by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jun 19, 2012 | Agriculture, Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Noncooperation
By Agence France-Presse
Surging demand for palm oil in India for cooking and everyday grocery items is driving tropical forest destruction in Indonesia, Greenpeace said Tuesday.
In its report “Frying the Forest” the group called on Indians to boycott products by brands Britannia, ITC, Parle and Godrej, such as biscuits and soap, until the companies commit to sustainable palm oil supply chains.
“Palm oil plantations in Indonesia are expanding rapidly every year to meet India’s demands,” Greenpeace forest campaigner Mohammed Iqbal Abisaputra said in Jakarta.
“We are asking Indian consumers now to stop buying products made from unsustainable Indonesian palm oil.”
Booming India is the world’s hungriest nation for palm oil, consuming almost 7.4 million tonnes last year, or 15 percent of global production, almost all of it imported, US Foreign Agricultural Service data show.
Of that amount, 5.8 million tonnes is imported from Indonesian companies, many of which Greenpeace claims are illegally clearing carbon-rich peatland.
One company targeted by the group is Duta Palma, which owns 155,000 hectares of palm oil plantations in Indonesia, the report says.
The company is deforesting peatland up to eight metres deep on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, the report says, despite a law banning the clearance of peatland more than three metres deep.
Greenpeace also claims fires continue to burn on peatland within the company’s concession, even though the slash-and-burn technique for forest clearance is illegal.
The report comes after a string of successful consumer-targeted Greenpeace campaigns, in which brands like Barbie-maker Mattel and food-maker Kraft dropped paper packaging contracts with Asia Pulp & Paper, who were accused of logging outside their concession area.
The focus on India marks a shift in Greenpeace’s strategy to consumers in developing countries.
“Asian countries will be among the first to feel the effects of climate change, so we can no longer act as if it’s Europe or America’s problem,” Abisaputra said.
Indonesia has implemented a two-year moratorium on issuing new logging concessions on peatland and other high-conservation forest. But unsustainable logging continues within companies’ existing concessions.
Before the moratorium, 80 percent of Indonesia’s greenhouse gas emissions came from deforestation, UN data show, making it the world’s third-biggest emitter.
From PhysOrg: http://phys.org/news/2012-06-palm-oil-india-indonesian-forests.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 27, 2012 | Agriculture, Climate Change
By Mongabay
Wilmar International, the world’s largest palm oil processor and trader, has hired a major lobbying firm to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s ruling that palm oil-based biodiesel will not meet greenhouse gas emissions standards under America’s Renewable Fuels Standard, reports The Hill.
Wilmar Oleo North America hired lobbying firm Van Ness Feldman to pressure the EPA on its finding that biofuels produced from palm oil do not offer substantial emissions savings relative to conventional gasoline. The EPA based its decision on analysis of lifecycle emissions from palm oil production, which at times occurs at the expense of carbon-dense rainforests and peatlands.
The Hill notes that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative group that drafts legislative language favoring corporate interests that fund it, is working to overturn the EPA’s finding.
“The Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to restrict the trade of tropical palm oil marks an abandonment of free trade principles that have been so beneficial to so many,” the group said in comments submitted to the EPA.
Malaysian and Indonesian groups have also complained about the EPA’s ruling. The period for comment on the matter closes April 27.
But environmental groups said the assumptions underlying the EPA’s conclusion were too conservative, noting that the agency expects only nine percent of palm oil expansion in Malaysia and 13 percent in Indonesia to occur on peatlands. But a study published today in the National Academy of Sciences, found that half of oil palm plantations in Indonesian Borneo were established on peat lands. Conversions of peat for plantations generates substantial greenhouse gas emissions.
