According to the US Department of Labor the Cultivation of Palm Oil in Some Countries Relies on Slave Labor

Whether you’re one of the 3,200 companies that do business in California with at least $100 million in worldwide gross receipts, or a consumer that buys products from anywhere other than your local mom and pop shops, you better check this out. Effective this month, a new law called the Transparency in Supply Chains Act requires retailers and manufacturers to publicly disclose their efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from their supply chains.

This new law comes at a critical time when one of the largest importers of palm oil into the U.S. and trader of 25% of the world’s palm oil — Cargill, Inc. — still refuses to adopt supply chain safeguards. Without proper safeguards in place, Cargill continues to purchase, trade and profit from palm oil grown on lands stolen from local communities and other palm plantation areas with active, ongoing social conflict and human rights violations, including slave labor.  Indeed, the U.S. Department of Labor has placed Indonesian and Malaysian palm oil on its “Red List” of products produced by child and forced labor. Cargill has repeatedly been made aware of these problems, but has yet to acknowledge the abuses or take action to resolve them.

Here’s the joint press statement we released with As You Sow’s Responsible Sourcing Network and Green America:

Advocacy groups say slave labor connected to palm oil, chocolate and cotton production will provide initial test cases for compliance with the new Transparency in Supply Chains Act

San Francisco, CA – Leading environmental and corporate social responsibility organizations say that chronic human rights abuses associated with popular products like chocolate and cotton tee shirts will join controversial food additive palm oil to provide initial test cases for companies striving to comply with California’s Supply Chain Transparency Act (SB 657). The new law that went into effect Jan 1^st, 2012, requires retailers and manufacturers to publicly disclose their efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from their supply chains. The law applies to all corporations doing business in California with more than $100 million in worldwide gross receipts – an estimated 3,200 companies.

A roundtable focused on the new California law was held at the Bay Area Council in San Francisco on January 6^th and was attended by advocacy organizations, attorneys, state representatives and executives from several Bay Area corporations, including Hewlett-Packard, McKesson, PG&E, Levi Strauss, Gap Inc. and Safeway. Following the roundtable, representatives of Rainforest Action Network, Responsible Sourcing Network and Green America issued the following statements.

Rainforest Action Network’s (RAN’s) Forest Program Director Lindsey Allen commented:

“California’s new law is designed to give consumers the information they need to make more informed choices about what products they buy. In addition to the widespread destruction of rainforests that result from palm oil production, it has been clear for many years that slave labor, debt bondage and human rights abuses on plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia are part of what has made palm oil into the cheap and ubiquitous food additive it is today. In 2010, the US Dept. of Labor confirmed this by placing palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia on its List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor.

It is past time that companies like agribusiness giant Cargill Inc. acknowledge the true costs of palm oil and this law’s transparency requirements are a first step. The law’s mandate that companies report what they are or are not doing to address slave labor in their supply chains will help to publicly distinguish corporate leaders from laggards when it comes to aligning products with the values consumers care most about.”

Green America’s Fair Trade Campaigns Director, Elizabeth O’Connell said:

“For more than ten years, consumers have called on chocolate companies to take more responsibility for their supply chains and ensure that forced, trafficked, and child labor were not used to harvest their cocoa beans.  While some companies have taken voluntary steps to prevent labor abuses, such as third party certification, other major companies, including Hershey, continue to drag their feet.  The passage of California’s SB657 will require that all companies disclose what they are doing to prevent labor abuse in their supply chains, and therefore, pressure laggards like Hershey to finally address these issues.

Responsible Sourcing Network (RSN) Director Patricia Jurewicz said,

“Investors are looking for more than just the transparency this statute requires. Even more important to investors will be seeing the new steps companies are taking to minimize reputational risks and be proactive in eliminating slavery from the products they sell. For example,  we are  tracking for the investment community if companies have signed our pledge and are participating in our initiative to stop forced child labor in the cotton fields of Uzbekistan.”

For more information:

The US Dept. of Labor 2011 List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor

http://www.dol.gov/ilab/programs/ocft/PDF/2011TVPRA.pdf

Effective Supply Chain Accountability: Investor Guidance on Implementation of The California Transparency in Supply Chains Act and Beyond

http://www.iccr.org/issues/subpages/pdf/11.17.11SupplyChainGuide.pdf

Compliance is Not Enough: Best Practices in Responding to The California Transparency in Supply Chains Act

http://www.verite.org/sites/default/files/VTE_WhitePaper_California_Bill657FINAL5.pdf

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Rainforest Action Network runs hard-hitting campaigns to break North America’s fossil fuels addiction, protect endangered forests and Indigenous rights, and stop destructive investments around the world through education, grassroots organizing, and non-violent direct action. For more information, please visit: www.ran.org.

Green America is the nation’s leading green economy organization. Founded in 1982, Green America (formerly Co-op America) provides the economic strategies, organizing power and practical tools for businesses and individuals to solve today’s social and environmental problems. For more information, go to: http://www.GreenAmerica.org.

Responsible Sourcing Network is a project of the non-profit organization As You Sow. RSN addresses human rights violations and environmental destruction in the supply chains of consumer products at the raw commodity level. For more information, please visit www.sourcingnetwork.org.

Cargill, Guilty as Charged

Last week, over 40 Minnesota residents made a citizens’ arrest of Cargill, Inc. in front of the company’s downtown Minneapolis office at the Grain Exchange. I walked away from the event struck with inspiration and hope. Why? In addition to being amazed that so many enthusiastic people braved below-freezing weather to hold Cargill accountable for its crimes against nature, I thought that this event was particularly significant in that it demonstrated the growing unity of voices in opposition to Cargill’s destructive power.

Our Cargill campaign is bridging movements and building strong allies beyond simply environmental and human rights organizations. RAN has been running a campaign to pressure Cargill to clean up its palm oil supply chain for several years, but we’re up against the world’s largest privately held corporation. We need a larger justice army than just RAN alone. RAN is small but mighty — but Cargill’s annual revenue of $119 billion is larger than the GDP of 70% of the world’s countries. It’s one of the most secretive, sketchy operations in the world (see for yourself). We can’t expect the richest family in America — the Cargill MacMillan family — or top decision makers within the company to do right by people and the planet. We have to force them to. And when I say we, I mean a swarm of us.

And that’s exactly what we’re witnessing.

This past weekend I noticed the seeds of a national movement against Cargill begin germinating, an unstoppable swarm pursuing Cargill from all angles. This includes rural communities and farmers who are tired of Cargill’s exploitation, the Occupy movement’s growing hunger to Occupy our Food Supply and reclaim our food system from corporate control, human rights organizations demanding an end to slave labor in Cargill’s supply chain, and environmental organizations holding Cargill accountable for driving climate change and orangutans towards extinction.

There is growing national opposition to Cargill's destructive practices

We are excited to forge new alliances with groups like Family Farm Defenders, the National Family Farm Coalition, and the Land Stewardship Project. Paul Sobocinski, a Land Stewardship Project organizer and family farm livestock producer from Wabasso, MN, could not attend our citizens’ arrest of Cargill due to distance but proudly stood in solidarity with our action by offering a quote, which we read aloud to the crowd:

Cargill wants to control the livestock industry, they’d like to turn family farmers into modern day serfs who do their bidding while Cargill walks away with the lion’s share of the profits. Cargill is fully integrated and one of the largest meatpackers and factory farm hog producers in the country. It’s time to hold them accountable. It’s time to take back our food and farming system from corporate agribusiness.

Amen.

Another farmer, Dena Hoff from Montana, is Vice President of NFFC. She expressed a similar sentiment:

It is outrageous that our leaders continue to promote their disastrous trade liberalization policies. The WTO and free trade have led to below-cost dumping by agribusinesses, destroying family farmers and threatening our food security. Countries have surrendered their food sovereignty to the likes of Cargill and Wall Street, who profit from the volatility that hurts farmers and consumers worldwide.

