PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia (AFP) — Deep in the forests of Indonesian Borneo, a small environmental group is using education and common sense to arm villagers against the devastating onslaught of palm plantations.

Yayasan Orangutan Indonesia (Yayorin) was founded in 1991 with the goal of saving Indonesia’s endangered orangutans and other wildlife as well as the forests that those species need to survive.

Since then the spread of palm oil plantations into forests and peatlands on Sumatra and Borneo islands have helped make Indonesia the world’s third-highest greenhouse gas emitter, thanks partly to the craze for “eco-friendly” biofuels.

They have also wiped out habitats of threatened species like orangutans and Bornean clouded leopards.

But the plantations are also hurting people whose traditional communities depend on the forests and the biodiversity they contain, and that is where Yayorin director and founder Togu Simorangkir sees hope for change.

“We think that above all the problem of deforestation is human,” said the 32-year-old biologist in Pangkalan Bun village in the heart of Central Kalimantan province.

“That’s why 80 percent of our programme focuses on education. It’s not enough just to give the message ’stop cutting down trees’. You have to explain the consequences of deforestation in the short and long term.”

Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of palm oil, which is used in a range of products including soap, cooking oil and biodiesel.

Vast tracts of forest have already disappeared under palm plantations and the government is encouraging more despite its stated commitment to lowering greenhouse gas emissions by preserving the carbon stored in jungles.

In 1990 there were 1.1 million hectares (2.7 million acres) of land under palm oil plantation in Indonesia, according to official figures. This year there are 7.6 million hectares.

“We’ve heard some terrible stories,” said Daryatmo, the chief of Tumbang Tura village in Central Kalimantan.

“Our neighbours (who sold their forested land to palm planters) can’t grow ratan anymore or harvest rubber. Fishing is impossible because the river is polluted,” he said.

“These are our principal sources of income. What kind of legacy are we going to leave our grandchildren?”

Lured by immediate “wealth” in the form of a few thousands dollars in cash, people in forest-dependent communities often are not aware of the consequences of selling out to the palm planters, Simorangkir said.

“Last year a plantation company offered a village two billion rupiah (176,000 dollars) to exploit its land. Every family calculated that that would bring them 30 million (2,640 dollars) each,” he said.

“The village authorities sought our advice and we told them the consequences for the environment in the medium term. Despite the bait, they concluded by refusing the project.”

The NGO followed up by helping the villagers improve their subsistence-level agriculture techniques, he said.

With projects spread across several villages as well as plantations, companies, schools and government agencies, Simorangkir said he hoped Yayorin could help make a difference in the battle to save Indonesia’s forests.

But will such initiatives be enough to save the “man of the forest,” the orangutan?

There are currently an estimated 40,000 wild orangutans on Borneo but the United Nations estimates there could be fewer than 1,000 by 2023.

Palm oil companies have been clearing orangutan habitats on Borneo despite signing up to voluntary standards under the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a talking shop for industry and environmental groups.

The Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association, in rejecting a moratorium on new plantations proposed by Greenpeace last year, argued that the RSPO standards were enough to protect the species.

But the Centre for Orangutan Protection says orangutans living outside Central Kalimantan’s conservation areas could be wiped out within three years. Of the roughly 20,000 individuals in Central Kalimantan province, close to 3,000 die every year, it says.

“Their future is in the north of the Central Kalimantan region, which at the present time is preserved. The belt of palm oil plantations must not extend to the north,” said Stephen Brend of Orangutan Foundation International.

Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hlw3okGK3Ds-RwK1IVu3OgVvQYNw

Greg Roberts | January 27, 2009
Article from: The Australian

AUSTRALIA is contributing directly to the widespread destruction of tropical rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia by importing millions of tonnes of taxpayer-subsidised biodiesel made from palm oil.

Imports of the fuel are rising, undermining the Rudd Government’s $200 million commitment to reduce deforestation in the region – a problem that globally contributes to 20 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions.

The bulldozing of rainforests to make way for palm oil plantations is also putting further pressure on orangutans and other endangered wildlife throughout Southeast Asia. And the Australian biofuels industry says it is struggling to compete with the cheap imports from Asia, which are touted as an environmentally friendly alternative to diesel.

Without action, the problem will only get worse, with demand for biodiesel imports likely to

rise sharply when NSW legislates to introduce Australia’s first biodiesel mandate – 2 per cent this year, rising to 5 per cent when sufficient supplies become available. But the Rudd Government is likely to come under pressure to follow the lead of other Western nations in banning imports of palm oil-based biodiesel. Biodiesel manufacturers in Australia use primarily tallow from abattoirs and recycled cooking oil.

Caltex, the biggest biodiesel customer in Australia, refuses to use palm oil-based fuel on environmental grounds, but it is being imported by independent operators.

Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson, who is conducting a review of government assistance to the biofuels industry, declined to comment on whether he was aware of the Asian biodiesel imports.

Unlike imported ethanol, imported biodiesel is not subject to the 38.14c-a-litre fuel excise, so the biodiesel imports from Asia are effectively subsidised by Australian taxpayers. Rex Wallace, the chief financial officer of the Adelaide-based Environmentally Friendly Fuels, said his company had purchased five million litres of palm oil-based biodiesel in recent years.

