from such areas. Investigations by WWF in 2007 revealed illegal logging by APP in Jambi Province, Sumatra.

Sinar Mas exported over 1 million tonnes of palm oil products in 2007. India and China accounted for nearly half of all exports, while 200,000 tonnes were shipped to Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and the UK. Sinar Mas supplies Nestlé and Wilmar, and according to data published in November 2007, its customers include Unilever, Proctor &
Gamble, Henkel, Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Burger King, Danone, AAK and Cargill.

On the island of Sumatra, millions of hectares of peatland forests have already been cleared, or are earmarked to be converted into oil palm and pulp and paper plantations by that company. APP is the largest holder of concessions in Riau Province, with over 800,000 hectares. Riau’s Kampar Peninsular contains some of the largest remaining intact peatland forests in Sumatra, which are currently being drained and cleared for industrial expansion by companies including APP. Kampar consists entirely of a single peat dome, with peat depths mostly over 10 metres — extremely deep, forming an enormous store of carbon. As the peat is thoroughly waterlogged, with water content up to 90% or more, drainage and plantation development in one area of the landscape will have widespread detrimental impacts on the remaining natural forest.

The development of APP’s concessions will lead to huge greenhouse gas emissions through the degradation of the carbon-rich peat, and also to massive biodiversity losses. The Kampar peninsular is home to a rich biodiversity, including the Sumatran elephant, and is a last stronghold of the Sumatran tiger.

Greenpeace has been lobbying the Indonesia’s main logging companies and government for immediate halt on the expansion of oil palm plantations which are blamed for the loss of huge areas of what is left of Indonesia’s unspoiled forest.