The first step to reclaiming our food system is taking control of our own food chain and eliminating as many of the corporate strings as possible. That means spending more time at your local farmers market and doing away with the packaged, processed, and refined foods that likely contain the nasty and unethical food additive called palm oil.

Palm oil is in every way a symptom of our broken food system. If you want to start tackling your own foodprint, start with palm oil. Trace its steps backwards in the food supply, and there you will find Cargill, the shady, secretive back door dealer.

It’s time to Occupy Cargill as the first step to Occupying our Food Supply!

Both the Sekonyer Community and endangered orangutans are losing their forest homes.

Since joining RAN’s forest program over two years ago, I have read and written about the many dire consequences of industrial scale palm oil plantations in Indonesia: one of the highest deforestation rates in the world, critical habitat for endangered species like orangutans destroyed, gross human rights abuses and labor conditions, and social conflict between communities that depend on the forests for their livelihoods and the companies destroying those forests. But until recently, my personal connection to all of this remained largely academic.

Our trip to the wilds of Borneo this month after attending the annual meeting of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) has transformed my theoretical understanding of the problems with palm oil. The experience of witnessing these impacts in person has been staggering, and I found it hard to believe that, even on the edge of a globally treasured, protected area, I was able to document one of the most severe cases of active forest destruction from palm oil expansion I have heard about to date.

What I saw during the four days we toured the forests surrounding Borneo’s Tanjung Puting National Park was more extraordinary and devastating than anything I could have imagined. The weight of my realization about what’s at stake hit me hard the day we spent walking through old-growth tropical rainforest, seeing wild orangutans, Horn Bills, Proboscis monkeys, and the recent evidence of a Sun Bear clawing a tree for honey, followed by an afternoon watching an excavator tearing down towering trees and digging a drainage canal into one of the last areas of natural forest remaining in the buffer zone of the park. We were on the edge of a community agroforestry project designed to demonstrate an alternative to destructive monoculture in an area almost entirely razed to make way for palm oil plantations.

We watched, horrified, as an irreplaceable hotspot of biodiversity fell before our eyes, two majestic Horn Bills flew overhead, and an endangered Red Langur monkey peered at us through the trees.

After spending a full day documenting human rights abuses with our allies from Save Our Borneo, an organization working on the frontlines of Central Kalimantan’s palm oil expansion crisis, RAN forest team member Lafcadio Cortesi and I took a night bus across Borneo from the city of Palangkaraya to Pangkalanbun. Even though the landscape was shrouded in darkness, the endless sea of sterile palm oil plantations beyond the road stood out throughout our entire 11 hour journey — a grim reminder that the province of Central Kalimantan has one of the fastest rates of oil palm expansion in Indonesia, perhaps even in the world.

The Sekonyer River

Around 4am we arrived in the small port town of Kumai at the office of Friends of the National Parks Foundation (FNPF), the incredible organization my colleague Laurel visited in Bali earlier this year that also operates community development and reforestation projects in Borneo. I collapsed in a makeshift bunk bed and fell asleep to the sounds of Indonesian sunrise: distant speakers blaring Muslim calls to prayer, a singing gecko, a rooster crowing, and a chainsaw running somewhere behind the little house we slept in.

A few hours later we were racing to the edge of the Kumai River on motorbikes to travel by speed boat to the Sekonyer River, the gateway to Tanjung Puting National Park. Tanjung Puting is a globally recognized biosphere reserve and an unparalleled diversity hotspot. It’s home to many endangered species such as orangutans and Clouded leopards. Despite the incredible importance of Tanjung Puting, the park and its surroundings — the buffer zone — are under threat from illegal logging and mining operations and, most ominously, the encroachment of palm oil.

The reckless, short-sighted expansion of palm oil plantations in Central Kalimantan is pushing many of these species to the brink of extinction, literally leaving them with nowhere to go. The disappearing rainforest we witnessed falling is sandwiched between the Sekonyer River, the national park, and 10,000 hectares of plantations. Inside the national park, orangutans have more hope of survival. But orangutans can’t swim, so when we saw a pregnant orangutan mother with her young children on the west side of the river — where the forest was actively being converted to oil palm plantation — my heart sank.

Oil Palm on Peat

The deeper in we got, the more severe the problems. The drainage canals along the edge of the plantations were filled with the dark black water of dissolved peat soil — highlighting the troubling reality that the much of this plantation was on top of carbon-rich peat soils and thus emitting massive amounts of CO2 as it rots upon being exposed to the air. In the converted peatlands, many of the oil palms were growing sideways and some even falling over. It seemed certain that the yields were marginal and the costs — the loss of a thriving and rare ecosystem and community livelihoods — was great. It seemed sure the Indonesian law prohibiting conversion of deep peatlands was being violated.

Responsible for this mess is BW Plantations, an RSPO member with about 100,000 hectares (240,000 acres) of oil palm plantations in Central and East Kalimantan. In addition to its draining of peatlands and destroying primary forests right up against a national park filled with many of the world’s last orangutans, the company is also grossly disrespecting the rights of the local community.

Community secretary Mr. Taufik delivers an impassioned speech about the community's resistance to palm oil expansion. The banner reads: PT Bumi Langgeng Return Community Rights

The vibrant village of Tanjung Harapan on the Sekonyer river has over 100 families who are actively opposing the palm oil plantation and its expansion. Immediately upon entering the village by water, we saw two huge protest banners and a large sign reading, “PT Bumi Langgeng: Return the Rights of the Sekonyer Community.” The community members depend on the forest for their livelihoods and see the encroaching palm oil as a threat to their reliance on community food gardens, agroforestry, and fishing. They are angry that the palm oil plantation has used over 2,200 hectares (over 5,000 acres) of their village lands without any consultation or approval.

During our stay in the Sekonyer community, we slept under mosquito nets on a boat on the river’s edge. Our second night we met with community leaders and they told us their story. We learned that the community has been at odds with the palm oil company PT Bumi Langgeng, a subsidiary of BW Plantations, for many years over a land conflict. In the last several months, community resistance has escalated as land clearing continues at breakneck speed. I could actually hear the bulldozers demolishing forest from the community garden — to say it was unsettling would be a major understatement.

Mother and baby orangutan at Camp Leakey

When the company cut down the community’s native rubber trees around six months ago, it triggered the first demonstration. Police showed up but no one was arrested. The latest demonstration took place just a few months ago after community leaders sent formal letters of complaint to the company as well as the district, provincial, and national governments seeking recognition of their lands, compensation for the 2,200 ha. of community land already taken by the company, and a halt to further expansion into forests and remaining community lands. Community members blocked the canal from the palm oil plantation to the main river. So far they have not received any response.

This is the true cost of palm oil. Is it worth it?

As the cheapest, highest-yielding vegetable oil and now the most heavily traded edible oil in the world, I understand that companies benefit from this lucrative industry so dependent on cheap labor and precious yet cheap rainforests. But at what price are we going to continue expanding this commodity? Expansion of palm oil into ecological and cultural hotspots needs to stop. The community of Sekonyer needs our support to secure their rights and justice. The time is ticking for the orangutans and other species depending on the forests — if they can’t be protected from palm oil expansion on the edge of a national park, the prospects for responsible palm oil look grim.

RAN sent a delegation of four staff to lobby for human rights and rainforest protections at the 9th Annual RSPO Meeting in Malaysia.

As the 9^thAnnual Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) meeting wrapped up on the island of Borneo, the crisis stemming from the uncontrolled expansion of palm oil plantations into rainforests and communities reached a fever pitch.

