Eyewitness Story: The Last Village by Dr Setia Budhi
A lone Dayak village in Borneo surrounded by palm oil plantations has held out for 14 years and resisted corporate infiltration by global palm oil giants. My name is Dr Setia Budhi, I am a Dayak ethnographer and human rights advocate. I visited this village recently to see how they were going.
Pictured: The Barito River, the largest river in South Kalimantan Borneo by Aditya Perdana, Getty Images
“#Dayaks DO NOT want their lands turned to #palmoil. 1. They depend on rainforests for food/weaving. 2. They don’t want their roaming area disturbed 3. They don
... show more
Eyewitness Story: The Last Village by Dr Setia Budhi
A lone Dayak village in Borneo surrounded by palm oil plantations has held out for 14 years and resisted corporate infiltration by global palm oil giants. My name is Dr Setia Budhi, I am a Dayak ethnographer and human rights advocate. I visited this village recently to see how they were going.
Pictured: The Barito River, the largest river in South Kalimantan Borneo by Aditya Perdana, Getty Images
“#Dayaks DO NOT want their lands turned to #palmoil. 1. They depend on rainforests for food/weaving. 2. They don’t want their roaming area disturbed 3. They don’t want to lose their land.” Dr Setia Budhi #Boycottpalmoil 🤬🌴🚫 palmoildetectives.com/2022/11/… @palmoildetect.bsky.social
Recently, I stayed a Ngaju Dayak village for 15 days
During my visit I wrote a lot, chatted with villagers and visited palm oil farmers.
This remote village is 125 km from downtown Banjarmasin. It’s a distance of about two hours by motorbike to arrive in a neighboring village and from then there, three hours by boat.
Located on the banks of the Barito river, the people who live here are the Ngaju Dayak.
Pictured: Dayak long house in Kalimantan, PxFuel.
The first time I visited this village was 14 years ago in 2008
Since then, I’ve always followed its development by reading the news. Especially interesting is the development that the villagers have refused the presence of palm oil plantations. They have refused to give up their lands to global corporate palm oil companies.
Fourteen years ago, I thought that this village would eventually be besieged by the expansion of oil palm plantations. My suspicions were based on what happened in neighbouring villages. They had given up and accepted the omnipresence of palm oil. Many residents sold their land to the plantations.
In these other towns, some residents work with palm oil companies in a cooperative way. Their land is planted with palm oil and they, as owners, work for the company for wages. Their activities include land-clearing, planting palm oil, along with fertilising and liming the soil.
So these people work on their own land. At that time, their daily wages are around 50,000 rupiahs ($3.30 USD) per day.
Pictured: Klotok traditional river boat on a river in Borneo by Guenterguni Getty Images
There are three reasons why the villagers do not want their ancestral lands to become a palm oil plantation:
1. They depend on the rainforest and peatlands for natural resources such as fisheries, agriculture and rattan weaving.
2. They don’t want their roaming area to be disturbed.
3. They don’t want to lose their land.
By roaming area‟ you probably think of a suburban area near you. For Dayaks, their roaming area is vastly different.
Clockwise: The Barito River: The largest river in South Kalimantan Borneo by Aditya Perdana Getty Images; Wooden Dayak village – Long Iram on the riverbank Mahakam river East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Getty Images; Nature in Annah Rais Sarawak, Malaysia by Nyiragongo Getty Images; Barito River -The largest river in South Kalimantan, Indonesia by Aditya Perdana Getty Images; Borneo’s spectacular rivers and rainforests; Getty Images; A group of beautiful Dayak Fruit Bats Dyacopterus spadiceus perched inside a hut at the Way Kambas National Park in Sumatra via Getty Images Signature collection.
The Dayak people need a roaming area for hunting, fishing and foraging for herbs, building materials and medicines
Pictured: Dayak family, Central Kalimantan by IndoMet licensed under CC BY 2.0 The palm oil industry is an unstoppable global corporate juggernaut that has become increasingly greedy for land in the past ten years.
When you hear about even a tiny piece of land that is about to be sold, global palm oil companies immediately and aggressively go after the land as buyers. They bargain and negotiate, driving the price down that they pay for the land – so the traditional landowners do not get paid what the land is really worth.
Pictured: Plasma Poverty, a joint investigation by Gecko Project and the BBC into major supermarket brands like Mondelez and Nestle (RSPO members) who are stripping smallholder farmers of their share of profitfor palm oil.
To read the news in Indonesia and Malaysia is to read brazen lies and greenwashing about palm oil
Reading news about palm oil is an astonishing experience that will fill you with confusion and incredulity. Your newsfeed will be brimming with stories about the greatness of oil palm and the welfare of farmers.
Palm oil is considered “good” in a neoliberal sense of the financial and economic growth that it brings here as a country. Also palm oil is considered “good” as an environmentally-friendly and healthy ingredient for all to buy and consume.
There is a flood of greenwashing news across all media channels: TV, online media, and social media channels celebrating the virtues of this enormously destructive ingredient. This false narrative emphasises palm oil as a method of “care for the environment‟.
For this reason, nowadays I choose to distance myself from social media, as this content is dishonest about what palm oil is in reality.
“Many of us grow rice, fruits and vegetables on our indigenous lands for survival and depend on the cash sales from oil palm fruits to buy what we cannot grow. Our oil palm trees empower us as indigenous peoples.”
The reality of palm oil is vastly different for Dayak peoples
Reports carried out by news media in Borneo simulate the facts about the real events and the detrimental impact of palm oil on Dayak communities.
We as the audience must remain constantly vigilant and aware that this is bad news.
“An assistant manager came to my home. On that day my oldest son had fever. He said to my husband, “Your five hectares of land here is gone and two hectares here is gone. Go to the company and get your money.” My husband told them he doesn’t want to sell. Months later, while I was at my mother’s new house [in the plantation] and my husband was away in Malaysia, we heard a loud noise and could see smoke. I went to see, and it was crazy. My house was already burned. Everything was in there, my son’s bicycle, clothes, and all the wood we planned to build a house, all was gone.”
~ Francesca, a 28-year-old Iban Dayak mother of two, told Human Rights Watch about how she and her husband refused relocation. She said that company representatives torched her home, rendering them homeless. Story via Human Rights Watch
Pictured: Rainforest on fire, Getty Images
Pollution run-off in an RSPO member palm oil plantation in Sumatra. Craig Jones Wildlife PhotographyDeforestation for palm oil at ground level – Getty Images videoDeforestation for palm oil waste reservoirs- Getty Images
The difficulty of addressing and resolving oil palm conflicts is due not only to the inadequacies of Indonesia’s legal framework regarding land and plantations but also to the way in which Indonesia’s informalized state institutions foster collusion between local power holders and palm oil companies. This collusion enables companies to evade regulation, suppress community protests and avoid engaging in constructive efforts to resolve conflicts. Furthermore, this collusion has made the available conflict resolution mechanisms largely ineffective.
