** Forum Nasional Indonesia PPI India Mailing List ** ** Untuk bergabung dg Milis Nasional kunjungi: ** Situs Milis: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ ** ** Beasiswa dalam negeri dan luar negeri S1 S2 S3 dan post-doctoral scholarship, kunjungi http://informasi-beasiswa.blogspot.com **International Campaign for Ecological Justice in Indonesia
59 Athenlay Road, London SE15 3EN, England. Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://dte.gn.apc.org Newsletter No. 68, February 2006 oil palm plantations Communities challenge palm oil industry promises of sustainability After a year of negotiations and pressure from Indonesian and international civil society groups, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) accepted the Principles & Criteria drafted by its working group at its meeting in Singapore on 22 - 23 November 2005. This decision has the potential to improve social and environmental practices in the oil palm industry and could even lead to new laws on corporate responsibility. Several hundred participants from different backgrounds and countries took part in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, including plantation companies, manufacturers and retailers of palm oil products, investors, consultants and civil society groups. Two days of speeches, PowerPoint presentations, side events, Q&A sessions and discussion groups on various aspects of palm oil and sustainability, plus a multitude of opportunities for lobbying and exchanging information over meals or around the exhibition stands, culminated in the RSPO General Assembly - the real decision-making body. What was achieved? The main achievement of this third Roundtable meeting (RT3) was that RSPO's members accepted the 8 Principles and 39 Criteria for Sustainable Palm Oil Production as a complete package. The industry-dominated forum was not unanimous: of 68 ordinary RSPO members, 55 accepted the whole package; one abstained (PT Agro Indomas, the Central Kalimantan plantation which received loans from CDC and Rabobank in 1999); and the rest did not attend. The message sent out from RT3 was that sustainability can be profitable if done the right way. This was just what RSPO members, particularly the palm oil producers, wanted to hear. But these are mostly the big companies which can best afford to implement good practice measures. Only a handful of the roughly 600 palm oil companies in Indonesia are currently RSPO members. Experience with FSC timber certification suggests national and regional legislation will make compliance hard for Indonesian plantations. Moreover, these voluntary measures are only enforced through market forces from Europe where there is higher consumer awareness about sustainability. In contrast, India and China are huge markets which are much less demanding for Indonesian and Malaysian palm oil producers. Unanswered questions NGOs and community groups received the news with a mixture of relief and suspicion. They had expected more open opposition from Malaysian and Indonesian industry associations. It was also surprising to see unlikely companies (including LonSum) rushing to volunteer for the all-important two-year field tests of the Principles & Criteria. Did the palm oil companies only agree because they intend to hide behind weak national laws? Or because they hope the results of the pilot studies will water down the standards in two years' time? Is the RSPO building an exclusive club to control a niche market, rather than encouraging all companies to improve their standards? Is RSPO approval just a marketing device which palm oil producers will try to implement at minimum cost? Will consumers prefer a cheap rather than a sustainable product? These and many other questions remain open for the present. What is not in question is that the RSPO Principles & Criteria represent a potentially useful tool for civil society groups to evaluate companies' social and environmental practices and to hold them to account. The key issue for local communities in Indonesia is whether the RSPO's measures will provide any benefits in practice. Jakarta largely ignores local people's concerns, but it does care about foreign investment. A the same time, district government heads (bupati) in oil palm growing regions pay more attention to local revenues than to national policies. Challenges for civil society A priority for the members of the NGO network on oil palm, Sawit Watch, other Indonesian NGOs is, therefore, to take the Principles & Criteria to local communities and explain what they mean, so that people affected by palm oil developments can leverage better conditions. NGOs also have an important role to play in ensuring that all those in decision-making positions - local government officials, district administrators, local assemblies and government ministers and their staff - understand better about the RSPO and its standards. At present, Indonesian CSOs only have limited capacity to monitor palm oil companies' activities in the field. Yet there is also a need to monitor the real impacts of oil palm expansion over the two-year trial period, not just the RSPO pilot projects. A major challenge for international NGOs is to push for RSPO standards to be made mandatory at the international level. This will put