“We would not need to import it if people could produce a quality product on a regular basis in Australia,” he said. “We would love to buy more local produce but it’s just not there.”

Mr Wallace said his company imported from certified plantations in Malaysia that had been developed on land cleared historically for other purposes such as rubber plantations.

Australian Biodiesel Group chief executive Bevan Dooley said the industry estimated that 10million litres of palm oil-based biodiesel was imported a year. “Europe and the US are closing the gates on this product, but Australian taxpayers are subsidising its import,” Mr Dooley said.

He said it was difficult to establish if certified plantations were environmentally friendly, and Australian imports were helping to fuel demand worldwide for “environmentally destructive” biodiesel from Malaysia and Indonesia.

“These imports are causing many Australian producers to suffer losses and are detrimental to the establishment of a biodiesel industry in Australia,” Mr Dooley said.

“Australia is seen as a dumping ground for palm oil-based biodiesel as there is no requirement for the fuel to be derived from sustainable resources.” He said there was ample capacity in Australia to meet demand.

The Australian industry produces about 50million litres of biodiesel a year, but has the capacity to produce much more. About 80 million litres will be needed annually to meet a 2 per cent mandate in NSW.

Indonesia has about 6 million hectares of palm oil plantation and Malaysia 4.5 million ha. Indonesia plans to double palm oil production by 2025 and is developing a plantation of 1.8 million ha in east Kalimantan.

To make way for the plantation, the largest remaining area of lowland rainforest in Kalimantan is being bulldozed, with the loss of habitat for orangutans, clouded leopards and other rare animals.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24967830-11949,00.html

The Indonesian army is currently investigating the whereabouts of missing border markers in Kapuas district, West Kalimantan Province, used to delineate the boundary between Indonesia and neighboring Malaysia, an Army spokesman said on Wednesday.

“We are handling this matter seriously as it concerns our country’s sovereignty,” Brig. Gen. Christian Zebua told the Jakarta Globe.

Zebua said a team of Army personnel had been sent to Kapuas — more than 120 kilometers from Pontianak, the provincial capital — to secure the border and investigate the missing markers.

The markers are believed to have been uprooted during the recent construction of a road by a Malaysian oil palm company on the border between the two countries.

Because of the area’s relative isolation and the Army’s limited number of soldiers , Zebua said monitoring the border area in Kapuas was particularly difficult.

A local military commander first reported the disappearance of the markers two weeks ago.

Without the markers, Zebua said that the border between the two countries could become vague.

“We certainly don’t want anyone to steal or claim our land, but we cannot patrol the border if we do not know where it is exactly,” Zebua said.

Zebua said that the Indonesian government had asked the Malaysian government to participate in the investigation.

He also admitted that loose supervision around the border was to blame for the loss of the markers.

The government should replace the makeshift markers with permanent fixtures to enable the army to monitor the area more thoroughly, Zebua said.

Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/article/7764.html

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Wed, 01/28/2009 6:33 PM | National

Former House of Representative Commission IV member Sarjan Tahir is sentenced to 4.5 years imprisonment and fined for Rp200 million for receiving a bribe to approve a project to convert a protected forest area in Banyuasin, South Sumatra, into a seaport.

Presiding judge Gusrizal told the Corruption Court that defendant Tahir was guilty of violating article 12 of the 1999 Corruption Law in receiving a Rp 5 billion bribe and also article 11 of the same law for accepting an addition Rp 170 million in connection to the Banyuasin conversion project.

“The defendant is certainly and legally proven to have committed primary and secondary graft,” he said, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Tahir’s profession as a lawmaker was reportedly among the factors that had worked against him.

“The accused, however, had regretted his acts and admitted guilt, was cooperative throughout [the legal process] and upfront during questioning. These were among the factors that were to his defence,” Gusrizal added.

Another member of the panel of judges, Andi Bachtiar, had nevertheless added that Tahir’s crime was not a solitary one.

“There is close cooperation between House members and the South Sumatera regional government,” Bachtiar said, referring to other implicated officials, namely legislators Yusuf Erwin Faishal, Azwar Chesputra and Hilman Indra, as well as former South Sumatera governor Sjahrial Osman and businessman Chandra Antonio Tan.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/01/28/lawmaker-gets-45-years-forest-conversion-graft.html

Commentary by Rhett A. Butler
January 26, 2009
Source: mongabay.com

Economic downturn may slow — or at least delay — deforestation

Plunging commodity prices may offer a reprieve for the world’s beleaguered tropical forests.

The global economic downturn has caused demand for many commodities to plummet. The resulting decline in the prices of timber, energy, minerals and agricultural products may do what conservationists have largely failed to achieve in recent years: slow deforestation.

Fueled by surging demand from China and other emerging economies, and boosted by the convergence of food and energy markets in response to American and European incentives for biofuels, the worldwide commodity boom over the past few years helped trigger a land rush that precipitated the conversion of natural forests into farms, plantations, and ranches. At the same time, high prices for metals, fossil fuels, and other industrial resources drove a global search for exploitable reserves, many of which lie in tropical forest countries.