With the palm oil narrative in Indonesia – many people can no longer distinguish the real from the fake, the fact from the simulation
The media presents a seemingly diverse chorus of voices that all seem to be singing from the same songbook – all of them praising palm oil.
Interviews with field officers, researchers, seminar recordings, podcasts, PR and advertising campaigns are backed financially by the palm oil industry to glaze over and greenwash the immense environmental and social impact of palm oil.
Instead we are presented with a positive narrative about palm oil that offers improved living conditions for farmers. This is not the lived reality for Dayak people. We are told that palm oil is a lucrative crop that benefits the farmers. This is not the lived reality for Dayak people.
Pictured: A Dayak woman weaves pandan in a traditional longhouse, PxFuel
The greenwashing of palm oil deforestation intensifies as time goes on
News articles and reports talk about how this country is preparing to deal with climate change, so as not to damage forests and also to save forests from deforestation.
News about customary Dayak lands that are seized for palm oil illegally or by force is online only momentarily and quickly disappears. These violations human rights are rendered invisible by the media in here.
In our news hungry and busy world, most people don’t read beyond the headlines. The messy, corrupt and invisible world of massive land-clearing for palm oil goes on without the world knowing about it through the media. In the meantime, tropical rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia are silently disappearing. Deforestation by Sean Westonseanweston.co.uk
The current era of fake news was predicted by Jean Baudrillard several decades ago
When we can no longer distinguish the truth, the facts and the real from a news. This is Hyperreality.
“The real has died and been replaced by Simulation”
~ Jean Baudrillard.
This is what Jean Baudrillard called the era of Simulacra, Simulation, and Hyperreality. When the news plays with symbols, and the public who consume or read the news only see and know about the simulation, we are existing in Hyperreality, in a Simulacra.
People who consume the news only know the simulation/ hyperreality in a Simulacra – Jean Baudrillard
A Simulacra is a combination of values, facts, signs, images and codes. In this reality we no longer find references or representations except the simulacra itself. People who consume the news only know the simulation/ hyperreality in a Simulacra – Jean Baudrillard Image, originally tweeted by lookcaitlin (@lookcaitlin) on September 17, 2022.
Greenwashing and denialism in the media about the environmental impact of palm oil
A recent report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) found that the palm oil industry used the same aggressive tactics for greenwashing akin to the tobacco and alcohol industries. Read more
Research studies of SE Asian media reporting on palm oil show a denialist and greenwashing narrative that is similar to climate change denialism i.e. climate change greenwashing.
“We found that media reporting of the denialist narrative is more prevalent than that of the peer-reviewed science consensus-view that palm oil plantations on tropical peat could cause excessive greenhouse gas emissions and enhance the risk of fires. “Our article alerts to the continuation of unsustainable practices as justified by the media to the public, and that the prevalence of these denialist narratives constitute a significant obstacle in resolving pressing issues such as transboundary haze, biodiversity loss, and land-use change related greenhouse gas emissions in Southeast Asia.”
~ Liu, Felicia & Ganesan, Vignaa & Smith, Thomas. (2020). Contrasting communications of sustainability science in the media coverage of palm oil agriculture on tropical peatlands in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Environmental Science & Policy. 114. 162-169. 10.1016/j.envsci.2020.07.004.
Deforestation – Craig Jones Wildlife Photography Pictured clockwise: An orangutan grips helplessly onto a broken and destroyed tree, Craig Jones Wildlife Photography; River pollution, PxFuel; A freshly destroyed rainforest in Indonesia, Craig Jones Wildlife Photography; A vast and lifeless palm oil plantation, Greenpeace.
Impact of the media Simulacrum on Dayak people
Media coverage about the “goodness of palm oil” has a deep psychological impact on Dayak communities. In the news, this is where the simulation or simulacra begins to occur.
Pictured: Dayak men in Kalimantan, Pxfuel.
Some people cannot sort and distinguish the truth of the news content from the actual facts. Meanwhile, the village that I visited is still holding on to their traditional way of life – not to palm oil. This is the Last Village.
Dayak people in the neighbouring village tell them how they have lost their fishing resources. That now, because of the palm oil run-off and pollution there are no more fish to catch. Their roaming area has become too narrow.
They say: “Oh you are right! Keep on resisting the palm oil siege! For we are now labourers toiling for little money on our ancestral land.”
Liu, Felicia & Ganesan, Vignaa & Smith, Thomas. (2020). Contrasting communications of sustainability science in the media coverage of palm oil agriculture on tropical peatlands in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Environmental Science & Policy. 114. 162-169. 10.1016/j.envsci.2020.07.004.
Manzo, Kate & Padfield, Rory. (2016). Palm oil not polar bears: Climate change and development in Malaysian media. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 41. 10.1111/tran.12129.
Morris J. Simulacra in the Age of Social Media: Baudrillard as the Prophet of Fake News. Journal of Communication Inquiry. 2021;45(4):319-336. doi:10.1177/0196859920977154
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (1998). Under the Shadows of the Queen of Diamonds: The Process of Marginalization in Isolated Communities. Indonesian Torch Foundation, Jakarta.
“The Forest is the father, land is the mother and rivers are blood
“That’s the spirituality of most Dayak people in Kalimantan. They understand the interdependent nature of everything in nature.”
Palm Oil Detectives is completely self-funded by its creator. All hosting and website fees and investigations into brands are self-funded by the creator of this online movement. If you like what I am doing, you and would like me to help meet costs, please send Palm Oil Detectives a thanks on Ko-Fi.
Palm Oil Detectives is completely self-funded by its creator. All hosting and website fees and investigations into brands are self-funded by the creator of this online movement. If you like what I am doing, you and would like me to help meet costs, please send Palm Oil Detectives a thanks on Ko-Fi.
This is "WHO Report - palm oil greenwashing and lobbying video" by Palm Oil Detectives on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love…
The Orangutan with the golden hair: A short story by Setia Budhi @setiabudhi18
Orangutan with the golden hair: A short story by @setiabudhi18 about #palmoil plantations, how pesticides seep into the groundwater killing people and animals @global_witness @[url=https://bird.makeup/users/greenpeaceuk]Greenpeace UK[/url] @EIA_news #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife
He’s a golden haired orangutan, at least that’s what the villagers called him….
He is a male of the species of Pongo pygmaeus. This orangutan appears all the time on the slopes of the Müller Mountains, located10,000 meters from the Mantikip Dayak village in the lush green heart of Borneo.
News spreads rapidly throughout the village of the presence of this magnificent creature with the golden hair.
As a result, leaves and branches of the tree glisten with golden flashes of light. Not only that, plants such as Meranti trees, Balau Wood, Keruing and weeds catch the hairs and become woven in golden threads.
From his explorations of the jungle, the orangutan’s golden hair sticks to trees, leaves and tree branches
Craig Jones Wildlife Photography. A female orangutan at dawn in Sumatra Craig Jones Wildlife Photography – Virgin and untouched rainforest in Sumatra Craig Jones Wildlife Photography. A female orangutan at dawn in Sumatra Craig Jones Wildlife Photography
Large and small birds alight from branches drag along the orangutan’s golden hairs. Birds, flying low in the late afternoon flap their wings and the golden hairs drop gently into the river, turning this gold as well.