Consider this: In the few days that RAN’s four staff-member delegation attended the RSPO meeting in SE Asia, the Forest People’s Programme (FPP) released a comprehensive and scathing report that documents Cargill supplier and palm oil giant Wilmar’s complicity in the bulldozing of homes and the use of live ammunition to forcibly evict Indigenous community members on the island of Sumatra.

In a press conference on the human rights impacts of palm oil held during the RSPO meeting, Rukaiyah Rofiq, who goes by Uki and works with the human rights advocacy group Yayasan Setara Jambi, warned that companies producing palm oil under the RSPO umbrella are failing to resolve the social conflict caused by plantation expansion. In a November 24 article in the print version of the Borneo Post titled “RSPO Emboldens Violators of Indigenous Rights – NGO,” Uki said:

Ideally, we had hoped that with the RSPO, these conflicts would be stopped or at least reduced, and the rights of the communities be restored. But we’re not seeing any impact with the RSPO. This is evident in the ninth meeting we’ve had with the RSPO. There has not been any change; the conflicts have not decreased. The presence of RSPO has not reduced or resolved the conflicts.

Uki is referring to the more than 600 cases of social conflict related to palm oil in Indonesia documented by Sawit Watch. In the same press conference, Jefri Gideon of Sawit Watch said: “There is a big hope among everyone that the RSPO can help resolve these conflicts.” He urged RSPO members to go beyond talking about the RSPO principles and criteria and code of conduct and actually implement them.

During the same week, the Jakarta Globe published two articles, “Indonesian Palm Oil Dispute at ‘Crisis Point’” and “Paradise Lost at Hands of Palm Oil Companies“, about a separate conflict surrounding the village of Muara Tae on the island of Borneo.

Muara Tae is in a stand-off with a palm oil firm whose forest clearing threatens the villagers’ entire way of life. Community member Petrus Asuy issued an impassioned plea, saying, “Because of the palm oil plantations, our water has become polluted and many of our springs have dried up. We took our case to the local government, but they ignored us. We are completely against these companies because they have compromised our way of life. What hope is there now for our grandchildren? We are pleading for help for our situation and for this activity to stop.”

It has become abundantly clear that wherever massive international commodity corporations are granted huge forest concessions and allowed free reign to manage them, community conflict and environmental devastation quickly follow.

It is more imperative than ever that companies like Cargill and Wilmar immediately address the serious problems of human rights abuses and rainforest destruction in their supply chains and become a part of the solution to this crisis instead of indiscriminately trafficking palm oil into North American and European markets. Please take a moment to ask Cargill CEO Greg Page to adopt safeguards to keep controversial palm oil out of American food products.

Kellogg’s:

Despite officially joining in 2008, Kellogg’s doesn’t appear to have ever completed the five basic questions in its membership application. We were unable to find their required annual progress reports, according to the minutes of last year’s General Assembly they did not vote on the resolutions, and weren’t sighted at last year’s RSPO conference at all. Again this year they were nowhere to be found. Kellogg’s told the public in its recent announcement:

“As a socially responsible company, Kellogg is committed to conducting our business in a way that reduces our environmental impact,” said Celeste A. Clark, Ph.D., Chief Sustainability Officer, Kellogg Company.

Apparently Kellogg’s commitment doesn’t extend to engaging with or verifying the effectiveness of the RSPO. Given that it sources palm oil from Cargill, a company with no safeguards on the palm oil it trades, this seems like a pretty flimsy guarantee to customers that the company takes its sustainability commitment seriously.

Girl Scouts:

Following extensive public concern about the use of palm oil in their iconic Girl Scout cookies, Girl Scouts USA recently made a “sustainable” palm oil commitment to cover its use of palm oil in dozens of popular Girl Scout cookie recipes. Despite having committed to the public the intent to “become affiliate members of the RSPO” and use the RSPO to guarantee that its products are not linked to rainforest destruction, representatives were nowhere to  be found.

In fact, Girl Scouts USA seems to have created a new category of “affiliate membership” that is not one of the 7 official categories of RSPO membership. Hmmm.Perhaps by affiliate membership they mean they are relying on cookie bakers to effectively use their membership in the RSPO to guarantee that palm oil is not connected to rainforest destruction and orangutan habitat loss. Unfortunately we couldn’t confirm RSPO membership for either ABC Bakers or Weston Foods Limited, and the only Girl Scout cookie baker we did find was Kellogg. Pity given the above.

McDonald’s:

The newest RSPO member missing in action joined in October with great fanfare but was nowhere to be found despite having said:

“Participating in multi-stakeholder engagements such as the RSPO is one way for us to put the power and leadership of McDonald’s behind commitments to continue to source sustainable ingredients such as palm oil,” said Francesca DeBiase, McDonald’s vice president, Worldwide Strategic Sourcing, in a statement. “Sustainability issues as they relate to food are often confusing to consumers, and we can help lead the way by educating our customers on how our food is sourced.”

Missing: McDonalds CEO Jim Skinner

Missing: Kellogg CEO John Bryant

Missing: GSUSA CEO Anna Maria Chavez

If we’re expecting these brands to assure that RSPO certified palm oil is truly responsible, perhaps next year we’ll have to put the photos of these missing companies on the back of milk boxes before the annual RSPO meeting.

Update 11/24/11 9:50am Whose Voices are Missing at the RSPO?

In concluding her plenary presentation yesterday, “A Preliminary consideration of workers and communities,” Toh su Mei from the organization Wild Asia, left participants of the 9^th Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil meeting pondering the lack of representation of workers and smallholders at the conference.

“We are the stakeholders of the palm oil economy, but where are the workers in the room?” Her question to the room brought to light a notable emptiness among RSPO members and RSPO board members: palm oil workers.

Workers at Ledo Lestari palm oil plantation in Borneo. Photo: David Gilbert

There are an estimated 2 million Indonesians working in Malaysia for a variety of industries. Indonesia placed a moratorium on sending workers to Malaysia following widely reported abuse of Indonesian workers in the neighboring country where many are undocumented and work in palm oil plantations, construction and as domestic workers. But after two years of tough negotiations, involving the top leaders of both countries, Indonesia and Malaysia eventually overcame the protracted deadlock on the sending of unskilled Indonesian workers to Malaysia.

Migrant workers from Indonesia working on palm oil plantations may have their passports held and may be subject to multi-year contracts that push the workers into debt and prevent escape. As I documented just over a year ago, slave and child labor on palm oil plantations is a severe reality in Indonesia and Malaysia. So sever, in fact, that recently the U.S. Department of Labor added palm oil cultivated in Indonesia to its List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor.

Toh su Mei explained that migrant workers often aren’t allowed to organize or join unions or risk getting terminated. She encouraged the RSPO to reach out to local and migrant workers upon which the oil palm industry relies and to engage them in decision making processes that ultimately affect them but currently are run behind closed doors.

According to a 2009 publication on the Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants, here is summary of the issues facing migrant workers in Malaysia.

If the RSPO fails to meaningfully involve the workers it relies on to address these issues, another weakness will be added to a system that is already missing key safeguards relating to the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions, one that still fails to adequately implement key elements of the principles and criteria relating to social conflict and the conversion of natural forests.

Orangutans, threatened with extinction by the palm oil industry, are humankinds closest relatives

Original Post: Malaysia Minister Slams NGOs for Using Science that Documents High Risk of Orangutan Extinction

On Tuesday, November 22, the Malaysian Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities, a man named Tan Sri Bernard Giluk Dompok, delivered the Official Address in the Opening Ceremony of the Rountable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) conference. A significant portion of his comments expressed concern and disapproval of the style of campaigning RAN and other NGO’s use to draw attention to the social and environmental problems with palm oil.

