Levi's Announces New Forest Product Policy

Asia Pulp and Paper is having a hard time holding onto customers these days. With the release of its forest products purchasing policy, Levi Strauss & Company has become the latest major brand to ban business with Asia Pulp and Paper (APP). This comes on the heels of a major public cancellation with APP affiliate Mercury Paper at the end of December by Kroger, America’s largest grocery chain.

So why is everyone running from APP?

APP has a nasty penchant for clearcutting Indonesia’s rainforests and disrespecting communities’ rights — and these abuses are proving to be bad for business. Despite the company’s deep pockets for slick PR greenwash campaigns, its tactics aren’t fooling a lot of customers. Over the past several years, a growing list of major companies have dropped their contracts with APP, including major US book publishers Scholastic, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster, leading toy companies Mattel, Hasbro and Lego, fashion giants Gucci and Tiffany and Co., and office supply stores Staples and Office Depot.

Levi’s new global policy not only excludes controversial fiber supplies linked to rainforest destruction (like that from APP), it also proactively maximizes the best environmental fibers available. For paper, it mandates that all paper purchased by the company be at least 30% post-consumer recycled content, with a goal of 100% whenever possible. When post-consumer recycled is not available, wood fiber must be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

Levi’s and other responsible corporate customers are implementing forward-looking policies that maximize the best environmental fiber and eliminate controversial sources. Meanwhile, reform for APP’s clearcutting ways still seems to be in the distant future. For the time being, it’s hard to imagine this list of APP customer cancellations doing anything but growing.

Asia Pulp and Paper is perhaps the world's largest rainforest destroyer

As Rainforest Action Network (RAN) continues our negotiations with The Walt Disney Company to secure a comprehensive paper policy that would exclude rainforest destruction from the company’s products, we are also keeping our eyes on the real prize: reforming logging giant and Indonesian rainforest destroyer Asia Pulp and Paper (APP).

APP has been called “one of the most destructive companies on the planet” by UK Guardian reporter George Monbiot, and now the shadowy logging behemoth is busy pursuing aggressive expansion plans into North American markets, including buying up a slew of paper mills in Canada. While RAN has been tracking the company’s trail of destruction for years, the first time many Americans heard of APP was in a front page New York Times piece last March.

RAN and our allies have been working hard to make sure it would not be the last time Americans hear about APP and its destructive ways. Over the past years, a steady stream of major corporate customers have dropped their contracts with APP, including major US book publishers Scholastic, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster; leading toy companies Mattel, Hasbro, and Lego; and fashion giants Gucci and Tiffany and Co. As the APP brand becomes ever more closely associated with the rainforest destruction and human rights abuses the company causes, more and more corporate customers are realizing the danger of doing business with such a toxic supplier.

As public awareness rises about the massive scale and reckless pace of logging by APP and its subsidiaries, the company has been forced to respond. But, instead of acknowledging and addressing the social conflict and deforestation it is responsible for, APP has chosen to invest heavily in public relations firms to polish its image and distract consumers from the growing controversy.

The result is a sophisticated, Orwellian, internationally orchestrated effort of smoke and mirrors that refines the old art of corporate greenwashing to masterpiece levels. When the World Wildlife Fund called APP’s logging one of the leading threats to the survival of the Sumatran Tiger, APP’s brazen response was to run ads in the NYT claiming “APP Cares” and is working hard to protect tiger habitat.

There is simply too much shocking hypocrisy and doublespeak in APP’s recent playbook to cover adequately here, so interested readers will need to stay tuned for more to come from RAN on this matter — but if you have the stomach for it, this TV ad from last summer is particularly nauseating.

APP’s approach to infiltrating North American markets has been to become adept at operating under the guise of a wide array of innocuous-seeming front companies that shroud the company’s products from its contaminated brand name. These shell companies, with names like Eagle Ridge Paper, Global Paper Solutions Inc., Solaris Paper, and Mercury Paper, are expanding throughout the US and Canada, and many customers have no idea they are actually buying from APP.

RAN looks forward to the day when accountability and socially and environmentally responsible sourcing replace today’s subterfuge and false claims of sustainability. We will be counting on you to help us get there.

RAN's Toyo Kawakami Organizes a Rare Public Protest in Japan Against Rainforest Destruction

This October marks the sixth anniversary of the opening of Rainforest Action Network’s Japan office, spearheaded by our Tokyo-based, activist-ambassador Toyo Kawakami.

Toyo began working for RAN in 2005, campaigning to convince large Japanese paper companies and retailers to stop buying wood chips linked to the destruction of Tasmania’s old growth forests sold by Australian timber giant Gunns Limited.  Gunns was the target of widespread opposition in Tasmania due to its clear-cutting of priceless and irreplaceable ancient eucalyptus groves.

Toyo’s efforts to educate large corporate buyers and Japanese banks, arrange Japanese delegation visits to Tasmania, secure contract cancellations, and wrangle media attention added significant pressure to a global campaign that achieved a major victory in 2010 when Gunns Ltd agreed to pull out of native forest logging altogether.

Toyo has now turned his sights to Indonesia, as RAN takes on an even larger and more intractable forest destroyer: Asia Pulp and Paper (APP). Japan is one of the world’s leading markets for paper products, where the use of fiber from Indonesia’s endangered rainforests is rapidly expanding.

Askul, the largest Japanese buyer of APP products, is estimated to purchase over 100,000 tons of paper from APP each year, a contract worth over US$100 million annually. Askul’s president has a reputation for caring about climate change, and the company already has a decent paper policy, but the relationship with APP makes it clear that the company’s paper policy is not being carefully applied. APP papers have possibly the highest carbon footprint in the world due to APP’s use of wood fiber from rainforest destruction and because the company’s pulp plantations are often planted on highly carbon-emissive peat soils.

Toyo Meets With Executives in Japan

In part, Askul is relying on the Indonesian Ecolabel Institute (LEI) to certify that the paper it buys is environmentally and socially responsible. But LEI fails to ensure that all of the areas it certifies are maintaining high conservation values, respecting community rights, and are free of social conflict. Furthermore, the fact that both APP and Indonesia’s other leading logging giant and rainforest destroyer, APRIL, sits on its board of directors raises serious questions about whether LEI is independent.