A little boy bathing in the river emerges with his body covered in golden threads. The village of Mantikip is cloaked in gold.
Golden threads of hair pile up in aquatic plants and drift along the rushing water of the river turning it gold. The orangutan with the golden hair shows himself in the forest, in the Kumpai plants, the gardens, river and the village.
Do you know the reason why the orangutan has golden hair? It is from the poisonous liquid that’s stuck to his body. This comes from palm oil mill run-off and waste on the south side of the Müller Mountains – this is the root cause.
One day, indigenous people enter the grounds of the oil palm plantation to look for food. Word-of-mouth rapidly spreads throughout their community and soon many people enter the area looking for food. The entire population is afflicted by itching, rashes and fever. Some residents are so thirsty and desperate for water that they take water from the flowing river. They are later found dead in their homes.
“Dayak family, Central Kalimantan” by IndoMet in the Heart of Borneo is licensed under CC BY 2.0
A week later, word of the orangutan with the golden fur and the possible presence of toxic liquid from the factory’s waste reaches the ears of Freddy Kumbayang, director of the local palm oil mill.
He orders his staff to immediately leave the forest. He does not believe that waste leaking from his palm oil mill is the real reason for the poisoning of the local water supply.
In front of a small gathering of his staff and the local villagers, Kumbayang holds court and starts to speak.
“There must be something wrong,” he says angrily, “Our company is very clean and ethical, we would not be stupid like this. We have a zero tolerance policy on pollution! Disposing of waste into the forest means that we kill ourselves.”
“We work according to the standards of the world’s palm oil companies,” he adds loudly. “We are members of the RSPO. We are not to blame here!”
“Only uneducated and stupid people would say that toxic waste comes from our factory! We know that the natives in this area are easily swayed by the provocations of the townspeople.”
That same afternoon, Freddy Kumbayang and a few members of his staff go together into the mountains and forest to investigate the allegations in person.
Freddy Kumbayang and his team move along the slopes of the Müller Mountains. He orders his staff to fetch water flowing down the hillside. “Take some water samples here for lab analysis”, he says.
Later as darkness falls, the small group descend into the forest.
When they arrive at a small bridge over the river, they see golden threads dancing in the wind, twinkling on the surface of the leaves, caught at the river’s edge.
The golden-haired orangutan stares at the humans curiously from deep within the shadows. He waggles his hands and feet to shed his fur. Everything in the forest has turned golden in the evening light.
“For sure, this only happens on the surface of the leaves and twigs, so these trees are safe,” Kumbayang says.
“Let’s check in the forest” he says “Quickly! before the pollution report is caught on camera by journalists!” he orders his staff to walk into the deep darkness of the forest.
“Keep moving!” he barks. So they march deep into the west Kalimantan wilderness.
No one knows what became of the palm oil company group or what they discovered in the jungle. Perhaps they found hornbills, bats or found the orangutan with the golden hair?
A week after the incident, the SAR team find decomposing human bodies on the rocky slopes of the Müller Mountains. It’s the bodies of Freddy Kumbayang and his staff.
One family never went into the forest and never touched the river water. Miraculously, they had an old well beside their home. The toxic liquid from the palm oil factory that destroyed the river and turned the orangutan’s hair golden did not seep into their water supply – they were the only people to survive.
An environmental report issued later showed that the orangutan’s fur was contaminated with palm oil mill waste.
The world looks on and sees with open eyes the horrendous cost to animals and indigenous people of this corrupt industry. The world condemns oil palm plantations to this day.
Written in Bakumpai Village Saturday 3 October 2021 by Dr Setia Budhi
A 2021 report by Global Witness revealed workers on a palm oil plantation in Papua New Guinea died as a result of consuming contaminated water.
These palm oil plantations supply so-called ‘sustainable’ brands that use RSPO certified ‘sustainable’ palm oil, supposedly free of human rights abuses and destruction, but this is not the case. Here are the brands: Kelloggs, Hersheys, Nestle, Danone, PZ Cussons, AAK, Colgate-Palmolive, General Mills.
Dayak Indigenous Ethnographer Dr Setia Budhi: In His Own Words
“I’ve been doing ethnographic field research since early 2013, by visiting several villages of the Dayak Siang, Dayak Bakumpai and Dayak Oot Danum tribes. My field research is related to the Dayak peoples. How the exploitation of natural resources, modernisation and the depleted forests affects their ability to find food.”
Dr Setia Budhi is a senior lecturer in Anthropology and Sociology at Universitas Lambung Mangkurat. He is an indigenous advocate, forest conservationist and a research specialist in Dayak ethnography in South, Central and East Kalimantan. He completed his PhD in 2010 at UKM Malaysia under the supervision of Prof. Awang Hasmadi Awang Moeis and Prof.…
Palm Oil Lobbyists Getting Caught Lying Orangutan Land Trust and Agropalma
For decades, investigative journalists have been exposing that illegal land grabbing from Indigenous peoples as a regular occurrence in West Papua, South and Central America, Africa and Asia.
Indigenous people’s land is being forcibly (and often violently) taken from them by predatory palm oil companies. Major supermarket brands and also palm oil producers that are RSPO members are involved in this illegal land-grabbing.
The ‘certified sustainable’ label of the RSPO is absolutely meaningless given that this is going on.
The @RSPOtweets and #palmoil lobbyists have lied and denied the illegal #landgra
... show more
Palm Oil Lobbyists Getting Caught Lying Orangutan Land Trust and Agropalma
For decades, investigative journalists have been exposing that illegal land grabbing from Indigenous peoples as a regular occurrence in West Papua, South and Central America, Africa and Asia.
Indigenous people’s land is being forcibly (and often violently) taken from them by predatory palm oil companies. Major supermarket brands and also palm oil producers that are RSPO members are involved in this illegal land-grabbing.
The ‘certified sustainable’ label of the RSPO is absolutely meaningless given that this is going on.
RSPO member, NGO Orangutan Land Trust is the main shill on social media pushing greenwashing misinformation about “sustainable” palm oil to unaware consumers.
For decades, they have consistently pushed the lie of “sustainable” palm oil as being the saviour for rainforests, indigenous people and rare, endangered animals. Their greenwashing occurs despite a continuous stream of research papers and reports from many different sources showing that “sustainable” palm oil is a complete lie. Over almost 20 years, the following crimes continue to occur by RSPO members:
The lies are perpetuated by three main accounts: Michelle Desilets, Jane Griffiths and Bart Van Assen. They are supported by various other accounts associated with Zoos sponsored by big food companies like Ferrero and also fake accounts that they set up themselves in an effort to astroturf about “sustainable” palm oil.