pressure on the Indonesian government to change national legislation. In addition, international NGOs need to raise public awareness in consumer countries about palm oil and sustainability. This includes the investors, traders, supermarkets and food manufacturers. It is no coincidence that, shortly after the Singapore meeting, ASDA (Britain's second largest supermarket and part of US giant US retailer Walmart) applied to join the RSPO. Friends of the Earth has been lobbying UK supermarkets to ensure that the products they sell only contain palm oil from plantations which have not caused forest destruction or human rights violations. Developing links between civil society groups, especially those engaged in oil palm issues in the South, is another strategic priority. Some groups, including those from PNG, have boycotted the RSPO process. They see it a vehicle for the implementation of large-scale monoculture with all the attendant social and environmental problems. In their view, 'sustainable palm oil' is a contradiction in terms. NGOs and community organisations in Indonesia have also taken a strong position against oil palm plantations, notably in West Kalimantan (see DTE 66:2, http://dte.gn.apc.org/66ind.htm). RSPO principles 1. Commitment to transparency 2. Compliance with applicable laws and regulations 3. Commitment to long-term economic and financial viability 4. Use of appropriate best practice by growers and millers 5. Environmental responsibility and conservation of natural resources and biodiversity 6. Responsible consideration of employees and of individuals and communities affected by growers and mills 7. Responsible development of new plantings 8. Commitment to continuous improvement in key areas of activity. Each Principle has a number of Criteria attached to it with guidance on their implementation (see box, article below, for two examples). Next steps For those groups who see the RSPO as an opportunity, much remains to be done to ensure that there will be strict verification of compliance and control of sustainability claims; secure chain of custody procedures so that palm oil can be traced from producer to consumer; and an adequate process to engage smallholders. The RSPO Criteria Working Group (CWG) meets in Kuala Lumpur, February 21-22, to discuss in the detail the guidance provided for the implementation of each criterion. This is important both for field testing the Principles & Criteria during the two year pilot implementation period, and for national interpretation processes. Key issues will be the position of smallholders, customary rights and the use of specific indicators - for example, to measure continuous improvement of performance (Criterion 8). A Verification Working Group will look at methods to identify palm oil produced and supplied according to the demands of the RSPO standards. Sawit Watch and WWF will be involved in verification at the national level. Several aspects of the Principles & Criteria are far from clear. For example, will a company be able to sell its oil as sustainable if it fulfils all the environmental criteria, but none of the social ones? Is 10% compliance with all the Principles good enough or not? Moreover, the RSPO has opted for a tracing system which allows a certain amount of oil that may not meet RSPO standards to be mixed with 'sustainable' palm oil. Industry argues this is a realistic approach; critics consider that this endorses the use of unsustainable palm oil. The RSPO Board also accepted that a Task Force on Smallholders be set up. While large-scale oil palm plantations are much the same in Indonesia, Malaysia or PNG, small-scale oil palm cultivators are highly diverse. In Indonesia, some 30% of production is by those designated as 'smallholders'. The term covers peasant farmers who have chosen to grow oil palms on their own certificated plots; transmigrants brought to plantations as cheap labour; indigenous people whose land has been taken from them; farmers in debt to company-led co-operatives; and many others. As the Principles & Criteria were drawn up by big companies, they are not all appropriate to smallholders, so compliance is a potential problem. Furthermore, there is, as yet, no independent body that represents smallholders' interests in Indonesia. Other achievements The meeting presented an opportunity for DTE and other groups to raise concerns about the Kalimantan border plantation megaproject (see DTE 66:1, http://dte.gn.apc.org/66iop1.htm and separate item, above). However, a proposal to oppose this potentially destructive scheme - via a technical measure that that no oil palm should be planted on steep slopes above a certain altitude - was rejected on the debatable grounds that there is no firm legal basis for such a ban. Incredibly, the RSPO maintained a polite silence over the responsibility of palm oil companies for the annual forest fires and air pollution caused by burning to clear land. Genetically modified palm oil was not on the agenda either, as RSPO members believe it is so far in the future. Arguably the most significant achievement was that community representatives lobbied companies and raised their concerns as equals in the public arena. Investment specialists and manufacturing companies were challenged by the very different perspectives