Toyo is working with Askul to begin implementation of its existing policy. This involves encouraging the company to push APP to stop further conversion of natural forests into plantations and to resolve social conflicts created by the company — or risk losing Askul’s very lucrative business.

Japanese culture around environmentalism, business relationships, and conflict is very different than here in the United States, and as a result Toyo is constantly challenged to adapt RAN’s style of market campaigning in ways that can lead to effective outcomes in Japan.

Toyo’s hurdles may be huge, but his track record of talented tenacity and patient perseverance points toward success. RAN is proud to be represented by Toyo as the rainforest’s man in Japan, and we look forward to keeping RAN supporters updated as his work progresses.

RAN forest campaigner Lafcadio Cortesi talks with elders of the village of Siabu in central Sumatra

It’s a good thing RAN’s forest campaigner, Lafcadio Cortesi, speaks Bahasa Indonesian so well. Otherwise I almost certainly would have gotten in the car with the undercover intelligence agent who told me to come with him because he “wanted to practice his English.”

We had just arrived in the small village of Siabu, in the Kampar region of east central Sumatra. Our plan was to meet up with a group of displaced villagers and participate in a land reclamation and planting party. The villagers are engaged in a land conflict with a subsidiary of pulp and paper giant APP, and their plan was to plant crops on their traditional lands and prevent the company from further establishing a pulpwood plantation in the disputed area.

Of the dozens of men milling about when we got out of the car, the first to approach me began asking questions about who I was with, what I was doing there, and the like. It quickly became apparent that the whole group was loading onto their motor bikes and moving to a less public location and we were to follow. We were all meant to meet up at the same place, so I was contemplating jumping in with my gregarious new friend, but Lafcadio said, curtly, “No. Travel with us.”

Not generally a curt fellow, Laf explained when we got in the car that our hosts were concerned the mystery guy was there to gather intelligence, though for whom he was gathering it was not quite clear. This was the first of many lessons and insights I gained that day into just how deeply dark and deranged the situation here has become.

Getting to the designated meeting place required hours of travel on a labyrinth of dirt roads through a 250,000 acre acacia plantation that stretched across the land like an infestation of neatly ordered rows of scrawny twigs. We were made to pass through several check points staffed by security personnel who sported the SOS corporate logo of their employer on a patch on one shoulder and a police badge on the other — a fitting display of the cozy relationship between the security state and the corporations whose interests they serve.

Lafcadio with customary elder Pak Datuk

At the second security post we picked up the Tokoh Adat, or customary elder of the local village, a man called Pak Datuk. The armed guards took the identification cards of our driver and Pak Datuk for safe keeping — and so they’d have leverage over the drive and Pak Datuk if anything untoward were to occur beyond the gate.

The gathering place was a promontory at the edge of the plantation overlooking a post-apocalyptic landscape cleared of all vegetation and scarred by a maze of roads leading nowhere. Later we would learn this spot was chosen because it is within the villagers’ ancestral territory, and is an area they hope to reclaim. It had been decided no planting would occur this day, but a meeting would proceed to discuss community goals and next steps.

About a hundred people had gathered, and our arrival created quite a stir. Half of the group surrounded us and jockeyed with one another to shake our hands and have their pictures taken with us, after which it was insisted that we eat. The group included pockets of animated young men smoking clove cigarettes and blaring pop music from mobile phones, elderly women wearing headscarves, and lots of adult men wearing the weathered look of hard-working farmers whose fortune had not come easily.

In the tense environment of present day rural Sumatran society, the simple act of gathering together on disputed territory is an act of resistance, and the day’s meeting did not go unnoticed. In addition to the undercover character we had met earlier, a group of armed law enforcement personnel — including private security, police officers, and at least one quasi-military looking gentleman — had amassed on the outskirts of the villagers’ assembly.

When Pak Datuk stood to speak, everyone circled and fell silent. He spoke with the elegance and authority of a strong and self-assured leader. From the bits whispered to me in translation I understood that he began by stating that his people are bound by three laws. In order, they are God, custom, and then the government. He said the goal of his people is to take action to reclaim their land rights and ancestral territory.

He said his people were given rights by their ancestors and that it is their duty to protect those rights so they can be passed on to their children before they are lost. He said they are bound to be peaceful, to be safe and not to use violence. He said it is crucial they maintain their unity in the face of those who would divide them. He finished each series of pronouncements with the question “Ingat?” (Remember?) or Mengar ti? (Do you understand?) to which the crowd in unison responded “Ingat!” or “Mengar ti!”

A canal cuts through a former village site and elephant habitat

When he was finished speaking, other village leaders spoke and details were discussed about what to plant and how to collect and distribute funds to make the provocative planting project possible. When the group disbanded, we drove away with an older, well-dressed village member named Pak Sudirman who guided us to the site a few miles away where their original village stood.

As we passed through a sea of sterile oil palm plantations, crudely dug canals and dry, exposed earth, he told us how rich this land had once been, not so long ago. Before his people were forcibly evicted by the military in the late 1980’s, their riverside territory had been habitat for elephants and monkeys, and his village practiced a sustainable form of mixed agroforestry that included crops like rubber trees, cassava, banana, chile, papaya, durien, mango, rambutan, jack fruit and a variety of vegetables.

In a darkly ironic twist, the only natural forest still standing in the area was saved because it was made part of a military bombing range. Entering this verdant forest felt like a full sensory massage. The sight of the towering trees, the feel of the moist air, the smell of dank richness, the sound of birdsong and the buzz of insects stood in stark contrast to the vacuous devastation just outside.

Back at the village where the day began, we shared smokes with the village’s men in the home of the traditional village chief. Pak Datuk told us in clear and passionate terms what the demands of his people are for APP, the company behind their conflict. He said the company never asked for their permission to use the land that belongs to them and they have never received any benefit. His demand is for APP to return the land to the community. He followed by asking that customers of APP stop buying products that come from their lands until the important issues of their traditional rights are resolved.