Major international brands sourcing palm oil from Brazilian plantations linked to violence, torture and land fraud
Two Brazilian palm oil giants in particular, Brasil Biofuels (BBF) and Agropalma, are embroiled in long-standing conflict with local communities. BBF are accused of waging violent campaigns to silence Indigenous and traditional communities defending their ancestral lands, while Agropalma is linked to fraudulent land grabs and stranding or evicting communities. Both companies have acquired these lands to grow profitable palm crops, apparently at the expense of communities’ constitutional rights.
Global supermarket brands Ferrero, ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Danone, Ferrero, Hershey’s, Kellogg, Mondelez, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever and many others source palm oil from Agropalma and BBF.
These supermarket brands along with Agropalma and BBF claim to use “sustainable” palm oil from the RSPO.
Agropalma states that its corporate policies forbid actions inhibiting legal and regular activities of Human Rights Defenders, while maintaining Agropalma’s right to protect its employees and its assets. Agropalma denies using violent actions against the communities and individuals in this report, and states that there are no land claims by Indigenous people overlapping with Agropalma lands.
Major international brands – ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Danone, Ferrero, Hershey’s, Kellogg, Mondelez, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever and others – continue to purchase palm oil from BBF and/or Agropalma despite the situation in Pará, contributing to the violations of Indigenous and traditional peoples’ rights. Companies’ responses are included below. RSPO members sourcing palm oil from Agropalma and BBF
A litany of abuses
Global Witness received information of continued abuses in late April 2022 and early July 2022, attributed to armed men alleged to be working on behalf of BBF.
Groups of armed men have blockaded multiple roads around Indigenous, Quilombola and riverine territories.
Armed men have been stopping and searching cars and people on motorcycles saying they are ‘on the hunt’ for Indigenous and Quilombola leaders.
Armed men have tortured detained members of an Indigenous community by spilling burning plastic over their backs.
Armed men have shot and injured at least one Indigenous community member; several have been made to lie down, humiliated and had shots fired near their heads.
Armed men forced a Quilombola man and a teenager who were working on their crops to lay on the floor, firing shots next to their heads, causing both serious hearing problems.
Daily and nightly, community members are stopped, questioned and humiliated by BBF employees and/or security men.
Greenwashing ecocide – Agropalma & Orangutan Land Trust
“We benefit in no way whatsoever from the sale of palm oil. Not sure where this nonsense idea stems from.”
Orangutan Land Trust’s Michelle Desilets on the 18th of September, 2023
Michelle Desilets of Orangutan Land Trust with yet another lie about not profiting from palm oil, despite receiving funds from serial Amazon destroyer Agropalma for decades. Original tweet
Orangutan Land Trust receives funding from Agropalma: during their decades long destruction of the Amazon for palm oil
Orangutan Land Trust mentions fellow RSPO member Agropalma as being a sponsor and funder on their website and annual ACOP ( a report given to the RSPO) in 2014. Agropalma are listed on the OLT website until 2019.
“With Agropalma’s generous support, we can enable conservation activities in Indonesia and Malaysia that will not only help to protect the orangutan, but also all the biodiversity that shares its rainforest habitat”.
A report by the Palm Oil Innovation Group (POIG) on their website between 2014-2020 reveals that Agropalma have been paying Orangutan Land Trust 10,000 GBP per quarter. Read report In 2022, Agropalma were the subject of a 2022 Global Witness report into the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and violence against indigenous land defenders. Read report Between 2015 -2020, Agropalma were assessed by the RSPO’s Complaints Panel for human rights abuses. This panel includes Orangutan Land Trust’s Executive Director Michelle Desilets as a decision maker.
RSPO case In 2020, the RSPO ruled in favour of Agropalma and against the human rights defenders and closed the case. Read letter
In March 2023, Mongabay and Rainforest Rescue reported that Agropalma’s RSPO membership had been temporarily suspended due to Mongabay and Global Witness’s reporting on these human rights abuses
Two months after this in May 2023, the South American conference for RSPO featured Agropalma’s logo emblazoned on the stage and promoted Agropalma as being “sustainable” despite countless concurrent news reports of their human rights abuses and landgrabbing Two months after this in May 2023, the South American conference for RSPO featured Agropalma’s logo emblazoned on the stage and promoted Agropalma as being “sustainable” despite countless concurrent news reports of their human rights abuses and landgrabbing twitter.com/afgarciaazuero/sta…
Palm Oil Detectives is completely self-funded by its creator. All hosting and website fees and investigations into brands are self-funded by the creator of this online movement. If you like what I am doing, you and would like me to help meet costs, please send Palm Oil Detectives a thanks on Ko-Fi.
What journalists, whistle-blowers and human rights defenders say
A 2021 Investigation by Global Witness found that palm oil companies in Papua New Guinea are alleged to have been involved in corruption, child labour, tax evasion, deforestation, worker deaths and paying police to assault villagers.
The palm oil from these mills in Papua New Guinea is used by RSPO members Colgate-Palmolive, Kelloggs, General Mills, Nestle, Hersheys, Danone, PZ Cussons – finds its way into our weekly supermarket shop.
Research: Certifying commodities does not advance equity or income for workers
We identified 64 conflicts that involved RSPO member companies, of which 17 prompted communities to convey their grievances to the RSPO’s conflict resolution mechanism…We conclude that—on all counts—the conflict resolution mechanism is biased in favor of companies. The result of these biases is that the actual capacity of the RSPO’s mechanism to provide a meaningful remedy for rural communities’ grievances remains very limited. This unequal access to justice sustains conflicts between companies and communities over land.
Afrizal, A., Hospes, O., Berenschot, W. et al. Unequal access to justice: an evaluation of RSPO’s capacity to resolve palm oil conflicts in Indonesia. Agric Hum Values40, 291–304 (2023). doi.org/10.1007/s10460-022-103…
We find positive effects on prices and income from sale of certified products. However, we find no change in overall household income and assets for workers. The wages for workers are not higher in certified production.
We find that, while sustainability standards can help improve the sustainability of production processes in certain situations, they are insufficient to ensure food system sustainability at scale, nor do they advance equity objectives in agrifood supply chains.
This article argues that the form of sustainability offered by certification schemes such as the RSPO fetishes the commodity palm oil in order to assuage critical consumer initiatives in the North. This technical-managerial solution is part of a larger project: the “post-political” climate politics regime (Swyngedouw) that attempts to “green” the status quo.
This finds that beauty brands (RSPO members) L’Oreal, Colgate-Palmolive, Johnson& Johnson, Unilever are linked to rape on palm oil plantations via palm oil company Musim Mas
twitter.com/dwnews/status/1329… Associated Press Investigation (2020) finds wide-spread rape, human rights abuses and slavery on palm oil plantations for well known brands: Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, L’Oreal, Avon, Colgate Palmolive
Dayak Indigenous Ethnographer Dr Setia Budhi: In His Own Words
“The expansion of oil palm plantations has created many detrimental environmental impacts, such as deforestation, loss of biodiversity, land conflicts, labour conflicts, and social conflicts around plantations.