But Mr. Dompok did more than simply acknowledge the campaigns of those concerned with deforestation, climate change, and declines in orangutan populations. He decided to snub science in front of 1,000 delegates from 34 countries, claiming that a 2007 report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), documenting the high risk of orangutan extinction due to deforestation, was baseless:

The development of the oil palm industry has never been without challenges. Environmental and consumer advocacy groups, particularly in Europe and US have stepped up claims that the oil palm sector is destroying large tracts of forests and encroaching on the natural habitats of endangered species. For example, a report entitled, “The Last Stand of the Orang Utan: State of Emergency,” claims that oil palm plantations are expanding so rapidly in the rainforests of Malaysia that almost no virgin forest will remain by 2022. It has been also claimed that an equivalent of 300 soccer fields are deforested every hour for oil palm plantations. I am of the view all these allegations are baseless and based on the premise of fear on the competitiveness of palm oil.

This statement comes just a week after the Malaysian Government announced its plans to spend $7.7 million (24 million ringgit) in 2011 and 2012 to counter criticism over the social and environmental impact of palm oil.

Directly after Mr. Dompok’s speech, I snuck into the Press Conference and sat in the front row. On camera, I asked Mr. Dompok why the Malaysian Government needed to spend over $7 million if the Malaysian palm oil industry was indeed so “sustainable.” His answer? That Malaysia needs to counter misleading NGO campaigns based on fear.

Indeed, the specter of the extinction of humankind’s closest relative, the orangutan, does elicit a sense of fear in many around the world. A comprehensive new study finds that orangutan populations in Indonesian Borneo are being diminished at unsustainable rates. The results indicate orangutans may be headed toward extinction. The study, published in PLoS One, is based on 18 months of interviews with nearly 7,000 people across 687 villages in areas where orangutans persist in East, Central, and West Kalimantan. The research involved 18 NGOs, including local and international organizations.

In a recent interview, Dr. Marc Ancrenanz of HUTAN notes that oil palm plantations cover a staggering 14,000 square kilometers of Sabah, one of the two states in Malaysian Borneo and the number one producer of Malaysian palm oil. This is equal to 20 Singapores planted solely with palm!

In the same interview, Dr. Marc Ancrenanz mentions that genetic studies in Sabah show that the orangutan population has declined by 50% to 90% over the past few decades. This severe decline is due to several causes, such as hunting and the illegal pet trade, but the foremost reason is forest loss as it is cut down and converted to agriculture.

So you be the judge. Do you trust the comments made by the Malaysian Minister following the government’s $7 million investment in a public relations campaign, or do you trust scientists working to save the endangered orangutan before it is too late? In my experience, when companies or governments spend $7,000,000 on public relations to counter science, it’s usually because they have something to cover up.

The 9th Annual RSPO Meeting is in Sabah (Malaysian Borneo)

In an interview, Dr. Marc Ancrenanz of HUTAN notes that oil palm plantations cover a staggering 14,000 square kilometers of Sabah, one of the two states in Malaysian Borneo and the number one producer of Malaysian palm oil. This is equal to 20 Singapores planted solely with palm!

In the same interview, Dr. Marc Ancrenanz mentions that genetic studies in Sabah show that the orangutan population has declined by 50% to 90% over the past few decades. This severe decline is due to several causes, such as hunting and the illegal pet trade, but the foremost reason is forest loss as it is cut down and converted to agriculture.

This final frontier — home of our globe’s oldest rainforests and last stands of orangutans — is the setting for this year’s RSPO conference, where strange bedfellows come together and debate the “sustainable” palm oil industry. Activists, industry heavy weights, and the Malaysian Palm Oil Association spend three days playing their respective hands in the struggle over the fate of  tropical forests. Major plantation companies like Sime Darby and Wilmar attend the conference to try and stop the RSPO from making it any more difficult for them to convert rainforest to palm oil plantations, while RAN brings a different set of values to the meeting.

Next week, when families across North America are celebrating Thanksgiving with their families, our team will be attending the 9^th annual Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) conference in Borneo.

Comprised of mostly Indonesia and Malaysia, Borneo is the third-largest island in the world and is known for being one of the most biologically and culturally rich landscapes in the world. Unfortunately, these incredible rainforests are in grave danger from Indonesia and Malaysia’s unchecked agricultural expansion.

Our goal is to advocate for human rights, demonstrate the need for companies to establish safeguards on their palm oil supply chains, and stop the RSPO from certifying forest conversion in the face of this industrial agriculture onslaught. We will gather stories from community members affected by Cargill suppliers, many of whom attend the conference as delegates of Sawit Watch and travel from several different regions impacted by the palm oil operations of Sime Darby, Tribakti Sari Mas, Cresna Duta Agrindo, & Asiatic Persada/Wilmar. The controversy-laden palm oil peddled by these companies is exported around the world by Cargill and ends up in half of the products in your grocery store — think Kellogg’s, Smucker’s, and Girl Scout cookies.

The RSPO has come a long way, but not far enough

Throughout the conference RAN will be advocating for several demands to ensure that human rights and the environment are respected by the palm oil industry: The RSPO must start protecting rainforests and the communities and species that depend on them, and must stop certifying palm oil as “sustainable” if it was grown using the horribly destructive practice of draining carbon rich peatlands and exacerbating climate change. The RSPO must also stop dragging its feet and adopt a greenhouse gas emissions standard if it wants its palm oil certification standard to have any level of credibility.

Lastly, the RSPO must implement an effective grievance process that actually addresses pending social conflict complaints and includes a dispute settlement facility that truly respects human rights.

“Before we had a happy life,” Ms. Gaong said she tells her grandchildren. “Now it’s a difficult life. There’s nothing left for them.”

The future of these children remains at stake until the companies responsible for palm oil plantation expansion in Borneo start respecting human rights.

The recent story in the New York Times titled “Clashes Between Tribes and Agribusiness Increase in Malaysia” tells an all-too common story. It’s not a happy story. It’s the story of farming families getting forced off their land, of vanishing cultures, of corporations trying to “compensate” families for their livelihoods and decades of subsistence with $1,600.

Indigenous people in Malaysia have long complained that their historical claims to their land are being sacrificed in the name of progress. But as the country continues its push toward economic prosperity, with key commodities like palm oil a valuable export, rights groups and lawyers say that encroachment on indigenous land is increasing.

Read the powerful story for yourself. It takes place in Sarawak, which is Malaysia’s largest state on the northwest coast of Borneo. The state is known for its natural and cultural wonders, but Malaysian palm oil producers are destroying Borneo’s carbon-rich peat forests faster than ever before. According to Mongabay and Wetlands International, “more than one third (353,000 hectares or 872,000 acres) of Sarawak’s peatswamp forests and ten percent of the state’s rainforests were cleared between 2005 and 2010. About 65 percent of the area was converted for oil palm.”

The article goes on to say:

The land that he says once thrived with an abundance of crops that fed his family and provided their livelihood has been stripped bare. Young palm trees now sprout from the ochre-colored earth where he says his relatives had lived since before World War II.

Indigenous peoples and forest communities are not the only ones impacted by palm oil expansion. From an interview with Dr. Marc Ancrenanz of HUTAN in 2010:

Genetic studies in Sabah show that orang-utan population have declined by 50 to 90% over the past few decades. This severe decline is due to several causes such as hunting and pet trade, but the foremost reason is forest losses when the forest is cut down and converted to agriculture.

So we have to ask ourselves: Is using palm oil in Girl Scout cookies or Skippy Peanut Butter worth the wholesale destruction of cultural and ecological biodiversity that it creates?

ADM: Investing in Human Rights Abuses

Unlike 2008′s showdown, nobody from RAN attended this year’s Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) shareholder meeting to hold CEO Patricia Woertz’ ass to the fire. Nonetheless, ADM did not get away without responding to tough questions about the company’s irresponsible palm oil supply chain.