Laf speaks with the village's chief

The stories of these people and this place are a microcosm of what’s happening all over Sumatra and  in Borneo and the rest of Indonesia and Malaysia. People are displaced, forests are cleared, ecosystems are destroyed. Repeat. And until APP and their ilk among the all-powerful logging behemoths are convinced that business as usual is not in their own or Indonesia’s interest, these injustices will continue. Our meetings this week with allies and community leaders are a piece in the growth of a larger movement that is gaining momentum here and at home in the US. Companies like APP can no longer expect to act with impunity.

Two weeks ago Greenpeace International released a YouTube video detailing how pulped rainforest trees are ending up in the packaging of toys sold all over the world.  The video begins, “We got to wondering…who is using all the rainforest that is being destroyed in Indonesia?” The sad truth is that the answer to Greenpeace’s question is me, you, and probably our friends and family.

Greenpeace’s investigations revealed that several famous toy companies, including Mattel, Lego, Hasbro, and Disney, are using fiber from cleared Indonesian rainforests in the packaging for Barbies, Cinderella dolls, Transformers, Star Wars games, and more.

Two major pulp and paper companies, Asia Pulp and Paper and APRIL, are clearcutting Indonesia’s rainforests and replacing them with monoculture acacia plantations to make cheap paper for all sorts of consumer products. Last year, RAN discovered that fiber from Indonesia’s rainforests and the acacia plantations replacing them was also ending up in children’s books sold in the U.S., and in March we launched a campaign demanding that Disney, the world’s largest children’s book and magazine publisher, get Indonesian rainforest destruction out of all its paper products.

It’s absurd that children’s books, Barbie boxes and other paper products are driving the destruction of some of the world’s most biologically diverse rainforests, and it’s infuriating that everyday people are being made into unwitting participants in this travesty.

TAKE ACTION

Join the global campaign to tell APP and APRIL that enough is enough. It’s time to stop destroying precious rainforests, abusing forest peoples’ rights and fueling climate change.

The report, titled Corruption, Land Conflict and Forest Destruction was released with the launch of RAN’s campaign to get the Walt Disney Company to stop using paper connected to rainforest destruction.

APP has a long history of corruption, political manipulation and aggressive expansion into new forests and new markets. The UK Guardian’s George Monbiot said the corporation may be “one of the most destructive companies on the planet.”

True to form, APP responded aggressively to the release of RAN’s case study detailing impacts on local communities and forests caused by APP’s deforestation. According to the Vancouver Sun on June 6, 2011, “APP responded to the RAN report by sending speedboats and helicopters to the remote community in Sumatra to question villagers.”

RAN’s main concern is for the communities and community members who have raised their voices to bring attention to the egregious actions of APP. Any intimidation and harassment of community members is unacceptable. RAN will continue to monitor the safety and security of our allies as we pursue our campaign goals of challenging the destructive practices of APP.

APP paid to promote its claims on an international business wire, alleging the community leaders featured in RAN’s report had disavowed their previous statements. RAN stands by the evidence and conclusions presented in the case study and challenges APP to address the substantive claims the case presents. In fact, National Public Radio’s program Living on Earth did a feature episode on deforestation and climate change in late 2009 in which they visited the same area featured in RAN’s report. Their coverage echo’s the content and conclusions put forward in RAN’s case study.

RAN has long recognized APP as one of the world’s most dangerous rainforest destroyers and has campaigned successfully to get leading companies including the Gucci Group, Simon & Schuster, International Paper, Tiffany & Co., Levi’s, Penguin/Pearson, and over 20 others to sever ties to APP and controversial Indonesian fiber. Perhaps APP’s distortion of facts and focus on RAN is evidence that the global campaign to may be getting under the company’s skin.

By its intimidating response, APP is avoiding the important questions about its operations raised by the report that it doesn’t want to answer. Is APP still clearing tiger habitat and other valuable natural forests and peatlands? Is APP respecting the free, prior and informed consent of communities to choose if their traditional lands become company controlled plantations? Are the people and environment better off than before the company came in? What are APP’s expansion plans and where is the fiber and money coming from to fuel its expansion?

APP’s response to RAN illustrates the company’s newfound sophistication in corporate double speak and over-the-top greenwashing. The company has hired slick pr firm Cohn and Wolfe and launched a vigorous drive to clean up its image through flowery words and visionary statements that would be comical if they did not conceal such a dark truth beneath.

For a preview of what we can expect to see more of as the global campaign to unmask APP continues to grow in scope and strength, visit the company’s new website, Rainforest Realities, perhaps the pinnacle of the companies Orwellian tactics to date. With categories like ‘biodiversity’ ‘carbon storage’ and my favorite, ‘people, planet, profit,’ we can see that APP is learning the language of sustainability. We can only hope they will soon be motivated enough to actually practice it.

The lab tests revealed that all three Disney books did come from rainforest destruction. See the test results below.

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The test results showed that one of the books contained mixed tropical hardwood fiber (MTH) coming from Indonesia’s natural forests, while all three contained acacia fiber coming from monoculture acacia plantations that are replacing Indonesia’s natural forests.

Like good environmentalists, the RAN team sent a letter to Disney telling the company that it had a serious environmental problem: the paper used in its books was driving Sumatran tiger extinction, contributing to climate change, and driving social conflict between agribusinesses and Indonesian forest communities. Since that initial letter (sent in April 2010), Disney has not resolved this problem, and in May of this year we launched a public campaign against Disney demanding that the company eliminate controversial Indonesian fiber from its supply chain; cut ties with Indonesian pulp and paper companies APP, APRIL and their affiliates; and implement a comprehensive paper purchasing policy that puts environmental and social safeguards in place and increases use of responsible alternatives.

The urgency of meeting these demands was underscored by a Greenpeace report released this past Tuesday. Greenpeace commissioned its own fiber testing of the packaging of ten Disney-licensed products. This time, the results showed that all ten product packages contained both mixed tropical hardwood fiber and acacia fiber. The packages were purchased in multiple countries, including the UK, Germany, and Brazil (test results below).