“Environmental damage and social injustice were reasons why the global palm oil certification, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was established.
“In practice, requirements for oil palm certifications are easily violated. Lots of things are problematic.”
During its 14 years of existence, RSPO – the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil – has failed to live up to its claim of “transforming” the industrial palm oil production sector into a so-called “sustainable” one. In reality, the RSPO has been used by the palm oil industry to greenwash corporate destruction and human rights abuses, while it continues to expand business, forest destruction and profits.
RSPO presents itself to the public with the slogan “transforming the markets to make sustainable palm oil the norm”. Palm oil has become the cheapest vegetable oil available on the global market, making it a popular choice among the group that dominates RSPO membership, big palm oil buyers.
They will do everything to secure a steady flow of cheap palm oil. They also know that the key to the corporate success story of producing “cheap” palm oil is a particular model of industrial production, with ever-increasing efficiency and productivity which in turn is achieved by:
Planting on a large-scale and in monoculture, frequently through conversion of tropical biodiverse forests
Using “high yielding” seedlings that demand large amounts of agrotoxics and abundant water.
Squeezing cheap labour out of the smallest possible work force, employed in precarious conditions so that company costs are cut to a minimum
Making significant up-front money from the tropical timber extracted from concessions, which is then used to finance plantation development or increase corporate profits.
Grabbing land violently from local communities or by means of other arrangements with governments (including favourable tax regimes) to access land at the lowest possible cost.
Those living on the fertile land that the corporations choose to apply their industrial palm oil production model, pay a very high price.
Violence is intrinsic to this model:
violence and repression when communities resist the corporate take over of their land because they know that once their land is turned into monoculture oil palm plantations, their livelihoods will be destroyed, their land and forests invaded. In countless cases, deforestation caused by the expansion of this industry, has displaced communities or destroyed community livelihoods where
companies violate customary rights and take control of community land;
sexual violence and harassment against women in and around the plantations which often stays invisible because women find themselves without possibilities to demand that the perpetrators be prosecuted;
Child labour and precarious working conditions that go hand-in-hand with violation of workers’ rights;
working conditions can even be so bad as to amount to contemporary forms of slavery. This exploitative model of work grants companies more economic profits while allowing palm oil to remain a cheap product. That is why, neither them or their shareholders do anything to stop it.
exposure of workers, entire communities and forests, rivers, water springs, agricultural land and soils to the excessive application of agrotoxics;
depriving communities surrounded by industrial oil palm plantations of their food sovereignty when industrial oil palm plantations occupy land that communities need to grow food crops.
RSPO’s proclaimed vision of transforming the industrial oil palm sector is doomed to fail because the Roundtable’s certification principles promote this structural violent and destructive model.
The RSPO also fails to address the industry’s reliance on exclusive control of large and contingent areas of fertile land, as well as the industry’s growth paradigm which demands a continued expansion of corporate control over community land and violent land grabs.
None of RPSO’s eight certification principles suggests transforming this industry reliance on exclusive control over vast areas of land or the growth paradigm inherent to the model.
Industrial use of vegetable oils has doubled in the past 15 years, with palm oil being the cheapest. This massive increase of palm oil use in part explains the current expansion of industrial oil palm plantations, especially in Africa and Latin America, from the year 2000 onward, in addition to the existing vast plantations areas in Malaysia and Indonesia that also continue expanding.
On the ground, countless examples show that industrial oil palm plantations continue to be synonymous to violence and destruction for communities and forests. Communities’ experiences in the new industrial oil palm plantation frontiers, such as Gabon, Nigeria, Cameroon, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Peru, Honduras, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, are similar to past and ongoing community experiences in Indonesia and Malaysia.
RSPO creates a smokescreen that makes this violence invisible for consumers and financiers. Governments often fail to take regulatory action to stop the expansion of plantations and increasing demand of palm oil; they rely on RSPO to deliver an apparently sustainable flow of palm oil.
For example, in its public propaganda, RSPO claims it supports more than 100,000 small holders. But the profit from palm oil production is still disproportionally appropriated by the oil palm companies: in 2016, 88% of all certified palm oil came from corporate plantations and 99,6% of the production is corporate-controlled.
RSPO also claims that the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) is key among its own Principles and Criteria. The right to FPIC implies, among others, that if a community denies the establishment of this monoculture in its territory, operations cannot be carried out. Reality shows us, however, that despite this, many projects go ahead.
Concessions are often guaranteed long before the company reaches out to the affected communities. Under these circumstances, to say that FPIC is central to RSPO is bluntly false and disrespectful.
RSPO also argues that where conflicts with the plantation companies arise, communities can always use its complaint mechanism. However, the mechanism is complex and it rarely solves the problems that communities face and want to resolve.
This becomes particularly apparent in relation to land legacy conflicts where the mechanism is biased against communities. It allows companies to continue exploiting community land until courts have come to a decision. This approach encourages companies to sit out such conflicts and count on court proceedings dragging on, often over decades.
Another argument used by RSPO is that industrial oil palm plantations have lifted millions of people out of poverty. That claim is certainly questionable, even more so considering that there is also an important number of people who have been displaced over the past decades to make space for plantations.
Indigenous communities have in fact lost their fertile land, forests and rivers to oil palm plantations, adversely affecting their food, culture and local economies.
The RSPO promise of “transformation” has turned into a powerful greenwashing tool for corporations in the palm oil industry. RSPO grants this industry, which remains responsible for violent land grabbing, environmental destruction, pollution through excessive use of agrotoxics and destruction of peasant and indigenous livelihoods, a “sustainable” image.
What’s more, RSPO membership seems to suffice for investors and companies to be able to claim that they are “responsible” actors. This greenwash is particularly stunning, since being a member does not guarantee much change on the ground. Only recently, a company became RSPO member after it was found to deforest over 27.000 hectares of rainforest in Papua, Indonesia.
Certification is structurally dependent on the very same policies and regulation that have given rise to the host of environmental devastation and community land rights violations associated with oil palm plantations. These systemic governance issues are part of the destructive economic model, and embedded in state power.
For this reason, voluntary certification schemes cannot provide adequate protection for forests, community rights, food sovereignty and guarantee sustainability. Governments and financiers need to take responsibility to stop the destructive palm oil expansion that violates the rights of local communities and Indigenous Peoples.
As immediate steps, governments need to:
Put in place a moratorium on palm oil plantations expansion and use that as a breathing space to fix the policy frameworks;
Drastically reduce demand for palm oil: stop using food for fuel;
Strengthen and respect the rights of local communities and Indigenous Peoples to amongst others, self-determination and territorial control.
Promote agro-ecology and community control of their forests, which strengthens local incomes, livelihoods and food sovereignty, instead of advancing industrial agro-businesses.
