InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – 32 civil organizations in the globe sent public documents to Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), and urged the non-profit organization in sustainable palm oil industries to postpone the membership for Astra Agro Lestari (AALI), the second biggest palm oil company in Indonesia. They urged it after two weeks prior, Astra Agro announced that the company officially proposed to be RSPO member and it was written by ‘the full support’ statement from RSPO itself.
In the documents, the civil organizations did that if AAL delivered the long conflict solution with the people in Sulawesi and the people that got the impacts from AALI got recovery and compensation. The organizations also urged there should be process to confirm that the people would get or reject free prior informed consent (FPIC), and the permit fraud in AALI should be investigated by the Government of Indonesia.
The documents were published one month prior after Friends of the Earth published the latest report about details of environmental violence, human rights violence, illegal plantings in forest regions and crime to human rights and environmental campaigners that AAL conducted.
“AAL should not hide the land deprivation, crime, and environmental damage behind RSPO as its members,” Uli Arta Siagian, Forest and Plantation Campaign Manager of Wahana Lingkungan Hidup/Walhi (Friends of the Earth Indonesia), said, as in the official statement to InfoSAWIT, Thursday (25/7/2024).
Boru Siagian thought, destructive operation of AALI in Indonesia was against RSPO principles and criteria in sustainable palm oil production. AAL operates in Sulawesi without FPIC from the people that got the impacts, let violence, crime, and intimidation happen to human rights campaigners.
Every violation that AAL conducted, was well documented for the past few years. This encouraged some big scale – consumers’ brands, for instance, Colgate, Palmolive, Danone, and L’Oreal, as the members of RSPO, announced to postpone (material) supplies from AALI. Some big scale – investors, such as, Norges Bank and BlackRock delivered sanction for AALI and the main company.
Friends of the Earth and other groups thought, RSPO membership was always used as the tool to get greenwashing to every environmental violence and human rights in palm oil sectors sustainably. There is no legal condition for RSPO members to obey the principles and criteria in the organization. RSPO was always criticized because it published certification for the company(ies) that delivered bad impacts and failed to deliver sanctions for its members that broke the principles.
“The proposal of AALI to RSPO would not be a surprise because disobedience to RSPO standards is systemic and widely spread to its members,” Gaurav Madan, Senior Forest and Area Rights Campaigner, Friends of the Earth, USA, said.
Madan continued, taking AALI as one member of RSPO would be the same to weaken the protests of the people on justice, and weaken RSPO itself.
The civil organization activists claimed the Government of Indonesia to investigate the permit issue and illegal operation in AALI, should facilitate to re-hand over the people’s areas that AALI cultivate without the people’s agreement. The activists also emphasized it would be significant that European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) should oblige the company(ies) to show free – deforestation supply chain and ban product imports that would have something to break the national scale – regulations.
“Many know that sustainability scheme is voluntarily conducted. If the commitment was failed to vanish deforestation and break human rights regulation, many agribusiness companies did,” Coordinator of International Forestry Program in Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Belanda), Danielle van Oijen said. (T2)