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Greenpeace’s test results demonstrate that Disney’s connection to Indonesian deforestation through its paper (whether it’s in its book paper, toy packaging, or anything else) is likely to be even more widespread and problematic than the company thought. Luckily for Disney, the answers are already out there. Eight of the top ten children’s book publishers in the U.S. have already committed to eliminating controversial Indonesian fiber and controversial suppliers APP, APRIL, and affiliates. Companies in many other sectors, such as Staples, Office Depot, and the Gucci Group, have also done so. And countless companies have comprehensive paper policies that could help guide Disney.

What can you do? Email Disney CEO Bob Iger today to tell him and his senior management team that rainforest destruction is no fairytale. You can also join our email list to keep up to date with the latest on our campaign to move Disney.

APP is highly proficient at using covert marketing and shady political strategies to grow its business in Indonesia and abroad. Today, NYTimes journalist Mike McIntire exposed some of APP’s questionable business practices with a frontpage piece highlighting APP’s latest antics in the U.S., including revelations of suspicious links between the company and Tea Party-esque groups like the Institute for Liberty and the Consumer Alliance for Global Prosperity.

While McIntire’s article should be enough to pique the interest of any curious reader, it really only scratches the surface of APP’s impact on the planet’s forests and climate and the company’s use of political manipulation as a business strategy. APP has wielded immense influence in the Indonesian government for decades due to the close political and economic ties between the company’s founder, Eka Tjipta Widjaja, and notorious former Indonesian dictator Suharto. APP’s record in Indonesia shows that the company has operated with near immunity from the law (it is estimated that over 50 percent of logging in Indonesia is done illegally) and almost complete disregard for the environment and human rights.

As APP expands into North American markets (the company just bought its 5^th Canadian mill this week), it seems clear that we should only expect more of the same. Environmental devastation, disregard for human rights, and political manipulation are APP’s modus operandi, and groups like Consumer Alliance for Global Prosperity (CAGP) are spinning APP’s corporate interests and misdeeds into populist misinformation — manipulating APP customers and tea party advocates alike.

The good news is that RAN and others have been campaigning for the past several years to get APP to change its nasty ways. Within the last year, eight of the ten major U.S. children’s book publishers have moved away from APP and their main competitor APRIL as well as eliminated controversial Indonesian fiber from their books until it can be shown that reforms have been made in the industry.

Our team at RAN is committed to seeing this work through and to calling APP’s bluff until the company comes clean and stops destroying rainforests and misusing its power. We hope you’ll join us. Sign up to be a Rainforest-Free Paper Rapid Responder and we’ll let you know whenever there are things you can do to help hold rainforest-destroying companies like APP accountable.

“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.

Books can be a great source of new ideas, inspiration, and discovery, especially for kids. Walt Disney knew this, which is why Disney stories often carry inspirational messages for kids, urging them to dream big and imagine magical kingdoms full of laughter and happiness.

That’s why it’s so tragic  that the paper policy Disney announced last week completely fails to ensure the company’s children’s books won’t continue to be made from the world’s last remaining rainforests.

The new paper policy is Disney’s response to RAN’s demand for action, and it covers the company’s U.S. publishing business, which produces 50 million books and 30 million magazines a year. That’s a lot of trees. Here at RAN we had high hopes for this policy, but, to our dismay, the policy does little for the world’s forests.

The Disney policy states that, “Disney seeks to have 100% of paper sourced for product and packaging by its non-licensed businesses be sustainable. The paper sourced will contain recycled content, be sourced from certified forests, or be of known source origin.”

RAN fully supports making books from recycled content, especially the post-consumer type — it has the smallest environmental footprint. Kudos to Disney for including recycled. Unfortunately, it’s not clear how much recycled content Disney is committing to in this policy. Are we talking 5% by 2014 or 45% by the year’s end? There’s a big difference, and that’s why we tell companies that strong policies must include numeric, time-bound goals on percentage of post-consumer recycled content — something Disney missed in its policy.

Sadly, the un-quantified recycled content may be the policy’s strongest point. When reading the fine print on “certified forests,” the policy falls even shorter. On certification, the policy states: “Disney shall accept certification documentation for recycled and virgin paper from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certification Claims (PEFC), Canadian Standards Association (CSA), and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). Additional certification systems may be evaluated by Disney on a case-by-case basis.”

While variety may be the spice of life, right now only one forest certification provides even marginal assurance that environmental and socially responsible practices are being met, and that is the FSC. While other leading companies like Scholastic, Hachette, Timberland, Gucci Group, and many others include a clear preference for FSC-certified forest products in their corporate policies, Disney does not. In excluding this preference, Disney implies that all certifications are equal for the world’s forests and forest peoples. This is simply untrue. Here’s one useful comparison highlighting some key differences in certification schemes and showing that FSC performs better.

The last of the three criteria for paper products included in Disney’s paper policy is that they be of “known source origin,” meaning that they were not illegally harvested. While legality is a minimum bar, and we encourage all companies to know where their supply is coming from and ensure it is legal, legality almost never equates to environmental and social responsibility — and certainly not in Indonesia. What’s worse is that the only proof the Disney policy requires is a declaration of legality by the supplier — the party with the greatest interest in claiming the products they are selling is legal, whether that’s 100% true or not.

So what does all this mean? What does RAN really have to say to Disney?

We say live up to your own values, Disney. Your policy states that “Nature conservation is a top Disney priority.” Yet, the content of the current Disney policy does not ensure that Indonesia’s rainforests (or other endangered forests) won’t be pulped for Disney books.

Other U.S. children’s publishers, including Scholastic, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and many others, have comprehensive paper policies and additional commitments to move away from controversial Indonesian suppliers Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) and APRIL while eliminating controversial Indonesian fiber until key reforms have been undertaken. Disney can certainly do as well as their peers.

The clock is ticking for Indonesia’s rainforests, Disney. As Walt once said, “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”

Sinar Mas Clearing Forest in West Kalimantan, Making Room for Palm Plantations. Photo: Greenpeace

Sinar Mas Group, the notorious international palm oil pariah, recently made a remarkable announcement: The company’s subsidiary, Golden Agri Resouces (GAR), intends to implement a forest conservation policy. Among other things, GAR’s Forest Conservation Policy commits it to a goal of “no new development” on peat lands, High Conservation Value Forest areas or High Carbon Landscapes, respecting Indigenous and local communities, and achievement of RSPO certification for all its holdings by 2015.