ADM, one of the world’s largest agricultural processors with operations in more than 75 countries, held its annual shareholder meeting on Thursday in it’s hometown of Decatur, Illinois. ADM CEO Patricia Woertz proudly announced that the company increased its quarterly cash dividend from 16 cents per share to 17.5 cents per share. Happy news for shareholders, right?

Well, probably not if they knew the dirty truth: they are invested in a company complicit in gross human rights violations in Indonesia.

The most significant part of this year’s meeting was that shareholders presented a powerful resolution on palm oil, resolving that the board of directors adopt and implement a comprehensive sustainable palm oil policy. Not surprisingly, and by way of shedding light on the true nature of this company, the Board of Directors recommended a vote AGAINST this stockholder proposal.

The resolution included:

• A target date for sourcing 100% certified sustainable palm oil and for segregating and tracing certified palm oil throughout the supply chain;

• Plans to verify suppliers’ compliance with the policy; and

• Supporting a moratorium on palm oil expansion in rainforests and peatlands.

It’s too bad ADM didn’t welcome this resolution — it could have been a positive step in the right direction for a laggard of a company. A concerned shareholder attended the meeting and raised a few of her concerns about palm oil, which I’ve summarized below:

- Indonesia is the 3rd largest producer of greenhouse gases behind china and the US thanks to deforestation linked to palm oil plantation expansion, exacerbating climate change.

- ADM sources palm oil from one of the most biodiverse areas in the world, the last remaining habitat for the critically endangered orangutan, meaning they will likely become extinct.

- Indigenous people are also losing their homes and livelihoods to plantations; when they resist, they are arrested, and their homes bulldozed. This violates the standards of the RSPO, of which ADM is a member.

These comments led to an important question. The shareholder asked Woertz what ADM was doing to address the fact that Wilmar, a massive palm oil plantation company with operations in Indonesia and Malaysia of which ADM is a major shareholder, violated the RSPO code of conduct by bulldozing an Indigenous community when it got in the way of the company’s operations. Ms. Woertz responded by saying that most of the charges by the community were found to be “without merit” but that there were some issues found to have validity regarding the land, and that those investigations are still ongoing.

The CEO also said that, “as far as committing to 100% sustainable palm oil, we believe this can be done most effectively through a group effort, not by acting alone.” I beg to disagree. As the three top importers of palm oil into the US, I believe ADM, Cargill and IOI all have a responsibility to commit to 100% RSPO certified palm oil as the bare minimum standard for their US customers.

Hopefully shareholders continue to challenge ADM on its misleading claims. Any claims by ADM that it is taking the environment into consideration are completely toothless without a palm oil policy in place to make even the most basic level of assurances to its customers by adopting supply chain safeguards. With these safeguards in place, palm oil produced by companies that think bulldozing a community is a viable dispute resolution mechanism will never end up in our homes.

Environmental and human rights groups in the Netherlands are welcoming the Dutch government’s rejection of the Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme (MTCS) for failure to meet minimal accepted sustainability principles.

The ruling from the Ministry of Environment found that the MTCS fails to recognize or uphold the rights of Indigenous peoples and certifies timber from the wholesale conversion of natural rainforests into plantations. The importance of this ruling cannot be overstated. The Netherlands is a major market for the unsustainable Malaysian tropical timber trade. The ruling closes a significant portion of the Dutch market to MTCS-labeled products and sends a clear message to other markets to avoid the scheme.

The Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme is an example of the Malaysian government’s preferred approach to “sustainability” — create a bogus certification scheme, wage an expensive PR campaign in Western markets to promote it, and continue with business as usual at home. Brilliant.

The newest Malaysian example: a recently announced “sustainable” certification scheme for the Malaysian palm oil sector, Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil. Like its tropical timber cousin, the palm oil certification scheme is designed to rubber stamp widespread deforestation and Indigenous rights violations by Malaysian palm oil producers. As our Malaysian ally, Andrew Ng, pointed out in an earlier blog post, given Malaysia’s track record with its national timber certification scheme, its new “sustainable” palm oil certification scheme deserves to be rejected by international markets as well.

These two intrepid Girl Scouts leaders are paving the way to ensure that Girl Scout cookies are palm oil-free, and not compromising some of our most endangered forests and animals.

Check out just how inspiring they truly are in this Rikshaw Films video:

Girl Scouts Rhiannon and Madi on the CBS Early Show

It’s been a tumultuous few months for cheerleaders of Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil-certified “sustainable” palm oil, and now the ground just became even more unstable. In an interesting turn of events — what some alarmists are calling “the beginning of the end” for the RSPO —  Indonesia’s Palm Oil Association (GAPKI) has walked out on the RSPO.

Although I’m not exactly sure what this means, it raises interesting questions for the further evolution of the RSPO certification standard. Industry associations typically defend the lowest common denominator of their memberships, making them unlikely allies when pushing for changes to business as usual. I witnessed firsthand GAPKI’s aggressive obstructionist tactics at the last RSPO annual meeting in 2010.

GAPKI has jumped ship in the hopes that the Indonesian government-sponsored palm oil certification scheme, Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO), will rubberstamp existing practices as “sustainable.” Malaysia is also setting up its own palm oil industry controlled certification scheme as an alternative to the RSPO.

Does this mark the beginning of the end for the RSPO? Or the beginning of a new era of credible RSPO certification standards that actually embody strong zero deforestation criteria without GAPKI blocking progress at every step of the way?

In my mind, the most important question here is how big consumer facing brands are going to make meaningful commitments to their customers. Both Malaysia’s Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) scheme and Indonesia’s ISPO are deep greenwash, essentially government-led, industry-controlled schemes to enable larger exports of falsely labelled “sustainable” palm oil to countries around the world without addressing the huge negative environmental and social impacts of its production.

More and more large companies around the world are adopting zero deforestation policies for their palm oil supply chains, creating markets for growers willing to meet the higher standards of high value markets. The Consumer Goods Forum, with over 600 hundred large companies in 70 countries and $2.9 trillion in annual revenues, has passed a resolution to eliminate tropical deforestation from their collective supply chains by 2020. With GAPKI gone, they will be looking to the RSPO to embrace this opportunity.

The weaker governance and standards of the ISPO and MSPO and the clumsy attempt by provincial palm oil grower interests to ice out their customers from decision-making means they will never be trusted in the marketplace for any sort of quality assurance around environmental or social safeguards.

Daisy Troop #42, Seacliff, NY. Photo: Diana Lenkler

After four years of savvy campaigning by Girl Scout activists Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen, Girl Scouts USA (GSUSA) has finally acknowledged its role in rainforest destruction by releasing a commitment regarding its use of palm oil in its iconic cookies.

Unfortunately, the statement on palm oil just released is a small step in the right direction at a time when we need leaps forward to prevent the imminent extinction of orangutans and the wholesale destruction of some of the world’s most biologically diverse and carbon rich forests.

The bottom line remains: Girl Scouts USA cannot guarantee that the box of Thin Mints you buy doesn’t contain palm oil from rainforest destruction.

Rainforest Action Network, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Madi and Rhiannon remain concerned and have issued a joint press statement explaining why the announcement by GSUSA, while a good start, is insufficient to sever the unacceptable connection between beloved Girl Scout cookies and tropical deforestation.

Rainforest Action Network asks Girl Scouts USA to instruct their suppliers, especially agribusiness giant Cargill, to adopt basic safeguards around greenhouse gas emissions, human rights and biodiversity loss, and not outsource their values by relying on the inadequate standards of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.

