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 clear cutting Indonesia’s forests, home to the endangered Orangutan, Sumatran Tiger, and Elephant, in violation of Indonesian law. Not only is Sinar Mas’ palm oil dirty and dangerous, it is also illegal.

Sinar Mas is clearing rainforests in Borneo without proper government approval

With the world’s major buyers of palm oil, including Uniliver, Kraft, Sainsbury and now Nestle cutting  ties with Sinar Mas, Cargill’s support of Sinar Mas’ rainforest destruction and  chain of illegalities has become all the more unacceptable.

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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 33 Million dollar a year palm oil contract with the dirty, destructive, and dangerous palm oil producer Sinar Mas. Sinar Mas is Indonesia’s largest palm oil producer and also owns Indonesia’s largest timber company Asia Pulp and Paper.

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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 profit at the sake of forests and local communities. But hard facts are incredibly hard to pin down on this kind of illegal activity; indeed, one of the main points of ‘Wild Money’ is that there is a complete lack of information pertaining to Indonesia’s forestry sector – it appears that not even Indonesia’s Department of Forestry has any clear idea of how much forest is being destroyed or how much money is being made.

The report complies financial data to make a conservative estimate of $2 Billion USD of lost revenue annually from timber companies evading taxes, receiving under-the-table subsidies, and logging without the proper permits.

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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 passed villagers from the Kampar Peninsula, a carbon-rich and biodiverse ecoystem that is under attack by Sinar Mas’ oil palm operations and their timber division Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), on a hunger strike.

In front of the provincial parliament building, a group of men and women from the village of Kijang Kejo have set up a plastic tarp and banner, announcing to Riau’s elected officials that they will not eat until the oil palm plantation PT Arindo Tri Sejahtera, who stole their land and then paid thugs to kill three of their family members, is brought to justice.

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Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal included coverage of “growing pains” at the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Jim Carleton quotes me saying “It’s a question of how do we improve the system, not whether we can keep the system… Because if you look at the alternative systems run by industry, those are even weaker.”

The quote’s accurate, but incomplete. It’s important to fend off half-baked industry schemes like the SFI, but the more crucial point is that the FSC must improve to remain a credible tool for conserving forests.

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