Well, sounds good on paper, right?

The announcement is significant for several reasons. First, it demonstrates that global grassroots market pressure campaigns are working. When Indonesia’s largest palm oil producer — whose environmentally and socially egregious production practices have made it the poster child of everything that is wrong with the palm oil industry — announces its intention to move, it’s clear that our message is starting to get through. GAR’s announcement follows years of worldwide negative press and international contract cancellations, most recently from major high-profile companies including General Mills, Burger King, Nestle and HSBC.

Second, while the announcement recycles a number of previous GAR commitments, it is the first time a major palm oil supplier has set clear criteria defining High Carbon Landscapes (HCL). This is a hugely important benchmark for the entire palm oil industry in Indonesia as well as for the pulp and paper sector. (Interestingly, Sinar Mas Group also owns the largest and most notorious pulp and paper producer in Indonesia, Asia Pulp and Paper.) The RSPO needs to include this benchmark in its standards, and it deserves to also be embraced and codified by the government as it moves forward with actions to reduce deforestation — including the upcoming moratorium on forest conversion expected from the President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Carbon emissions from massive corporate-led deforestation and peatland destruction in Indonesia have vaulted it to a third place ranking as the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter after China and the US.  GAR’s HCL criteria are set at a “provisional 35 tons of carbon per hectare,” which should take most valuable standing forest off the table and shift expansion to more degraded lands. GAR, working with forest consultants Tropical Forest Trust, will be doing a study to assess this benchmark over the next 6 months.

Most importantly, however, is what GAR’s announcement says about Cargill.

If GAR is willing to step forward and make such overdue commitments publicly, why isn’t Cargill doing the same for its palm oil business? Cargill needs to clean up its palm oil supply chain and insist on what GAR is promising from ALL of its palm oil suppliers (as well as on Cargill’s own palm oil plantations). Cargill trades an estimated 20-25% of global palm oil production. As long as Cargill continues to trade in unsustainably produced palm oil, the company is a huge part of the problem.

In a recent article dissecting GAR’s new policy, CSR veteran David Logan, who is tasked with helping usher GAR into 21^st Century corporate social responsibility, notes that he’s making sure GAR has a vested interest in improved transparency. Wait a minute, did he say Transparency? What a concept for a massive palm oil company! The kind of transparency he’s advocating is exactly the type of consistent public reporting we’re looking for in a Cargill policy.

Taken just at face value, GAR’s commitments represent a positive signal, both for the company and more widely for the palm oil industry. When even a palm oil pariah like GAR says it will go to bat for forest protection, other major palm oil players like Cargill are going to have to get more serious about their commitments to clean up their palm oil business.

Join our campaign to get Cargill to implement a palm oil policy that ensures that all the palm oil they purchase and trade doesn’t come from rainforest destruction or slave labor, whether from third party suppliers or Cargill’s own plantations — where the company is both destroying the rainforest and abusing worker’s rights.

Sign our petition and ask Cargill to show real leadership in making sure that rainforests aren’t cut down for palm oil.

One last thought: As Mr. Logan raised in his discussion about GAR’s uphill journey towards corporate social responsibility, GAR’s new policy announcement begs us to revisit an important question about the RSPO. If one of the worst players in the industry has essentially committed to surpass the RSPO’s principles and criteria, that calls into question whether or not the RSPO — the only certification criteria that commands any significant percent of the palm oil market — has strong enough standards to make a real difference on the ground in Indonesia.

As the latest fashion trends were just unveiled at New York’s spring Fashion Week, it seems an appropriate moment for an update on RAN’s work in the fashion world. Unfortunately, our update  is not an uplifting one.

As you might recall, back in December 2009, PAK 2000, a luxury shopping bag manufacturer, announced that they would cut all financial ties with its majority shareholder Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) by the end of 2009. The company also committed to work with RAN to develop and implement a leadership paper policy that gives preference to recycled and FSC-certified paper and phases out all controversial and high conservation value forest fiber, including all fiber from Indonesia, from its paper products within 180 days.

PAK 2000 broke their promises.

After attempting to work with PAK 2000 for a year to verify and implement its commitments, RAN was unable to make progress, and RAN’s Executive Director Rebecca Tarbotton issued the following letter to PAK 2000’s customers in December 2010:

Dear Sir or Madam:

In December last year, PAK 2000 made commitments to your company, to RAN and to other customers to sever its connection with Asia Pulp and Paper, stop sourcing Indonesian and other controversial paper and fiber and adopt a best in class paper purchasing policy. I am deeply disappointed to inform you that PAK 2000 has failed to meet these commitments and appears to be unwilling to do so. Because of this, I once again urge you to suspend contact and business with PAK 2000. RAN believes this company is both misleading and continues to contribute to the destruction of Indonesia’s rainforests.

Since making these commitments last December, PAK 2000’s founder and former CEO Claude Roessiger has been forced out, and control of the company has been taken back by Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) under the leadership of long time APP associate Howard Lo.

After learning that PAK 2000 had a new CEO in May, RAN representatives traveled to New Hampshire for a meeting scheduled with Mr. Lo and his senior management team in July. However, Mr. Lo canceled his participation in the meeting and subsequent requests for a meeting have gone unanswered.

In July, RAN was able to meet with PAK 2000’s CFO and learned that PAK 2000 is failing to meet the commitments made to your company and to RAN, including:

1. Severing “connections” with APP;

2. Stopping the purchase of papers with controversial fiber (including fiber from Indonesia) within 180 days; and,

3. Adopting a “leadership” paper procurement policy with an FSC preference.

We believe that APP misrepresented facts relating to the transfer of ownership away from APP to Mr. Roessiger and PAK 2000’s management at the time and, by extension, to RAN and your company. In December, we were told that APP divested their majority shares of PAK 2000 by selling to the Dutch holding company Overveen and no longer had an interest in PAK 2000. However, over the spring and summer, we learned that Overveen is listed as owned by an individual in Taiwan. When colleagues endeavored to contact the person at the address listed for Overveen, nobody of that name could be found at the address. We became suspicious and conducted subsequent research, which revealed that Mr. Lo has been an employee of APP-controlled companies for over a decade (see Nippecraft 2009 Annual Report).