Troop #9045 in Central Texas. Photo: Troop Leader Jennifer McNichols

We believe Girl Scouts USA must do more than simply “work with its bakers.” In its statement, GSUSA acknowledges that while the quantity of palm oil they use is relatively small, “their voice is big.” We believe the organization has a responsibility to use that voice to help convince Cargill and other suppliers to offer guarantees to American consumers that abuses such as slave labor will no longer end up in Girl Scout cookies, or any other product. Cargill is buying its oil from the likes of Wilmar, KLK and IOI, companies connected to some of the very worst examples of corporate environmental destruction and human rights abuses. And this means Girl Scout cookies are implicated too.

Girl Scouts USA’s palm oil announcement states:

Beginning with the 2012-13 cookie season, each cookie box will include a GreenPalm logo as a symbol of Girl Scouts’ commitment to address concerns about the deforestation of sensitive lands currently caused by the production of palm oil.

Green Palm Certificates are sold to companies by the plantation that grew the palm oil. The company then goes and buys palm oil from anyone at the cheapest price. For this reason, Green Palm Certificates are a step in the right direction because they reward growers for following basic safeguards, but they do not ensure that the palm oil used in products is not linked to controversy or is driving up demand for palm oil connected to rainforest destruction and human rights violations.

As great as it is that Girl Scouts USA will be addressing the issue of palm oil in the coming cookie season, we strongly urge GSUSA to refrain from simply using its purchase of Green Palm Certificates to greenwash its image, and instead to consider implementing a plan of action to ensure its cookies are truly free of ingredients sourced from rainforest destruction. It would be very misleading for young girls across the country selling Girl Scout cookies to make claims of “sustainable palm oil” in Thin Mints when in actuality the cookies are continuing to drive deforestation and orangutan extinction.

Pak Rusni at PT ISK Photo: David Gilbert/RAN 2009

In a huge win for Indigenous and forest dwelling peoples throughout Indonesia who are struggling to assert their customary land rights in the face of massive palm oil expansion, Chief Justice Mahfud M.D. has ruled that two Articles of Indonesian law used to imprison community members are unconstitutional, unlawful and invalid.

Articles 21 and 47 of Indonesia’s Plantation Act are responsible for the widespread criminalization of forest community members who often end up in jail for defending their land rights against the ever-encroaching expansion of oil palm plantations. Since 2004, palm oil companies, police officers, courts and judges have based legal decisions on Articles 21 and 47. These articles allowed the police to persecute forest communities standing up for their rights, essentially deeming defense of human rights illegal.

Sawit Watch has documented more than 660 ongoing conflicts between Indigenous peoples and local communities with palm oil companies in Indonesia. Criminalization through Articles 21 and 47 led to the arrests and detentions of hundreds of community members. According to Norman Jiwan from Sawit Watch, the judicial review that led to this outcome came about in response to a request made by five victims of the Plantation Act’s concerned articles. The five victims are:

• Vitalis Andi and Japin are members of the Indigenous community from Silat Hulu in conflict with Sinar Mas in Ketapang District, West Kalimantan
• Ngatimin is chairperson of BPMP of Pergulaan village in conflict with London Sumatra
• Muhammad Rusdi, head of village Karang Mendapo community in conflict with PT Kresna Duta Agroindo, a Sinar Mas subsidiary oil palm plantation in Jambi
• Sakri, a farmer from East Java.

According to the Jakarta Globe:

Wahyu Wagiman from the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (Elsam), who represented the plaintiffs, welcomed the ruling as a relief to more than 600 traditional communities in the country that were threatened by the law. ‘Our next step is to spread the word as wide as possible and to find a way to release farmers currently charged under Articles 21 and 47, including Japin, Vitalis and Ngatimin.’

During my field visits in West Kalimantan last fall, I recorded video interviews of numerous community members fighting for justice, working around the clock to get their fellow community members out of jail. From the community of Long Teran Kanan drawing a line in the sand in response to IOI Corp. failing to recognize their native customary lands to the recent criminalization of community members in Jambi where Wilmar bulldozed Indigenous settlements for palm oil, this legal victory is a ray of hope in an otherwise dismal landscape for Indigenous rights in Indonesia. Criminalizing Indigenous peoples for taking a stand to protect their native customary land rights is unjust. This recent court ruling is a step in the right direction and bodes well for human rights.

Indigenous community protest during President SBY's visit Photo: Rivani Noor/Cappa

Do you remember in 2009 when the World Bank’s lending arm, the International Finance Corp. (IFC), came under fire from human rights and environmental organizations lobbying to halt its funding of destructive palm oil development in Indonesia and Malaysia? The 18-month global moratorium on lending for new palm oil investments that followed was a direct result of the IFC violating its own standards on palm oil financing by providing loans to Wilmar International, the world’s largest palm oil producer.

Wilmar quickly became the poster child for irresponsible palm oil operations in Indonesia – failing to comply with national laws in Indonesia, illegally using fire to clear land, seizing land from Indigenous peoples without due process, lacking publicly available social and environment impact assessments, etc.

Unfortunately, this pattern is eerily similar to the problems of another global giant in the palm oil industry – Cargill, Inc.

Cargill and one of Wilmar’s majority stakeholders, ADM, are both US agribusiness giants responsible for a large portion of the controversial palm oil imported into North America. Another wholly owned Wilmar subsidiary, PGEO Edible Oils, has been a frequent supplier of palm oil to Cargill. Both Cargill and ADM continue to operate without basic supply chain safeguards, and neither take precautions against selling palm oil connected to major human rights violations like slave labor to their US customers.

Photo: Rivani Noor, Cappa

The recent outbreak of community violence in Indonesia is exactly the sort of problem Cargill and ADM could avoid by adopting social and environmental safeguards on their suppliers.

Below is a letter of concern we sent to ADM this week in solidarity with the Indigenous community in the Dusun Sungai Beruang area on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, where Wilmar was complicit in bulldozing the homes of community members earlier this month. Through multiple protests and visits to Jakarta, the community is demanding justice.

Patricia Woertz, CEO
Archer Daniels Midland Company
4666 Faries Parkway
Decatur, IL 62526

September 22, 2011

Dear Ms. Woertz,

I am writing to bring an issue of grave concern to your attention and ask that ADM take immediate action to address the problem. We have received information from partners and community representatives that PT Asiatik Persada, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Wilmar Group, is involved in a long standing conflict that recently escalated into violence and human rights violations in Jambi Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. As one of two majority shareholders in Wilmar, the world’s largest palm oil producer, we are calling on ADM to use its influence to convince Wilmar to remedy this problem and address the company’s ongoing pattern of social conflict, rights violations and harmful environmental impacts.

Due to Wilmar’s irresponsible palm oil operations in the past, the World Bank body froze all funding for palm oil expansion globally in 2009 and 2010. This latest case is yet another example of Wilmar’s poor track record.

Though some details of the incident remain unconfirmed, we believe it is unacceptable to destroy homes and forcibly evict community members to resolve outstanding conflicts. We were alarmed to learn about the recent escalation of the conflict and the violence with the Indigenous community in the Dusun Sungai Beruang area that included the forced eviction of families and destruction of their settlement. Bulldozing a community is not a viable dispute resolution process; it is a violation of human rights that requires urgent remedy.

Throughout the month of September, community members and NGOs have joined together to call for transparency and justice. There is an urgent need for action to address the current crisis as well as a long term need to promote reforms in Wilmar so that this situation does not arise again. As a major shareholder, ADM has a responsibility and is in a position of influence to call for reforms. 