and perceptive questions put directly to them by indigenous people whose livelihoods are threatened or have been destroyed by oil palm plantations. The Principles & Criteria agreed can be viewed on the RSPO website at http://www.sustainable-palmoil.org/ 'Poisoned and Silenced' Missing from the RSPO criteria so far is a list of banned agrochemicals (see DTE 66:9, http://dte.gn.apc.org/66pes.htm). Anti-pesticide activists from Malaysia failed in their attempt to change the RSPO's position through the Singapore meeting. The Swiss-based NGO, the Berne Declaration (a member of the Pesticide Action Network), and the IUF (International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations) released a pre-conference press statement. This criticised the RSPO criteria as too weak and called for Paraquat to be forbidden from the production of any 'sustainable' palm oil. Syngenta, a manufacturer of Paraquat, is an affiliate RSPO-member and sponsored the official dinner at the RT3 meeting. WWF responded, on RSPO's behalf, that "such details would be part of the guidance notes" to be developed later. It refuted charges that pesticide producers influenced the criteria in their favour, explaining that the criteria were drawn up by a working group where there was no representation of the agrochemical industry. The Berne Declaration & IUF press release (18/Nov/05) is at http://www.evb.ch/en/p25010155.html The borders megaproject The government is pressing ahead with plans to create a huge plantation zone along the Indonesia-Malaysia border, despite concerns raised by Indonesian and international NGOs and forest researchers and donors. Indonesian NGO Greenomics revealed in February that East Kalimantan has allocated 215,000ha in three districts to be cleared as part of the plantation. The area includes 17,000ha of government-funded community plantations. West Kalimantan has not made its plans public. The plantations, which will cover 1.8 million hectares in total, are expected to require an investment of around Rp6.45 trillion (about US$645 million), 98 percent of which would be funded by private investors. Conservation organisations fear that the megaplantation will seriously affect at least two national parks along the length of the border with Malaysia - Betung Kerihun in West Kalimantan and Kayan Mentarang in East Kalimantan. WWF had launched its 'Heart of Borneo' campaign to protect a 22 million ha area straddling the border several months before the plantation project was announced last year. At a major workshop on the 'Heart of Borneo' held in December in Jakarta, Forestry minister Kaban announced that he would not allow any conversion of forests for the plantation scheme along the border. Instead, investors would be required to use deforested land, replanting 40% with commercial crops - including oil palm - and reforesting the rest. Concession rights would be granted for 25-35 years after which the companies would have to restore the areas used for plantations. Agriculture minister, Anton Apriyantono, also told the press in early February that the government would use 'abandoned land' to set up palm oil plantations along the Kalimantan border. "There is nearly 2 million hectares of such land, and this will be our first priority," he said. Indigenous organisations in West Kalimantan are worried that government talk of 1.5 million ha of 'inactive land' potentially available for the oil palm, includes large tracts of adat (customary) land left fallow as part of traditional cultivation schemes. The rugged hills which run along much the Kalimantan border are too steep or high for oil palm. A CIFOR study showed that 200 sites in the Malinau district of East Kalimantan are not suitable for oil palm cultivation. Large amounts of expensive infrastructure, in the form of roads, would also be needed to access this remote area. A Greenomics study suggests that the real motive for the project to investors could be the timber resulting from land clearance, worth an estimated Rp237.8 trillion (US$23.78bn). Another factor driving the megaproject is the prospect of massive palm oil supplies for biofuel, in the wake of public anger over rising fuel prices. (Sources: Jakarta Post 1/Dec/05, 9/Dec/05, 28/Dec/05; Bisnis Indonesia 7/Feb/06) >From Singapore to West Kalimantan Pak Cion Alexander is a peasant farmer who also has a law degree and is a community activist in the organisation Gerakan Rakyat Pemberdayaan Kampung (GRPK). He comes from Sanggau, West Kalimantan and attended the third RSPO meeting in Singapore. The following account is his response to questions about the problems facing his community, what needs to be done and what he has gained from the RSPO meeting. The basic problem is when adat [customary] land is incorporated into a palm oil plantation as part of the main body of an estate. To indigenous communities, the loss of land means the loss of livelihoods. In my own case, all but 2ha of our property has gone and I have become a wage slave on my family land. Regional autonomy has made matters worse. The local authorities are so keen to bring oil palm plantations into their areas on the grounds that they increases local revenue, create employment, provide roads and make communities better off. There are now nearly 40 plantation