Our conclusion is that PAK 2000 is back under APP control and has lied to the staff of PAK 2000, RAN and your company. The transparency and trust that had been growing though our negotiations with PAK 2000 under Mr. Roessiger’s leadership, and that had been a cornerstone of the voluntary agreement reached between PAK 2000 and RAN, have disappeared. Further, PAK 2000 has reneged on their commitments to eliminate controversial fiber by July 2010 and to adopt an FSC preference procurement policy. In fact, as an affiliate of APP, PAK 2000 may lose its FSC chain of custody certification entirely.

Given these developments, RAN can no longer recommend PAK 2000 as an environmentally responsible or reliable business partner. We urge you to eliminate any business you have with PAK 2000 due to the company’s failure to meet its commitments, lack of transparency and links to APP, a company whose history is rife with social, environmental and financial controversy.

We apologize to you for any confusion and inconvenience this new information may provoke and look forward to learning what actions your company will take given this new information.

Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) is Indonesia's largest paper company and the fourth largest in the world. The clearing of rainforests and draining of peatlands in Indonesia has become a huge source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and it is largely driven by the pulp and paper industry.

It’s disappointing that Habitat for Humanity — a group I have a lot of admiration for — didn’t do its homework before partnering with Indonesia’s most destructive pulp and paper company, Asia Pulp and Paper.

Not only is Habitat getting used to fuel APP’s massive PR machine, but Habitat is soiling its own reputation and contradicting its values of integrity, upholding human rights, and addressing poverty by associating with a company that regularly bends the truth, undermines rights and grabs community land and livelihoods.

And this is not even to mention the immense negative impacts APP’s operations are having on Indonesia’s  forests, biodiversity and the climate. (The amount of carbon emissions resulting from APP’s operations is a subject the company has been thoroughly duplicitous about in the past — read our report in which we set the record straight about APP’s “hidden” emissions.)

From Scholastic and the Gucci Group to Office Depot and Staples, those companies that have looked into APP’s record and performance have seen fit to sever ties with the company. RAN urges Habitat for Humanity to research just who it’s dealing with in partnering with the likes of APP, and to find another partner that is consistent with its noble humanitarian mission.

Many extractive industry types are suggesting that adopting environmental reforms will stymie development and have called for the planned moratorium to be withdrawn. In addition to Indonesia’s political leadership, this “environment versus development” argument also places them squarely at odds with the facts. Contrary to companies like Asia Pulp and Paper’s claims that adopting environmental and social safeguards will hamper national development and job creation, an effective moratorium and REDD (reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) scheme present an opportunity to jumpstart a new type of “low carbon” sustainable development that would be good for business, communities, and the environment.

The President’s decree on the moratorium is expected any day now. What gets included in the President’s decree — and, even more importantly, what gets done while the moratorium is in place to combat corruption and reform land use policy, decision-making processes, and community rights and tenure — is of critical importance.

The contents of the decree and what happens while the moratorium is in place should matter to a wide-range of businesses in the U.S. and elsewhere that have supply chain or financial links to commodities like pulp and paper and palm oil that are driving deforestation in Indonesia. An effective moratorium could help eliminate social and environmental controversy and create more certainty and supply sustainability. Whether it’s businesses that make and sell food, cosmetics, and household cleaners and thus rely on palm oil, or publishers, copy/printing paper manufacturers, and tissues and packaging companies that require pulp and paper, these firms should be supporting a robust moratorium and measures to adopt safeguards, reduce emissions, and undertake key reforms.

All of these businesses should be working with their Indonesian counterparts, as well as the U.S. and Indonesian governments, to support President Yudhoyono and the private sector and civil society voices advocating a moratorium that includes suspending further loss of Indonesia’s remaining natural forests (both secondary and primary) and peatlands (including those less than three meters deep), even in areas where licenses have been approved but conversion hasn’t yet taken place. And they should be reconsidering their business with pulp and paper and palm oil companies like Asia Pulp and Paper, APRIL, Duta Palma and P.T. Smart whose practices are at odds with this approach.

No matter the scope of the moratorium, the key for protecting the climate, for providing local livelihoods to Indonesians, and for achieving low-carbon development will be to realize the intent behind the moratorium by establishing baselines and monitoring mechanisms, identifying high carbon value areas both in concession areas and outside them, tackling corruption, and dealing with land tenure issues and policies. The private sector has a key role to play, both by giving business to suppliers that demonstrate low carbon and socially and environmentally responsible practices and by supporting the aspirations put forward this week by President Yudhoyono and Mr. Gore.

Kampar Peninsula: Photo Via Treehugger

Sinar Mas Group’s Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), Indonesia’s largest and most controversial logger, made another promise this week.

APP announced that one of the rainforest logging and conversion permits it controls (located in the globally significant peatland forests of the Sumatra’s Kampar Peninsula) will be re-licensed as a carbon conservation project.

However, given the lack local community or government involvement, the fact that the Industrial Timber Plantation license has yet to be reclassified as restoration or protected forest by government, and given the long timelines and lack of details associated with the deal, it remains to be seen if this is just another empty promise and public relations ploy by APP.

APP has a long history of broken commitments with communities, government, certification bodies, civil society and its customers.

Here’s my official statement:

The Kampar is among the deepest and most valuable peat forest ecosystems in the world. Not only does it provide carbon storage, it is customary land that supports the livelihoods of local communities and it serves as critical habitat for endangered Sumatran tigers and many other species. Although RAN hasn’t seen the details behind this announcement, it’s likely that the area in question should be illegal to clear in the first place. Any further development in this or other parts of the Kampar and neighboring peatlands and natural forests should certainly be subject to the moratorium on new licenses due to be adopted in January as part of the agreement on reducing deforestation and forest degradation between the Governments of Indonesia and Norway.
While we support the conservation of the Kampar, this project in no way makes up for the tremendous amount of damage that APP and its affiliates are having on communities rainforests and peatlands across Indonesia. This area represents a small proportion of the remaining natural forests and peatlands in their land bank and without action to protect other threatened areas in the Kampar and elsewhere, the area’s values could be lost and any emissions reductions rendered meaningless due to leakage.

