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David Gilbert - who has written 38 posts on Rainforest Action Network Blog.
David Gilbert is currently a Research Fellow at RAN. He has worked in the tropical forests of the Amazon and Indonesia, with a special focus on conservation and indigenous rights issues.
Last week, Norman Jiwan of Sawit Watch, an Indonesian NGO ally concerned with the ongoing adverse social and environmental impacts of palm oil plantations, wrote an op-ed in the Jakarta Post. The op-ed entitled, Deforestation moratorium is not panacea?, stated his view on the recently signed $1 billion dollar Indonesia-Norway Letter of Intent (LoI) which [...]
Continue reading...By David Gilbert, June 3 2010
With oil gushing in the gulf, activists locking down in boardrooms, the ball of financial reform being thrown from Wall Street to Washington and back again, and Indonesia announcing a two year freeze on the parceling out of its forests to international corporations, the world’s focus seems to be on corporations. But in the struggle [...]
Continue reading...By David Gilbert, May 20 2010
This week the leading consumer food company Nestle announced new policies to eliminate palm oil connected with the increasingly dire status of broad swaths of the world’s rainforests. The expansion of palm oil plantations is an leading driver of deforestation in Indonesia, home to rainforests of global importance. In their statements this week, Nestle has [...]
Continue reading...By David Gilbert, March 22 2010
Last week Nestle joined the ranks of other major food conglomerates to cancel their palm oil contracts from Sinar Mas, Indonesia’s largest palm oil and wood pulp producer and notorious rainforest destroyer. Responding to the movements against Sinar Mas, Cargill also made an announcement on Sinar Mas last week; unfortunately Cargill chose to delay action [...]
Continue reading...By David Gilbert, March 17 2010
Nestle, the world’s largest food and beverage company, has become the latest major multinational to cancel their palm oil contract with Sinar Mas, one of Indonesia’s largest conglomerates and a leading producer of both palm oil and wood pulp for paper and packaging products. A string of reports have shown that Sinar Mas is actively [...]
Continue reading...By David Gilbert, February 24 2010
Cargill Inc., the world’s largest agribusiness company, has announced the sale of their palm oil plantations in the remote tropical nation of Papua New Guinea (PNG). Cargill owns mills and plantations in Indonesia, Malaysia, and until today, PNG, and trades palm oil globally produced by at least 25 additional palm oil producers in Indonesia and [...]
Continue reading...By David Gilbert, December 11 2009
Today Unilever, the consumer goods giant that purchases 4% of the world’s palm oil, has finally lived up to the commitments they made almost two years ago to remove rainforest destruction, human rights violations, and climate change chaos from their palm oil supply chain. Under intense pressure from Greenpeace and allies, Unilever has canceled their [...]
Continue reading...By David Gilbert, December 2 2009
Human Rights Watch has just released the report: Wild Money: The human rights consequences of illegal logging and corruption in Indonesia’s forestry sector. Talking to allies in Riau, Sumatra, where Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) is logging tropical forests, it is clear that APP engages in corruption and utilizes a complete lack of transparency to [...]
Continue reading...By David Gilbert, November 24 2009
Last week I was in Sumatra, Indonesia, traveling with representatives from the local NGO Warsi, investigating the impacts of Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), a wholly owned subsidiary of Sinar Mas, on forests and forests peoples. Two days of 4×4 travel over dirt roads brought my team to PT Wirakarya Sakti (WKS). There, I spoke [...]
Continue reading...By David Gilbert, November 15 2009
Here in Riau, Indonesia, signs of the struggle to save the last of Sumatra’s forest is everywhere. Daily, the papers cover stories of timber and oil palm companies destroying forests, engaging in corruption, driving land conflicts, sponsoring violence, and marginalizing indigenous peoples. Today, on the way to a meeting with the local NGO Elang, I [...]
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Our response to @MittRomney's out of touch response to #BofA protest in #CLT last week: http://t.co/6jGh8huQ
By David Gilbert, July 14 2010
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