“It is a disturbing development to see a politically motivated group like ALEC join forces with the shadowy palm oil lobby from Malaysia and Indonesia as well as with huge agribusiness companies Cargill and Wilmar to pressure the EPA to overturn what is supposed to be a science-based decision made in the best interests of the American people,” said Laurel Sutherlin with the Rainforest Action Network, in a statement. “The question the EPA is tasked with answering is whether biofuels made with palm oil meet our nation’s greenhouse gas requirements as a renewable fuel. The stark reality of the impacts of palm oil plantation expansion in Southeast Asia, where nearly 90% of the world’s palm oil comes from, makes it clear that it does not.”
“The emissions of palm oil based biofuels substantially exceed the emissions from conventional petroleum diesel,” added Jeremy Martin, Senior Scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The renewable fuels standard targets 7.5 billion gallons of ‘renewable’ fuels to be blended into gasoline by the end of 2012. The initiative aims to reduce dependence on foreign oil and cut emissions from transportation, but some analysts have questioned the effectiveness of the program, since the bulk of ‘renewable’ fuel is expected to come from corn ethanol, which environmentalists say has mixed climate benefits.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 30, 2012 | Agriculture, Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction
By Kathy Marks / The Independent
Fires raging unchecked in an Indonesian peat swamp forest could wipe out the remaining Sumatran orang-utans which live there, conservationists are warning. The forest is one of the last refuges of the great apes. The illegal fires, started by palm-oil companies clearing land to plant the lucrative crop, are believed to have killed at least 100 orang-utans – one-third of those living in the Tripa swamp, on the west coast of Sumatra’s Aceh province. The rest could die within weeks, according to Dr Ian Singleton, conservation director of the Sumatran Orang-utan Conservation Programme.
“The speed of destruction has gone up dramatically in the last few weeks… This is obviously a deliberate drive by these companies to clear all the remaining forests,” Dr Singleton said. “If this is not stopped right now, all those orang-utans… will be gone before the end of 2012.”
Only 6,600 Sumatran orang-utans are estimated to be left in the wild, and the Tripa swamp – where they are most densely concentrated – is considered crucial to the species’ survival. But less than one-quarter of the peat forest remains; the rest has been converted to palm-oil plantations.
Satellite imagery showing 92 fires over the past week has horrified conservationists, who are awaiting a court ruling with far-reaching implications for the protection of wildlife habitats in Indonesia. The judgment relates to a lawsuit brought against the governor of Aceh by the local branch of Walhi, an environmental group. Walhi decided to act after the governor, Irwandi Yusuf, granted a new permit to one of the country’s biggest palm-oil companies, PT Kallista Alam. Walhi Aceh argues that the permit, which would allow another 4,000 acres of peatland to be destroyed, was granted illegally.
The judges are due to reach a decision next Tuesday. If they dismiss the challenge, other important habitats could also be threatened. Tripa is nominally protected by a presidential moratorium on new logging and palm-oil concessions, as well as by legislation governing the conservation area within which it is located.
There may now be as few as 200 orang-utans left in the Tripa forest, which shelters a dozen endangered species, including the white-handed gibbon, clouded leopard, Malayan sun bear, Sumatran tiger and giant soft-shelled turtle.
From The Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/up-in-smoke-ecological-catastrophe-in-the-sumatran-swamps-7600987.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 12, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Climate Change, Mining & Drilling
By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay
Environmentalists have targeted the oil-producing tar sands in Canada in part because its crude comes with heftier carbon emissions than conventional sources. Now, a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has found an additional source of carbon that has been unaccounted for: peatlands. Mining the oil in the tar sands, dubbed “oil sands” by the industry, will require the wholesale destruction of nearly 30,000 hectares of peatlands, emitting between 11.4 and 47.3 million metric tons of additional carbon.
Once destroyed peatlands will not return note the researchers: “Constraints imposed by the postmining landscape and the sensitivity of peatland vegetation prevent the restoration of peatlands that dominated the premining landscape.” Instead drained peatlands will be turned into upland forests, which will store considerably less carbon.