APP’s conservation efforts are a drop in the bucket compared to the destruction that their standard business practices are causing across Indonesia. Under no circumstances should APP be praised or compensated for doing something that they should have been doing in the first place.

A critical question that needs to be answered in this situation, is whether or not local communities and governments know that this is happening and have a meaningful role in decision-making. If we don’t know that, it’s unclear where benefits will flow from this deal and how durable it will be. RAN maintains that if these types of conservation projects are to be successful, they must have the free, prior and informed consent of local communities and these communities must participate and receive an equitable share of the benefits.

What’s really good here is that the Ministry of Forests is stepping up to change the designation of this land use from “clear and convert” to “restore and protect.” If it’s done in the right way, involving communities and avoiding leakage, it could be an important precedent for Indonesia’s government.

If Indonesia is going to live up to their agreement with Norway, the government must re-designate licenses somehow and APP holds a lot of concessions with peat and natural forests. We urge the government to involve local communities, settle land claims and, as they appear to be doing with this agreement, and to reallocate all remaining undeveloped peatlands and natural forests to restoration/conservation areas.

Finally, this project is a great example of why, before they package carbon as a commodity, private carbon traders should adopt fundamental social and environmental safeguards and require their clients to verify that they’re not involved in the destruction of peatlands and natural forests across all their land holdings.

Thought the jury’s still out on how this project will land- given APP’s track record of deception, corruption and destruction- don’t hold your breath.

The publishing world is rapidly changing as technology influences where, when, and how an author goes about getting published. San Francisco’s very own Litquake extravaganza delves into this further and works to help authors navigate the new terrain. Two events directly relate to our Rainforest Free Paper Campaign and are worth blogging, talking, and tweeting about.

Event: Off the Richter Scale: AltPub

• Title: Who Needs a Publisher?
• Location: Variety Preview Room Theater, 582 Market St
• Date/Time: Oct 3rd, 1-2PM

This discussion analyzes the current publishing framework and questions whether authors really need to go through one of the big six publishers to gain notoriety. Thanks to on-demand and social publishing, small publishers, and e-books there are a variety of effective alternatives. Our opinion? Options are great! Some of the large publishers are buying paper from APP & APRIL, companies that are clearing and converting Indonesia’s rainforests to monoculture plantations to make cheap paper. While the AltPub event offers authors advice on how to achieve literary success, we want authors to publish through environmentally friendly distribution channels – whether they be one of the big six publishers, on-demand publishing, or anything else. For more on our work, check out our report at www.ran.org/bookreport.

Event: Enviro-Lit Panel:

• Title: The Sustainable Solution to the Economy
• Location: Beach Chalet, 1000 Great Hwy
• Date/Time: Oct 3 6:30PM-7:30PM

Not only is technology acting as a publishing game-changer, but climate change is as well. This discussion is worth being part of, as expert panelists address this issue head-on. What economic repercussions will we face if we ignore these environmental issues? How will this affect our government and what power do individuals have to make an impact? With environmental reporter and editor of Bay Area Report for The NY Times, Felicity Barringer moderating this event, it is sure to be worthwhile.

October 3rd is shaping up to be a pretty informative and inspiring day. These issues covered at Litquake speak directly to the overarching goals of our Rainforest Free Paper Campaign and we thank Litquake for being so environmentally and socially responsible!

Can you hear me??

Well, I hope you can hear me.

Hi Everybody! My name is Tiki. My friends call me Tiki the Tiny Tiger because I’m the smallest tiger cub in the whole wide world!

Will you be my friend?

They call me Tiki the Tiny Tiger because there are only five species of tigers left in the world, and Sumatran Tiger cubs are the smallest out of all of them. That’s right: since I’m a lil’ Sumatran tiger cub, that makes me the smallest, cutest tiger in the whole wide world. Now, I’m the new spokestiger for the Rainforest-Free Paper campaign with all my new friends at Rainforest Action Network. Gosh, those sure are some nice, smart people over at RAN! They said if I type this blog that I could meet more people that will want to help save my rainforest home.

There is something else tiny about Sumatran Tigers: our numbers. This makes me soooo sad but there are only 500 Sumatran Tigers left in the rainforest! Every day these big, loud, scary machines come and chop down our rainforest trees. Then we have less space to live in and find food, so my tiger species is great danger of going extinct… nooooooooo!

I just don’t know why those machines are cutting down the trees- me and my friends live here! I heard that people are taking some of these trees and turning them into paper for books. Now even though tiny tigers don’t read a whole lot, we still love books. We shouldn’t have to choose between books and rainforests… that’s silly!

My friends at Rainforest Action Network said they will start talking to ‘publishers’, the people who make books- and give them a chance to change their bad, rainforest-destroying habits. If they don’t, we have to get together and RAWR for the rainforests. Sometimes, some grow-ups don’t hear me roaring at all. But I met a lot of cool kids who can hear me, and they roar really load. At RAN, I even met some RAWRING grown-ups! Will you RAWR with me too?

Visit www.TikiTheTiger.com and you can be my friend on Facebook and Twitter. This whole world wide spider, i mean, world wide web makes it really easy to stay in touch with the whole wide world. And right now, that’s a great thing because I need the whole wide world to RAWR for rainforests with me!

Thank you for being my friend. Let’s save my rainforest home!

Love, Tiki

The Jakarta Globe reported that a teenage boy was mauled by Sumatran tiger in the Senepis area of Indonesia, an area where Asia Pulp and Paper ( a subsidiary of Sinar Mas Group) along with other Sinar Mas-associated companies have expanded their natural forest clearance operations.

Later that day, Asia Pulp and Paper ran an ad in the New York Times stating that it took its responsibility as stewards of the environment seriously. The ad proclaims, “We support programs that preserve 261,930 acres in the Senepis Tiger Sanctuary…”

Dubbed under the tagline “APP Cares,” the ad’s heading reads,  “To see our commitment to biodiversity, just follow our tracks.” Given the timing, the allusion to tiger tracks now just seems a perverse irony.