Signatures
Aalamaram-NGOAcción Ecológica, Ecuador
ActionAid, France
AGAPAN Amics arbres
Arbres amics
Amis de la Terre France
ARAARBA (Asociación para la Recuperación del Bosque Autóctono)
Asociación Conservacionista YISKI, Costa Rica Asociación Gaia El Salvador
Association Congo Actif, Paris
Association Les Gens du Partage, Carrières-sous-Poissy
Association pour le développement des aires protégées, Swizterland
BASE IS
Bézu St Eloi
Boxberg OT Uhyst
Bread for all
Bruno Manser Fund
CADDECAE, Ecuador
Campaign to STOP GE Trees
CAP, Center for Advocacy Practices
Centar za životnu sredinu/ Friends of the Earth Bosnia and Herzegovina
CESTA – FOE El Salvador
CETRI – Centre tricontinental
Climate Change Kenya
Coalición de Tendencia Clasista. (CTC-VZLA)
Colectivo de Investigación y Acompañmiento Comunitario
Collectif pour la défense des terres malgaches – TANY, Madagascar
Community Forest Watch, Nigeria
Consumers Association of Penang
Corporate Europe Observatory
Cuttington University
Down to Earth Consult
El Campello
Environmental Resources Management and Social Issue Centre (ERMSIC) Cameroon
Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria
Oil palm expansion is shaped by wider political economies and development policies.
Market-based development policies have favored large-scale over smallholder production.
Benefits from oil palm are unevenly distributed across rural population.
Violence across forest frontiers has fueled conflicts linked to oil palm.
Weak forest governance has led to significant deforestation by industrial plantations.
A. Castellanos-Navarrete, F. de Castro, P. Pacheco, The impact of oil palm on rural livelihoods and tropical forest landscapes in Latin America, Journal of Rural Studies, Volume 81, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2020.10.047.
Reports: human rights and land rights violations, violence and indigenous land-grabbing by RSPO members
Adina Renner, Conradin Zellweger, Barnaby Skinner. ‘Is there such a thing as sustainable palm oil? Satellite images show protected rainforest on fire’. (May 2021) nzz.ch/english/palm-oil-boom-t… Read report
The True Price of Palm Oil: How global finance and household brands are fuelling deforestation, violence and human rights abuses in Papua New Guinea Read Report
Discussion Paper. The Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics. Release date: 12th March, 2022
This paper provides novel granular evidence on the interaction between the Ebola epidemic, deforestation, and palm oil plantations in Liberia. The palm oil multinationals, exploiting the health crisis, stepped up deforestation to increase output. The effect on deforestation is more severe in areas inhabited by politically unrepresented ethnic groups, characterized by a reduction in tree coverage by 6.5%.
We also document an increase of more than 125% in the likelihood of fire events within concessions during the epidemic. This suggests that not only did the palm oil companies foster deforestation, but further that they used forest fires to do so. This is particularly harmful to the environment, and the smoke and the haze may have severe health consequences, apart from being a source of carbon dioxide.
This deforestation was accompanied by a 150% increase in the amount of land dedicated to cultivation. This exploitative behaviour was highly profitable for palm oil companies, with a 1428% increase in the value of Liberian palm oil’s exports compared with the pre-Ebola period. Unfortunately, we cannot say the same for local people or the local environment.
The difficulty of addressing and resolving oil palm conflicts is due not only to the inadequacies of Indonesia’s legal framework regarding land and plantations but also to the way in which Indonesia’s informalized state institutions foster collusion between local power holders and palm oil companies. This collusion enables companies to evade regulation, suppress community protests and avoid engaging in constructive efforts to resolve conflicts. Furthermore, this collusion has made the available conflict resolution mechanisms largely ineffective.
Verisk Maplecroft: 2021 ESG Analysis of palm oil land-grabbing
Key insight: Palm oil is ranked highest risk for land grabs in Indonesia. The country produces more than half the world’s palm oil and #landgrabbing is on the rise there. There were 241 land conflicts across Indonesia in 2020, 10 times the amount of 2008
“There is a clear link between land grabs and the loss of natural capital: clean air and water, pollinating insects, and soil quality. Both land grabs and natural capital degradation are influenced by poverty, corruption and weak rule of law”
Orangutan Land Trust has been funded and associated with many past and present deforesters in the palm oil industry including PO companies: Agropalma, New Britain Palm Oil and Kulim Malaysia Berhad. Michelle, Bart and Jane maintain that they “volunteer” for their NGO.
The RSPO was set up 17 years ago by the WWF along with global palm oil companies themselves in order to monitor and regulate their own actions and to supposedly stop deforestation and ecocide.
RSPO members include the world’s biggest food companies: Nestle, Unilever, Cargill, L’Oreal, Danone, Kelloggs, Pepsi, Coca Cola, Mondelez, Johnson & Johnson, PZ Cussons, Ferrero and more. Since it was created in 2004, these RSPO members have been embroiled in greenwashing, corruption, illegal land-grabbing from indigenous peoples, the killing of wildlife, human rights abuses and 100,000’s of hectares of deforestation. Yet these members faced no expulsion from the RSPO and they faced no punishment at all for their actions, despite this going against the rules of the RSPO. The corruption and greenwashing of this industry knows no bounds!
Abusive, gaslighting and greenwashing Pro Palm Oil Lobbyists on Twitter:
It is recommend to block all of these people to make your Twitter experience more enjoyable with less palm oil greenwashing, abuse, harassment and hate in your life
Bart Van Assen is the most vile and abusive troll of all. He has harassed me and stalked me in two successive workplaces and has been banned several times from Mastadon and Twitter for harassment and abuse. You can also find him doing the same to other people on Instagram
Ray Whitley: @RayWhitley13 (Fake vegan/lobbyist who does not advocate for animals on Twitter but instead simply foments divisiveness and hate on Twitter)
These brands have products that contain palm oil sourced from mills that are responsible for the destruction of precious habitats of endangered species. Just in 2020 alone,…
The RSPO is a global certification scheme for palm oil that certifies palm oil as ‘sustainable’. Yet this word means absolutely nothing, as RSPO members – the…
Although the world is highly complex, every person can make a difference. That previous sentence almost sounds like a cliche right? Really it’s not. If every person…
The RSPO is a global certification scheme for palm oil that certifies palm oil as ‘sustainable’. Yet this word means absolutely nothing, as RSPO members – the…
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Palm Oil Detectives is completely self-funded by its creator. All hosting and website fees and investigations into brands are self-funded by the creator of this online movement. If you like what I am doing, you and would like me to help meet costs, please send Palm Oil Detectives a thanks on Ko-Fi.
For decades, Indonesia has been blighted by some of the highest levels of deforestation on earth. It also provides more than half the world’s palm oil. The two things are directly related.
In 2022, 71 environmental and human rights groups from around the world wrote to the EU Commission to warn that certification schemes and ecolabels were not sufficient to prevent human rights abuses and deforestation from entering the European Union. Thankfully in 2023 this has come to pass.
Fast forward to 2023, in the UK, industry lobbyists including Ferrero and serial greenwashing outfit Orangutan Land Trust have watered down the UK’s commitment to not importing deforestation into the UK. The new trade deal with Malaysia paves the way for mass importation of palm oil ecocide.
