Banks| Policies| Dodgy Deals| Campaigns
About us| Blog| Publications| Successes| Contact us| Donate
About BankTrack
Visit us
Organisation
Our team
Our board
Guiding principles
Team up with us
Our annual reports
Funding and finances
History
BankTrack in the media
Our privacy policy
Donate
2022-06-02 00:00:00
GFANZ must tighten the screw on fossil fuel expansion
2022-05-19 00:00:00
BNP Paribas and Société Générale: stop financing climate destruction and human rights abuses
2022-05-04 00:00:00
Barclays is big on beef and burning
2022-05-04 00:00:00
Standard Chartered’s 2022 AGM dominated by shareholder alarm over fossil financing
2022-05-20 15:14:47
Seven financiers abandon TotalEnergies' EACOP pipeline in a week
2021-12-16 13:33:02
Cambo oil field "paused" following pressure on Shell & banks
2021-12-16 13:04:42
Equator Principles improve transparency after BankTrack shows the way
2021-11-02 11:03:26
ANZ launches human rights grievance mechanism in a first for the global banking sector
Connect
2022-04-05 00:00:00
The BankTrack Human Rights Benchmark Asia
2022-03-30 00:00:00
Banking on Climate Chaos 2022
2022-03-08 00:00:00
BankTrack Annual Report 2021
2022-03-03 00:00:00
Locked out of a Just Transition: fossil fuel financing in Africa
2021-12-14 00:00:00
Actions speak louder: Assessing bank responses to human rights violations
2021-10-26 00:00:00
Equator Compliant Climate Destruction: How banks finance fossil fuels under the Equator Principles
See all publications
Browse
Home
Banks
Policies
Dodgy Deals
Campaigns
About
About BankTrack
Donate
Contact BankTrack
Publications
Victories
Follow Us
News
BankTrack blog
Facebook
Twitter Fossil Banks No Thanks Twitter Fossil Banks No Thanks Instagram
Affiliate Websites
Fossil Banks No Thanks
StopEACOP
Forests & Finance
Banks & Biodiversity
Drop JBS
Bank of Coal
Don't Buy into Occupation
Home › News
Indonesian peat fires linked to global palm oil companies and their financiers, Friends of the Earth report finds
Start
Dodgy Deals

By: Friends of the Earth
2015-12-08

Contact:

Expert contacts: Jeff Conant, Friends of the Earth U.S., (510) 900-0016, jconant@foe.org
Arie Rompas, Walhi Central Kalimantan, +6253 63238382, arie.rompas@gmail.com
Anne van Schaik, Friends of the Earth Europe, +32 2 893 10 16, anne.vanschaik@foeeurope


Communications contact: EA Dyson, (202) 222-0730, edyson@foe.org


Share this page:

Go to:
Start
Related Dodgy Deals

This summer and fall, forest and peat fires burned on Indonesian palm oil plantations owned by global palm oil companies Bumitama and Wilmar International. A report released today by Friends of the Earth groups in Indonesia, Europe and the U.S. reveals that these companies, backed by major U.S. and European investors, created the conditions that stoked the fires -- despite the companies' voluntary "no deforestation" policies. Palm oil financiers have not taken significant steps to address the fires or their causes, the report says.

Massive fires and haze caused enormous health and environmental problems in Indonesia and neighboring countries between August and October, 2015 -- at one point causing more daily CO2 emissions than the entire U.S. economy. Most of the fires were set deliberately to clear land for timber, pulp and palm oil plantations.

The report, Up in Smoke: Failures in Wilmar's promise to clean up the palm oil business, examines the role played by two palm oil companies, Bumitama Agri and Wilmar International, in creating conditions that allowed the fires to burn out of control across thousands of hectares of ecologically sensitive land in Central Kalimantan. Using satellite maps, field investigations, and financial markets research, the report also details failures in the implementation of Indonesia's national moratorium on peatland development, and argues that major U.S. and European investors are complicit in creating the conditions that led to the fires.

Arie Rompas, director of WALHI/Friends of the Earth Central Kalimantan, said "The fires of 2015 caused enormous health and environmental problems in Indonesia -- and they were no accident. Out of control development of palm oil plantations was the cause of most fires in Central Kalimantan, and the companies are responsible for fires in their concessions. We need urgent action by our leaders to make these companies pay for the damage, and to prevent this from happening ever again."

The Indonesian government has made strong declarations and issued presidential decrees to prevent future forest fires and promote restoration of affected areas; but government bodies have repeatedly enabled palm oil companies to expand into fragile ecosystems, the report shows.

Both companies, as well as many of the consumer companies that purchase their palm oil and the financiers that capitalize them, have sustainability policies in place which are supposed to prevent destruction of environmentally sensitive lands.

"Corporate pledges of social responsibility have failed to prevent one of the worst climate disasters of 2015," said Jeff Conant, senior international forest campaigner with Friends of the Earth U.S. "We call on the governments of Indonesia, the EU and the U.S. to implement strong and binding laws to prevent disasters like this from ever happening again."

Anne van Schaik, campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, said "Banks and pension funds in the UK, Netherlands, France and the United States are providing direct financing to Bumitama and Wilmar -- despite many of them having publicly committed to Environmental, Social and Governance criteria that should prevent their financing such destructive activities. This report shows yet again that the Indonesian palm oil sector continues to be a high risk environment, as voluntary corporate commitments all-too-easily go up in smoke."

With civil society organizations, governments and corporations gathered in Paris this week for the UN climate talks, the Friends of the Earth groups argue that the voluntary policies of corporate actors and their financiers are failing to prevent the huge climate impacts of industrial palm oil expansion.    

Go to:
Start
Related Dodgy Deals

Related Dodgy Deals

Companies

There are no companies active for this item now.
on record

Wilmar International Singapore

Agriculture for Palm Oil
Browse
Home
Banks
Policies
Dodgy Deals
Campaigns
About
About BankTrack
Donate
Contact BankTrack
Publications
Victories
Follow Us
News
BankTrack blog
Facebook
Twitter Fossil Banks No Thanks Twitter Fossil Banks No Thanks Instagram
Affiliate Websites
Fossil Banks No Thanks
StopEACOP
Forests & Finance
Banks & Biodiversity
Drop JBS
Bank of Coal
Don't Buy into Occupation
Vismarkt 15
6511 VJ Nijmegen
The Netherlands

Tel: +31 24 324 9220
Contact@banktrack.org
©2016 BankTrack                Webdesign by BankTrack and EASYmind
BankTrack is a registered charity in the Netherlands (ANBI) - RSIN 813874658
Find our privacy policy here

Stay up to date

Sign up now for all BankTrack's news


Make a comment

Your comment will be reviewed, before being posted