NY Times Ad: Another Greenwash Attempt by APP

Looking at the New York Times ad, I wonder what does APP’s “caring” really mean? If a boy was eaten by a tiger that lost its habitat in the area that APP operates but publicly claims to be preserving, their care or “support” seems, at the very least, a little suspect.

The Jakarta Globe explains that Sumatran tigers’ habitat is threatened by rampant deforestation, which causes many tigers to roam into villages or onto plantations in search of food, setting off conflicts with humans.

What the Jakarta Globe doesn’t say is that much of this deforestation is for pulp and paper and palm oil – two industries dominated by Sinar Mas and Asia Pulp and Paper.

While I would truly love to believe that APP does care about tigers, people and the planet, they are going to have to do more than run greenwashing ads in the New York Times to convince me.

**For more information: See the Eyes on the Forest report documenting APP’s  logging activities that directly threatened tiger habitat in the Senepis area.

Sumatran Tiger: Photo By Brimack/Creative Commons

This week the Jakarta Globe reported that a teenager named Ahmad Rafi was killed by a Sumatran tiger. He was mauled while he and his parents were tapping rubber trees in their plantation in Rimbo Melintang, a village in Riau province on the island of Sumatra.

When I first read this, I felt sick. I thought what a horrible way to die. What a horrible thing for your family to see. No one should have to die in such a way.

Then when processing this news on a deeper level, it made me angry. I realized that Rimbo Melintang is in the Senepis area, an area where Asia Pulp and Paper ( a subsidiary of Sinar Mas Group) along with other Sinar Mas-associated companies have expanded their natural forest clearance operations in five concessions.

In 2009, Eyes on the Forests released a study that showed that most violent incidents between people and tigers in Sumatra’s Riau Province occurred near forests being cleared by paper giant Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) and associated companies. Specifically, at least 147 of 245, or 60 percent, of all human-tiger conflicts in Riau occurred in the Senepis area.

As Asia Pulp and Paper clears and converts rainforests in the Senepis area and elsewhere in Indonesia, they eradicate tiger habitat, forcing tigers to roam into villages or onto plantations in search of food and setting off conflicts with unsuspecting humans like Ahmad Rafi.

While on the surface, the death of Amhad Rafi seems like a distant tragedy for most Americans, the reality is that there is a connection for all of us. Ahmad Rafi was a victim of deforestation and the unsustainable practices of Indonesian pulp and paper companies, and American demand for cheap paper products, like copy paper, toilet paper, and even books, is driving this deforestation.

As American consumers, we can try to honor Ahmad Rafi and his community by ensuring that our purchases don’t come from companies that are razing rainforests in the Senepis area or elsewhere in Indonesia. Find out more about our effect on Indonesian wildlife and what you can do about it by attending a Hot August Nights screening near you this month.

Sago is a starch extracted from the pith of sago palm stems. These palms grow in tropical lowland forest and freshwater swamps across Southeast Asia and serve as a major food staple for people in the region. In Tebing Tinggi, their sago farm is owned and run by hundreds of families and provides both food and a good source of income to the community.

Tebing Tinggi’s sago farm is being threatened by Indonesia’s pulp and paper industry.

The village head told us that their community’s sago farm was under threat by Indonesia’s second largest pulp and paper company, Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Limited (APRIL). He told us that APRIL had received a cutting permit from the Indonesian government to clear the forest where their sago palms grow. With this permit, APRIL had entered the area with bulldozers and logging machinery and started cutting. However, the community had not agreed to this. In fact, the community actively opposes APRIL’s presence, and they have declared their opposition to the government, the company, and through banners hung on their main streets.

The people of Tebing Tinggi continue to fight to keep APRIL out of their forests and to keep their sago farm productive. But they need our support to tell companies in the U.S. that we also oppose pulp and paper companies’ expansion into Indonesian forests and on community lands. APRIL and their competitor Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) produce paper from Indonesian rainforest destruction for books, copy paper, and toilet paper being sold in the U.S. and elsewhere.

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.

The world’s CEOs, environmental groups, and local Indonesian communities all agree: Sinar Mas is a critical threat to the world’s forests, forest peoples, and the climate. Those companies who buy from Sinar Mas have acted, and Sinar Mas is reeling from tens of millions of dollars of contract cancellations.

Sinar Mas built this logging road in primary rainforest without government approval, violating Indonesian law. PT WKS, Riau, Sumatra

Yet Cargill continues to stand by Sinar Mas. The Minnesota based agribusiness giant sells Sinar Mas palm oil worldwide, turning a profit as Sinar Mas illegally burns carbon rich peat forests and forcibly evicts local communities to make way for palm oil. Cargill has repeatedly refused to disclose the size of their palm oil contracts with Sinar Mas subsidiaries and affiliates, contracts  insiders believe Cargill pays Sinar Mas tens of millions of dollars a year for their dangerous palm oil.

Although Kraft and Nestle have canceled their contracts with Sinar Mas, these companies are still not free of Sinar Mas’ palm oil in their global supply chains. Both Kraft and Nestle are large buyers of palm oil from Cargill, and Cargill continues to supply palm oil to the global market from Sinar Mas. Until Cargill cancels with Sinar Mas, Nestle, Kraft, and USA companies such as General Mills, will be forced to support Sinar Mas’ untenable palm oil operations in Indonesia.

Business as usual has become unacceptable for buyers of palm oil. The top management of Unliver, Kraft, and Nestle have all acknowledged that systemic change is needed in Indonesia’s palm oil sector. But Cargill, with their business based on unsustainable clearing and burning of rainforests, refuses to act on the demands of their customers.

Over the past months, Cargill has repeatedly told RAN that they will change their ways if they ‘hear it from our customers’. Well, Cargill’s customers have spoken, and Cargill management must disassociate themselves with Sinar Mas, other worst-of-the-worst palm oil producers, and put an immediate end to deforestation at their own palm oil plantations, or risk being the next palm oil supplier that Uniliver, Kraft, and Nestle cut all ties with.

David Gilbert is a forest program research associate with RAN. He has lived and worked in the forests of the Amazon and Indonesia. He has a special focus on Indigenous rights and tropical forest conservation.

He can be reached at davidgilbert AT ran DOT org