Signatories: 71 environmental and human rights NGOs
Considering the shortcomings of certification schemes that the European Commission itself has documented, we are deeply troubled by the current arguments coming from industry players advocating for a stronger role for certification in the regulation, including a way for companies to use these systems as proof of compliance with binding EU rules. Below are ten reasons why this should not happen.
1. Certification is not designed to achieve the main objective of the regulation – preventing deforestationand other harms
The EC’s own Commission Staff Working Document Impact Assessment (hereafter EC Impact Assessment) concludes that “the consensus is that [voluntary certification] schemes on their own have not been able to provide the changes needed to prevent deforestation”. This is the position defended by the European Parliament and by most NGOs. Certification schemes do not have a deforestation standard, or the standard does not meet the deforestation definition as proposed in the anti-deforestation regulation. For example, because companies are allowed to clear forests to establish plantations and remediate or compensate with conservation elsewhere. 1. Certification is not designed to achieve the main objective of the regulation – preventing deforestation and other harms Numerous studies conducted by WWF, FSCWatch, and Greenpeace and academic studies on Indonesia, have additionally concluded that certification on its own has not helped companies meet their commitments to exclude deforestation from their supply chains.
This led some actors such as WWF to lose faith in certification scheme Roundtable of Responsible Soy (RTRS), not only due to limited uptake, but more specifically, because in biomes where soy is produced, zero-deforestation commitments have so far failed to reduce deforestation. In support of this finding, the Dutch supermarket industry representative (CBL) stated that RTRS “has not appeared to be sufficient to halt [deforestation and conversion] developments and accelerate the transition to a sustainable soy chain”.
“Certification (or verification) schemes may, in some cases, contribute to achieving compliance with the due diligence requirement, however the use of certification does not automatically imply compliance with due diligence obligations. There is abundant literature on certification schemes shortcomings in terms of governance, transparency, clarity of standards, and reliability of monitoring systems”.
2. Certification does not provide the information needed to comply with the EU regulation
It does not create transparency of the supply chain or provide information on the geographical origin
As indicated in Article 8 of the Proposal, “because deforestation is linked to land-use change, monitoring requires a precise link between the commodity or product placed on or exported from the EU market and the plot of land where it was grown or raised.” Most certification schemes, however, require only a minimal level of traceability and transparency. 2. Certification does not provide the information needed to comply with the EU regulation As indicated in the EC’s Study On Certification And Verification Schemes In The Forest Sector, schemes make use of Chain of Custody (CoC) models, but very few apply a traceability system, making it difficult to track the claims of certification, from the forest to the end buyer. One of the most common CoC models used is Mass Balance. This model allows uncertified and untraceable supplies to be physically mixed with certified supplies and end up in EU supply chains. For the most part, certification schemes do not include the systematic ability to verify transactions of volumes, species, and qualities between entities, thus leaving the systems vulnerable to manipulation and fraud.
3. Certification does not provide guarantees for the legality of the product
Certification schemes do not have the authority to confirm or enforce compliance with national laws precisely because they are voluntary.
Article 3 in the proposed anti-deforestation regulation states that products are prohibited on the European market if they are not “produced in accordance with the relevant legislation of the country of production”. 3. Certification does not provide guarantees for the legality of the product
However, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), for example, has explicitly stated its standards are voluntary and “do not extend to enforcing or confirming the legal standing of a company’s use of land (which is a mandate only held by the national authority)”.
4. Certification does not identify or prevent harms. Audit teams lack time and expertise
According to the EC “labour, environmental and human rights laws will need to be taken into account when assessing compliance” and identifying harms. However, multiple reports by Friends of the Earth Netherlands, the Environmental Investigation Agency, and ECCHR, reveal that auditing firms responsible for checking compliance are fundamentally failing to identify and mitigate unsustainable practices within certification schemes due to lack of time and lack of expertise. Proper audits on social and human rights issues require extensive consultation to gain full community perspectives on land use, conflicts, or environmental harm. Certification Body (CB) procedures do not allow for this (due to financial resources).
RSPO’s own analysis reads that “the credibility of the RSPO certification scheme has been consistently undermined by documentation of poor practice, and concerns of the extent to which the Assurance System is being implemented”.
Oppressed and stretched NGO groups and communities in the global South spend time and resources on these consultation processes. They face backlash for speaking out during consultations without any guarantee that their input is included in the certification assessment. The EU should not become complicit in exploitation of rightsholders and stakeholders in their monitoring role.
5. Certification bodies and their auditors are not independent from the company they certify
The lack of independent audits, considered to be key in ensuring the robustness of certification, was highlighted in the EC Impact Assessment as a key weakness of private certification schemes.
If clients (businesses) hire, supervise, and pay audit firms, they are exposed to a structural risk of conflict of interest, which may lead to a lower level of control.
Previous studies by Friends of the Earth, IUCN, RAN, and Environmental Investigation Agency have shown that, for example in the palm oil industry, when auditors and certification companies are directly hired by an audited company, independence is inhibited and the risk of violations increases.
5. Certification bodies and their auditors are not independent from the company they certify Also, auditor dependence on company services such as transport and accommodation is problematic. The EC adds to this that these systems are sensitive to fraud given that certified companies may easily mislead their auditors even if the audit is conducted with the greatest care and according to all procedures.
“For example, a company may be selling products containing a volume of “certified” timber material that exceeds the volume of certified raw material that they are buying.”
6. Prevention of environmental and social harm cannot be outsourced, particularly because certification bodies are not liable for harms in the plantations they certify
The EU anti-deforestation regulation requires that operators shall exercise due diligence prior to placing relevant commodities on the Union market. Private certification may, in some cases, facilitate compliance with this requirement.
However, as reiterated by German human rights law firm ECCHR the control of compliance is outsourced to private certification bodies, in an unregulated audit and certification market, where CBs are not liable for potential harm.
This leads to inability to distinguish unreliable audits from reliable ones and to competition without rules, setting in motion a ‘race to the bottom’. Certification initiatives have increasingly received complaints for lack of proper due diligence.
For instance, the UK OECD National Contact Point has recently found that Bonsucro breached the Guidelines in relation to due diligence and leverage when reaccepting MPG-T as a member, and the Netherlands NCP handled a complaint about ING’s due diligence policies and practices regarding palm oil.
6. Prevention of environmental and social harm cannot be outsourced, particularly because certification bodies are not liable for harms in the plantations they certify The OECD guidelines confirm that certification is not a proxy for due diligence, as well as various governments. As echoed by the EC Impact Assessment, “maintaining operators’ responsibility for correctly implementing due diligence obligations when they use certification, aims at ensuring that authorities remain empowered to monitor and sanction incompliant behaviour, as the reliability of those [certification] systems has repeatedly been challenged by evidence on the ground.”
7. Certification cannot guarantee Free, Prior and Informed Consent or prevent land grabbing of indigenous land
Indigenous Peoples and local communities have a recognised role in preserving the lands they own and manage, but insecure land tenure is a major driver of deforestation and forest degradation.