companies in Sanggau alone. It is true that Sanggau district assembly passed a local regulation on village governance (Perda No 4/2002) providing us with the chance to go back to our traditional system, based on the kampong. For generations, adat formed the basis of highly democratic, independent communities which had control over the natural resources within their customary lands. Decisions were taken by the whole community, not by an elite. The standardised system of village governance introduced by Suharto's regime in 1979 changed all that. But we wanted our adat system to be acknowledged. So we pressed for the new regulation as soon as regional autonomy was introduced. However this regulation has itself become a problem and we are now looking to revise it. One problem is that our environment has changed radically over the past 25 years. Much of the forest has been cut down and the land allocated to companies. We have lost our livelihoods: we no longer have a ready source of timber or fish. Secondly, the version of the regulation which was passed is different from the one which had been drafted and approved by communities, so they have rejected it. Lastly, the regulation cannot be used effectively because the local government cannot make it fit within the limitations of the current version of regional autonomy, where Jakarta still has the major say over how our forests are used. The high rate of 'forest conversion' means that even forest traditionally set aside for future generations (hutan cadangan) has been cleared to make way for oil palm plantations. The government regards land left fallow under traditional cultivation systems as 'neglected' or critical' and ripe for conversion. Indigenous people can no longer grow their own rice, vegetables and other crops; they must buy food. So the introduction of oil palm plantations has made local communities poorer. Plantations obscure the natural boundaries between kampong and this leads to more conflicts between communities. Under the 'plasma' system*, people may be allocated plots of oil palm on adat land belonging to another community or even in another sub-district. So people no longer have control over their customary lands and this weakens the whole adat system. Another problem is that companies misuse traditional governance systems. The government is complicit in this because it sets up its own, officially approved 'adat' organisations and appoints the leaders. It is these people who the companies approach to sign away community rights. It is vitally important that indigenous rights are recognised in national legislation and are further strengthened though local regulations. The right to free, prior and informed consent is part of this, so we can choose to accept or refuse a plantation on our land. We also need to map the extent of our customary lands, so that companies cannot take it from us so easily. Plantations in Parindu, Kembayan, Tayan Hulu, Tayan Holir and Kapuas should return customary land to indigenous communities because the land procurement procedures violated national and adat law. The RSPO Principles and Criteria on oil palm plantations are an important opportunity for indigenous people in Kalimantan to strengthen their customary rights. We need to have these standards translated into Bahasa Indonesia and even local languages, so that we can spread public awareness about them at the village level. It is also important that environmental organisations do not just use the Principles and Criteria to promote conservation at the expense of social issues. 'Plasma' smallholders have no bargaining power; they are unable to determine the price they get for their palm fruits. Our priority for the future must be to strengthen the position of smallholders. *Large plantations used a nucleus estate/smallholder system. Newer plantations have different schemes, but the term 'plasma' is still commonly used to refer to the area cultivated by smallholders that supplies the 'nucleus' processing plant. RSPO Criterion 2.2 The right to use the land can be demonstrated, and is not legitimately contested by local communities with demonstrable rights. RSPO Criterion 2.3 Use of the land for oil palm does not diminish the legal rights, or customary rights, of other users without their free, prior and informed consent. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] *************************************************************************** Berdikusi dg Santun & Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg Lebih Baik, in Commonality & Shared Destiny. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia *************************************************************************** __________________________________________________________________________ Mohon Perhatian: 1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik) 2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari. 3. Reading only, http://dear.to/ppi 4. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ** Forum Nasional Indonesia PPI India Mailing List ** ** Untuk bergabung dg Milis Nasional kunjungi: ** Situs Milis: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/ ** ** Beasiswa dalam negeri dan luar negeri S1 S2 S3 dan post-doctoral scholarship, kunjungi http://informasi-beasiswa.blogspot.com **