“Claims by industry that they will ‘return the land we use—including reclaiming tailings ponds—to a sustainable landsca that is equal to or better than how we found it’ and that it ‘will be replanted with the same trees and plants and formed into habitat for the same species’ are clearly greenwashing,” the researchers write.
Already carbon emissions from the tar sands produce significantly more carbon than conventional sources with various research showing around 20 percent higher than conventional oil to three times higher. However, such estimates have not included the loss of carbon due to peatland destruction, which the researchers estimate will be equal in total to “seven years worth of carbon emissions by mining and upgrading (at 2010 levels).”
A recent study has found that if the entirety of the tar sands were exploited it would raise global temperatures 0.64 degrees Fahrenheit (0.36 degrees Celsius). This represents around 45 percent of how much the world has warmed since the Industrial Revolution.
“Oil sands mining is frequently criticized as a carbon-intensive means of acquiring oil. Its contribution to the global carbon imbalance has provoked numerous calls to slow oil sands development, including, most recently, a letter to Canada’s prime minister signed by eight Nobel Peace Laureates,” the authors write.
Criticism of the tar sands does not rest on carbon emissions alone. The tar sands has resulted in the destruction of pristine environments, consumes massive amounts of freshwater, and is allegedly linked to high cancer rates in nearby communities. The mines themselves have been dubbed the world’s largest industrial project.
Still the Canadian government, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has relentlessly pursued the expansion of the mines and is now pushing controversial pipelines to bring tar sands oil to a global market either south through the U.S. (the Keystone XL Pipeline) or west to the coast of British Colombia. The government argues exploiting the full-scale of the tar sands is essential to the Canadian economy.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 1, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction
By Fiona Harvey / The Guardian
The habitat of the endangered Sumatran tiger is being rapidly destroyed in order to make tissues and paper packaging for consumer products in the west, new research from Greenpeace shows.
A year-long investigation by the campaigning group has uncovered clear evidence, independently verified, that appears to show that ramin trees from the Indonesian rainforest have been chopped down and sent to factories to be pulped and turned into paper. The name ramin refers to a collection of endangered trees growing in peat swamps in Indonesia where the small number of remaining Sumatran tigers hunt.
Chopping down these trees is illegal under Indonesian law dating back to 2001, because of their status as an endangered plant species. But Greenpeace alleges that its researchers found ramin logs being prepared to be transported for pulping. The company tested logs in lumber yards belonging to the paper giant Asian Pulp and Paper, on nine separate occasions over the course of a year, and sent them to an independent lab to be tested. Out of 59 samples, 46 tested positive as ramin logs.
Asian Pulp and Paper denied wrongdoing. The company said in a statement: “Asia Pulp & Paper group (APP) maintains a strict zero-tolerance policy for illegal wood entering the supply chain and has comprehensive chain of custody systems to ensure that only legal wood enters its pulp mill operations. APP’s chain of custody systems are independently audited on a periodic basis. This ensures that we only receive legal pulpwood from areas under legal license that have passed all necessary ecological and social assessments.
“APP’s chain of custody system traces the origin of raw material, evaluates its legal and environmental status, to minimise the risk of contamination and to ensure that endangered species are protected – in accordance with the laws of Indonesia.”
The same hardwoods that grow in the Sumatran peat swamps where the tiger lives have also been independently verified to exist in paper products found on supermarket shelves, including photocopying paper, packaging for consumer products such as tissue paper.
Because the amounts of this pulp found in the paper samples are so small, it is impossible to say that they also contain ramin. However, independent lab tests confirmed the presence of “mixed tropical hardwoods” in paper samples from a wide variety of consumer outlets in the west. This shows that valuable rainforest trees are being turned into everyday items bought by unsuspecting consumers.
These fibres are highly likely to come from the same log yards examined by Greenpeace, because once pulped these rainforest trees are widely disseminated to packaging suppliers.
Read more from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/01/indonesia-tiger-habitat-pulp-paper-greenpeace