Certification bodies commit to investigating whether lands are subject to customary rights of indigenous peoples and whether land transfers have been developed with Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).
However, assessing whether land user rights and consultation rights were respected needs to consider the historical context, a multi-actor perspective and deep understanding of local conflicts. Considering the apparent low level of knowledge of auditors on human rights and legal issues, assessing prior land use and conflicts is an impossible task for a team of international auditors with limited time. 7. Certification cannot guarantee Free, Prior and Informed Consent or prevent land grabbing of indigenous land In Malaysia communities are often not consulted before the issuance of the logging licences. MTCS certified concessions encroach on indigenous territories while the judiciary recognised indigenous customary land rights are a form of property rights protected by the Federal Constitution.
Additionally, certification schemes failed on numerous occasions to address complaints by communities whose land was taken by palm oil companies, including the case of oil palm giant Sime Darby in Indonesia and Socfin in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. Certification will not lead to redress or resolution of problems linked to EU operators.
Claiming a brand or commodity is green based on unreliable, ineffective endorsements or eco-labels such as the RSPO, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or FairTrade coffee and cocoa. Greenwashing: Fake Labels and fake certifications Ecolabels are…
Critics have argued that improving the image of forest and ecosystem risk commodities stimulates demand. Certification risks enabling destructive businesses to continue operating as usual and expand their practices, thereby increasing the harm.
“If certification on its own is unable to guarantee that commodity production is entirely free of deforestation or human rights abuses, there is little to suggest that using certification as a tool for proving compliance with legal requirements could solve the issues in supply chains and fulfil the legislation’s objectives. 8. Certification provides opportunities for greenwashing and increases vested interests in and corporate power over natural resources.
In this context, recognising a particular certification scheme as a proof of compliance removes any incentive to improve the scheme or to replace it with a more reliable alternative, effectively contributing to the institutionalisation of greenwashing.”
For example, a number of recent logging industry scandals suggest that the Forest Stewardship Council label has at times served merely to “greenwash” or “launder” trafficking in illegal timber, compelling NGOs to demand systemic change. The difference between certified and non-certified plantations in South East Asia was not significant.
9. Certification promotes the expansion of industrial agriculture and thereby prevents the transition needed to halt deforestation
This prevents the transition towards community-based forest management and agro-ecology, with food sovereignty as a leading principle
There are multiple drivers of deforestation, but the evidence is clear in pointing to industrial agricultural expansion as one of the most important. Ultimately, certification initiatives fail to challenge the ideology underpinning the continuation of industrial commodity crop production, and can instead serve to greenwash further agro-commodity expansion.
Corporations, along with their certifications, continue to seek legitimacy through a ‘feed the world’ narrative.
9. Certification promotes the expansion of industrial agriculture and thereby prevents the transition needed to halt deforestation The “expansion is the only way”argument has long since been discredited by international institutions such as FAO; we produce enough to feed the projected world populations, much of this coming from small-scale peasant producers using a fraction of the resources. Moreover, as smallholders are directly impacted by deforestation and often depend on large operators and are hereby forced to expand agricultural land and degrading their direct environment, they are therefore an essential part of the solution.
10. Certification directs resources towards a million-dollar certification industry
While community and smallholder forest and agriculture management are extremely underfunded.
As explained by the EC Impact Assessment, private certification can be a costly process and resources spent to certify operations and to support the various schemes’ managerial structures could be used for other ends. Considering that smallholders represent a large share of producers in the relevant sectors, they also represent a crucial part of the solution to deforestation.
The EU should stop financing and promoting improvements in a certification system, benefiting industrial forest and plantation companies, that has been proven to fail.
It would be a more effective use of public and private resources to pay smallholders adequately for their products and adhere to their calls if they seek technical or financial support. 10. Certification directs resources towards a million-dollar certification industry To conclude, building on these arguments, we foresee that if decision makers give in to the lobby from industry and certification’s role is reconsidered or promoted in the current proposal, the EU anti-deforestation regulation will not deliver, as it will not only lose its potential to provide information needed to comply with the regulation but lose its ability to curb deforestation and forest degradation all together.
Palm Oil Detectives is completely self-funded by its creator. All hosting and website fees and investigations into brands are self-funded by the creator of this online movement. If you like what I am doing, you and would like me to help meet costs, please send Palm Oil Detectives a thanks on Ko-Fi.
Palm Oil Detectives is completely self-funded by its creator. All hosting and website fees and investigations into brands are self-funded by the creator of this online movement. If you like what I am doing, you and would like me to help meet costs, please send Palm Oil Detectives a thanks on Ko-Fi.
Friends of Earth Malaysia is an independent non-profit that works towards environmental justice through sustainability of natural resources and communities.
Craig Jones Wildlife Photography. A female orangutan at dawn in Sumatra
Craig Jones Wildlife Photography – Virgin and untouched rainforest in Sumatra
Craig Jones Wildlife Photography. A female orangutan at dawn in Sumatra
Craig Jones Wildlife Photography
Pollution run-off in an RSPO member palm oil plantation in Sumatra. Craig Jones Wildlife Photography
“Dayak family, Central Kalimantan” by IndoMet in the Heart of Borneo is licensed under CC BY 2.0
https://seanweston.co.uk" title="Deforestation by Sean Weston https://seanweston.co.uk" class="has-alt-description">Deforestation by Sean Weston seanweston.co.uk
“We work according to the standards of the world’s palm oil companies,” he adds loudly. “We are members of the RSPO. We are not to blame here!”Deforestation – Craig Jones Wildlife Photography
PxFuel, Craig Jones Wildlife Photography
The world looks on and sees with open eyes the horrendous cost to animals and indigenous people of this corrupt industry. The world condemns oil palm plantations to this day.Dayak Indigenous Ethnographer Dr Setia Budhi: In His Own Words
Signatories: 71 environmental and human rights NGOs
1. Certification is not designed to achieve the main objective of the regulation – preventing deforestation and other harms
2. Certification does not provide the information needed to comply with the EU regulation
3. Certification does not provide guarantees for the legality of the product
However, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), for example, has explicitly stated its standards are voluntary and “do not extend to enforcing or confirming the legal standing of a company’s use of land (which is a mandate only held by the national authority)”.5. Certification bodies and their auditors are not independent from the company they certify
6. Prevention of environmental and social harm cannot be outsourced, particularly because certification bodies are not liable for harms in the plantations they certify
7. Certification cannot guarantee Free, Prior and Informed Consent or prevent land grabbing of indigenous land
8. Certification provides opportunities for greenwashing and increases vested interests in and corporate power over natural resources.
In this context, recognising a particular certification scheme as a proof of compliance removes any incentive to improve the scheme or to replace it with a more reliable alternative, effectively contributing to the institutionalisation of greenwashing.”9. Certification promotes the expansion of industrial agriculture and thereby prevents the transition needed to halt deforestation
10. Certification directs resources towards a million-dollar certification industry