RAN joins these stakeholders in asking ADM to secure the following immediate actions to help remedy the grave situation in Jambi:

• Conduct a thorough investigation of the case by a mutually agreed independent third party
• Recognize the customary land rights and tenure of the Indigenous community (Suku Anak Dalam Batin Sembilan)
• Participate in and support a mutually agreed upon dispute resolution process to address the long standing conflicts with Wilmar
• If requested, provide humanitarian support for the affected victims in the community who have been impacted by this conflict

As part owner of the world’s single largest palm oil producer, ADM carries a large responsibility. We call on you to ensure that Wilmar adopt supply chain safeguards and addresses the systemic problems in its company operations that have resulted in ongoing social conflict as well as clearing of natural forests and exacerbation of climate change. We look forward to learning what you’ve done to address these grave concerns in the near future.

Sincerely,

Lindsey Allen
Forest Program Director, Rainforest Action Network
Lindsey@ran.org
(415) 659-0532

Click to view full-size infographic

Did you see the palm oil infographic we released today? I hope so! If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out.

Were you shocked to find out that palm oil is in half of the products in your pantry? Yep, that’s right, palm oil is in roughly 50% of all packaged goods, from cookies, peanut butter, and breakfast cereal to cleaning products, laundry detergent, lipstick, and body lotion.

Are you wondering how that’s possible, because you don’t see the words “palm oil” on many of the ingredient labels in your pantry?

Here’s the scoop: Palm oil is often disguised, hidden behind many different ingredient names you probably don’t recognize when you go to your pantry or bathroom to check. To make things even more confusing for you as a consumer, sometimes companies will only disclose ingredients like “vegetable oil,” and though that vegetable oil blend likely contains palm oil, it’s not always a labeling requirement.

To help you navigate these confusing waters and avoid unwittingly voting for rainforest destruction with your dollars, here is a partial list of other names for palm oil-derived ingredients:*

• PKO – Palm Kernel Oil
• PKO fractionations: Palm Kernel Stearin (PKs); Palm Kernel Olein (PKOo)
• PHPKO – Partially hydrogenated Palm Oil
• FP(K)O – Fractionated Palm Oil
• OPKO – Organic Palm Kernel Oil
• Palmitate – Vitamin A or Asorbyl Palmitate (NOTE: Vitamin A Palmitate is a very common ingredient in breakfast cereals and we have confirmed 100% of the samples we’ve investigated to be derived from palm oil)
• Palmate
• Sodium Laureth Sulphate (Can also be from coconut)
• Sodium Lauryl Sulphates (can also be from ricinus oil)
• Sodium dodecyl Sulphate (SDS or NaDS)
• Elaeis Guineensis
• Glyceryl Stearate
• Stearic Acid
• Chemicals which contain palm oil
• Steareth -2
• Steareth -20
• Sodium Lauryl Sulphate
• Sodium lauryl sulfoacetate (coconut and/or palm)
• Hydrated palm glycerides
• Sodium isostearoyl lactylaye (derived from vegetable stearic acid)
• Cetyl palmitate and octyl palmitate (names with palmitate at the end are usually derived from palm oil, but as in the case of Vitamin A Palmitate, very rarely a company will use a different vegetable oil)

*Disclaimer: Through research we’ve found that Vitamin A Palmitate can be derived from any combination of vegetable oil such as olive, coconut, canola and/or palm oil. Though in all the cases we’ve documented, companies use palm oil to make derivatives like Vitamin A Palmitate, it can be tricky to know for sure.

Justice Begins with Seeds

Bringing together an inspiring array of speakers including Vandana Shiva, Ignacio Chapela, Andrew Kimbrell, and Miguel Altieri, the Justice Begins with Seeds conference in San Francisco provided an important platform to reignite the struggle against the ongoing genetic modification of our food and food systems.

The California Biosafety Alliance, an organization that works to create “coalitions to address GMOs: the symbol of the corporate food regime”, organized the conference to address the many implications of genetically engineered food and build strategic alliances and deeper collaborations amongst diverse stakeholders for more widespread action throughout the state of California to shift away from the industrial food regime.

The Rainforest Action Network and Food & Water Watch ran a joint training at the conference entitled “Building a Powerful Political Campaign Against the Corporate Control of Seeds: Learning from Other Contexts”.

I was inspired by the words of Marcia Ishii-Eiteman of the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA), who said, “It’s time to reclaim our food system by challenging corporate control and building a food democracy.” RAN agrees that the growing the movement to challenge corporate agriculture is needed now more than ever as the consolidation of our food chain becomes more of a threat to food sovereignty and ecological integrity every day.

As Ignacio Chapela mentioned in his keynote, ADM recently went on public radio and asked us to “imagine if we had just one big farm to feed the whole world”. No, ADM, I can’t imagine what our food system would look like if we lost all semblance of genetic diversity, community supported agriculture, food democracy and food sovereignty….

On the brighter side, we’re seeing heightened government action: at least 40 countries now have anti-GMO laws (about a dozen of them in Africa), restrictions, prohibitions and/or labeling requirements. Moving beyond the political landscape of GMOs, we’re seeing other types of government leadership in the realm of corporate agriculture.

Take, for example, Australia. Despite intense lobbying by Malaysian palm oil industry leaders, Australian senators are pushing for the Aussie Parliament to pass a bill compelling the national food industry to increase the transparency in food labeling. Currently, palm oil in Australia hides under the label “vegetable oil,” and the controversial bill on the table would ensure that products containing rainforest-destroying palm oil were labeled as such.

Inspired by a growing resistance to the industrial food complex in all its ugly forms, from palm oil to genetically engineered foods, I am re-invigorated to up the anty on Cargill — one of the single most powerful symbols of all that is wrong with our food system. With your help, we can pressure Cargill to adopt supply chain safeguards so that America’s food supply may one day be fed by family and local community farms rather than industrial-scale plantations that destroy tropical rainforests, exacerbate climate change, push orangutans to extinction and displace Indigenous communities from their ancestral lands.

A man imprisoned for protesting palm oil expansion on his native customary land. Photo by Hendrikus Adam of Walhi Kalbar (Friends of the Earth West Kalimantan).

Much like the story with palm oil suppliers IOI and KLK, Cargill is again implicated in serious human rights abuses through it’s palm oil supplier Wilmar.

News of yet another case of heated social conflict on an oil palm plantation is breaking in Indonesia, and meanwhile Cargill continues to traffic this controversial palm oil into the US and sell it to most major brand companies throughout North America.

Today RAN released a press statement exposing these damning links and expressing our concern that the palm oil Cargill supplies and trades to the world is tied to intensifying community violence in Indonesia.

Cargill Supplier Linked to Violence and Home Demolition in Indonesia

San Francisco, CA – Newly uncovered customs data unearthed by Rainforest Action Network links agriculture trading giant Cargill to recent acts of violence, intimidation and home demolition against Indigenous villagers on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

The security forces of Cargill palm oil supplier Wilmar have been documented using armed violence and heavy machinery to destroy homes in the village of Sungai Beruang. This attack is an escalation of a long simmering tension over land rights between the native community and Wilmar affiliate “Asiatic Persada.” Another wholly owned Wilmar subsidiary, PGEO Edible Oils, has been a frequent supplier of palm oil to Cargill.

The most recent conflicts began August 8, after Wilmar’s security forces apprehended a villager because he attempted to sell palm oil fruits that the company claimed it owned. This resulted in an altercation between community members and police forces. On August 10, Wilmar security forces, together with the Indonesian special police brigade Brimob, entered the village and began demolishing homes with bulldozers. Brimob fired live ammunition and reports from the scene say that over 100 men, women and children were evicted from their homes. A coalition of organizations has submitted a letter of complaint to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) but no response has been received at this time.

Cargill's supply chain is leaving a trail of community destruction. Photo: Rainforest Rescue

Rainforest Action Network Forest Program Director Lindsey Allen issued the following statement in response to this latest controversy:

“This outrageous act of violence against community members is yet another in a series of examples that starkly illustrate why Cargill must adopt crucial safeguards on its supply chains. This is the only way Cargill will be able to guarantee these kinds of gross human rights violations do not continue to be imported into the American food supply.

“Rainforest Action Network has been warning Cargill for years that the company’s supply chain is vulnerable to serious human rights abuses, including slave labor and violence against Indigenous villagers. Rainforest Action Network deeply regrets that homes and livelihoods have been destroyed in this latest conflict and we hope this is a wake up call for Cargill to change the way it does business.

“Rainforest Action Network demands that Cargill implement meaningful safeguards to prevent anything of this sort from happening again. Cargill should also pressure the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) to set in motion a process to resolve the situation amicably and address the underlying land dispute, in line with RSPO Principles 2 and 6.”

Rivani Noor, a human rights and environmental advocate with the Indonesian NGO Cappa, said “This is a crime against humanity. Wilmar has blood on its hands. The assertion that this company produces sustainable palm oil is a lie.”

Photos of the destroyed village can be found at: www.robinwood.de/palmoel

For more photos and information on longstanding conflict resolution efforts with Wilmar, contact Rivani Noor with the contact information listed above.

For background on the campaign to convince Cargill to institute supply chain safeguards, and the company’s history of ties to environmental and human rights scandals, please contact Laurel Sutherlin at RAN with the contact information listed above.

This photo is from an investigative report RAN released to present evidence that Cargill is involved in illegal operations on its palm oil plantation in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Photo: David Gilbert/RAN

Cargill just reported record profits of $4.2 billion dollars for its 2010 fiscal year, a 63% increase over the previous year. As the world’s biggest agricultural trader — and the largest importer of rainforest-destroying palm oil into the US — it’s easy to see how the company achieved such huge numbers.

From Girl Scout cookies to laundry detergent to lipstick, Cargill’s palm oil finds its way into almost every American home and many more around the world. Chances are, there’s some of that palm oil in your cabinet or laundry room right now.

So what does Cargill’s palm oil really cost?

The sad truth is that Cargill’s palm oil operation has been run with the ruthless mentality of a cutthroat trader: buy low, sell high, and to hell with the inconvenience of considering the impact on people and planet. This has meant turning a blind eye to slave labor, the eviction of Indigenous peoples from their ancestral land, and the destruction of rainforest habitat for endangered orangutans. Record profits are certainly nothing to celebrate when they come at the expense of record deforestation.

We know we have Cargill’s attention. Because of the pressure RAN’s members and followers have helped build so far, Cargill has begun taking steps to clean up its tainted supply chain. It still has quite a long way to go and we’re going to need everyone’s help to push Cargill all the way.

Are you in?

TAKE ACTION

Tell Cargill CEO Greg Page to protect Indonesia’s rainforests, human rights and critical habitat for endangered orangutans.

Malaysia Sustainable Palm Oil. Photo: astromediashop

As I reported on Monday, the Malaysian government—hand in hand with the country’s largest palm oil companies—is attempting to undermine the RSPO’s “sustainable palm oil” certification standard by creating its own certification. Problem is—the Malaysian palm oil industry’s version of “sustainable palm oil” is pure greenwash which is extremely problematic for the companies and consumers demanding real standards of sustainability that are based on sound science. The entire notion of determining a baseline of “sustainability” for forest preservation will be lost.

Yesterday’s Malaysian paper StarBiz update on the process does not bode well for the species, communities and forests of Indonesia that are most threatened by the expansion of palm oil plantations. It reported that the “draft on the Malaysia Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) certification scheme is currently being formulated with the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) earmarked as the main moderator.” Does it seems strange to anyone else that Malaysia’s Palm Oil Board – in charge of advocating for palm oil expansion at any cost – is formulating a certification scheme for sustainable palm oil? Where are the scientists, agronomists and ecologists?

The article continues:

“the [Malaysian] Government is serious about introducing its national green palm oil certification scheme as an alternative to the current voluntary Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certification…this is an opportunity for Malaysia to tell the world that its oil palms are grown in a sustainable manner and do not involve the clearing of virgin forest.”

Malaysia wants to tell the world that land conversion for its oil palm “doesn’t involve the clearing of virgin forest?” Clearly the preservation of natural forests is important, but what about the Free, Prior, Informed Consent (FPIC) of its Indigenous peoples and forest communities? What about its critical habitat for endangered species like the orangutan? What about its other forested areas that are not natural forest land anymore but secondary forests—key habitat for endangered species and diverse forest peoples? I think Malaysia has more at stake that it cares to admit. Watering down criteria for the “sustainability” of its palm oil plantations could turn out to be nothing short of devastating for the people and wildlife of Malaysia.

Malaysia's Commodities Minister Bernard Dompok

If a massive palm oil company decides that getting its plantations certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is, well, just too hard, what do you think happens?

The Malaysian government comes to the rescue, of course, and comes up with a solution that will allow IOI — the largest palm oil plantation company in Malaysia — and a concerned Australian food industry to cover their asses by obtaining the green stamp of sustainability with more ease and efficiency.

Like a bad movie that just keeps getting worse, the Malaysian government recently decided to prioritize the expansion of palm oil at any cost by creating its own “sustainable palm oil” certification scheme that is much weaker than even the RSPO.

It seems that in an interesting chain of events, IOI may have found a way to continue undermining Indigenous rights by disregarding the native customary land rights of Long Teran Kenan (LTK). Backed by the Malaysian government, IOI will in effect be able to skirt a severe case of social conflict, and in the process completely undermine the RSPO grievance process, while at the same time managing to sell its palm oil to Australia as “sustainable.” Troubling.

A monoculture palm oil plantation

According to BusinessGreen.com, Bernard Dompok, Malaysia’s commodities minister, said the country’s plan to create its own sustainable palm oil certification scheme “is moving forward after the NGO and industry-backed RSPO reportedly accused Malaysian palm oil producer IOI Corp of violating its certification standards, and suspended plans to certify its plantations. ‘We will go ahead [with plans for a new certification scheme] because the RSPO keeps on changing its goal posts on how to produce sustainable palm oil,’ said Dompok.”

Wait a minute, let me get this straight: the RSPO — widely criticized for failing to enforce key social and environmental safeguards — is being too tough on IOI Group? In reality, as we’ve seen with the IOI case, the RSPO is just starting to flex its enforcement muscle, which has been quite welcomed by social and environmental NGOs. When the RSPO grievance panel swiftly responded to the grievance letter submitted by a dozen concerned NGOs in May and ruled that IOI was in breach of the RSPO Code of Conduct, suspending IOI’s plans to certify its plantations, RAN applauded the RSPO’s action. IOI’s illegal activity continues to drag on as the community of LTK struggles to regain possession of its native land.

Malaysia Under Pressure: Australia's Palm Oil Labeling Bill

Clearly IOI is looking for a free ride. Is the Aussie food industry doing the same thing? According to the Australian food industry, “The best way for Malaysia to counter the rising negative sentiment in Australia towards palm oil is to quickly increase the production of sustainable palm oil. One suggestion is to set a deadline for growers to fully adopt sustainable practices.” With mounting pressure from Australian consumers to label products that contain palm oil, manufacturers are swiftly looking into certified sustainable palm oil.

In Australia’s race to populate its grocery stores with products labeled with “sustainable palm oil,” will it use any discretion or simply lose sight of key social and environmental criteria? To keep Australia from watering down certification schemes for sustainable palm oil, consumers must not fall for Malaysia’s greenwash and demand real standards that are based on sound science.

Concerned that the emergence of competitive standards could make it harder to ensure that palm oil has been sourced from plantations that adhere to demanding environmental standards, RAN will continue working to improve both the standards of RSPO Certification as well as push for increased enforcement of RSPO members. Clearly, the RSPO still has major gaps, but unless we remain committed to improving it we may end up with far weaker and less legitimate certification schemes.