U.S. consumption of corn to supply domestic ethanol production created a global corn frenzy which drove up prices and spurred expansion of croplands around the planet. Two examples are Brazil and Laos. Brazil increased production of soy to essentially make up for soy acreage lost to corn in America. In Laos, returns from corn were so high that Vietnamese traders pressured national park officials to open up protected areas in parts of the country to corn fields. They refused.

Now that the bonanza is unwinding, with prices for everything from palm oil to bauxite to crude oil cratering, the incentives to clear forests are retreating. Developers large and small are abandoning projects and forgoing planned expansion of existing projects around the world.

For example in the Brazilian Amazon, where deforestation is increasingly driven by industrial agriculture and ranching, falling grain prices early in the year coincided with a sharp slowing in deforestation. As food and fuel prices peaked through late 2007 and early 2008, it appeared that Amazon deforestation would climb to levels not seen since 2005 — more than 15,000 square kilometers were expected to be lost. The sudden downturn changed all that. When the final numbers came in for 2008, they showed that deforestation only increased a modest 3.8% to 11,968 square kilometers.

The story is similar in the timber sector: the bursting of the property bubble and associated financial crisis has triggered falling demand from consuming countries and is forcing producers to scale back operations. According to the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), prices of Malaysian wood products have experience the steepest decline since the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, while exports for the Brazilian state of Pará declined 35 percent for 2008. Stockpiles of wood products are building in Indonesia, Malaysia, and China, which experienced a rare drop in the total import and export value its forest products trade in 2008. E.U. imports from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana have slowed since late 2008.

In southeast Asia, a dramatic collapse in the price of palm oil (60 percent off its peak in March 2008) and rubber (down 54 percent from its high in July 2008) is causing a shake-out in the plantation sector, which has become one of the leading drivers of deforestation in the region. Firms operating in Indonesia also appear to be slowing acquisition of forest land for new development.

Still the downturn is not entirely good news for environmentalists. New funds for conservation and research are drying up as donations dwindle and endowments swoon with stock market turmoil. Law enforcement, including park protection and monitoring, may suffer from lack of funding, while “green” initiatives by governments and private entities that are “nice to have” in times of plenty become an afterthought as the economy sours. The same goes for premium “green” products like certified timber and fair trade coffee — demand is expected to decline as consumers rein in their spending. In places where work is scarce there may be increased pressure on natural resources for subsistence use including fuelwood harvesting and slash-and-burn cultivation. Low prices in the carbon market don’t bode well for nascent “avoided deforestation” projects that would compensate tropical countries for reducing their deforestation rates, nor do low oil prices support development of low-carbon energy technologies. Finally the current economic climate offers opportunities for still-healthy firms to buy up forest land and assets at a discount from distressed companies and cash-strapped communities, enlarging their resource pools to exploit once recovery — no matter how green environmentalists try to make it — is on the horizon.

Greg Roberts | January 27, 2009
Article from: The Australian

AUSTRALIA is contributing directly to the widespread destruction of tropical rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia by importing millions of tonnes of taxpayer-subsidised biodiesel made from palm oil.

Imports of the fuel are rising, undermining the Rudd Government’s $200 million commitment to reduce deforestation in the region – a problem that globally contributes to 20 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions.

The bulldozing of rainforests to make way for palm oil plantations is also putting further pressure on orangutans and other endangered wildlife throughout Southeast Asia. And the Australian biofuels industry says it is struggling to compete with the cheap imports from Asia, which are touted as an environmentally friendly alternative to diesel.

Without action, the problem will only get worse, with demand for biodiesel imports likely to

rise sharply when NSW legislates to introduce Australia’s first biodiesel mandate – 2 per cent this year, rising to 5 per cent when sufficient supplies become available. But the Rudd Government is likely to come under pressure to follow the lead of other Western nations in banning imports of palm oil-based biodiesel. Biodiesel manufacturers in Australia use primarily tallow from abattoirs and recycled cooking oil.

Caltex, the biggest biodiesel customer in Australia, refuses to use palm oil-based fuel on environmental grounds, but it is being imported by independent operators.

Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson, who is conducting a review of government assistance to the biofuels industry, declined to comment on whether he was aware of the Asian biodiesel imports.

Unlike imported ethanol, imported biodiesel is not subject to the 38.14c-a-litre fuel excise, so the biodiesel imports from Asia are effectively subsidised by Australian taxpayers. Rex Wallace, the chief financial officer of the Adelaide-based Environmentally Friendly Fuels, said his company had purchased five million litres of palm oil-based biodiesel in recent years.

“We would not need to import it if people could produce a quality product on a regular basis in Australia,” he said. “We would love to buy more local produce but it’s just not there.”

Mr Wallace said his company imported from certified plantations in Malaysia that had been developed on land cleared historically for other purposes such as rubber plantations.
Australian Biodiesel Group chief executive Bevan Dooley said the industry estimated that 10million litres of palm oil-based biodiesel was imported a year. “Europe and the US are closing the gates on this product, but Australian taxpayers are subsidising its import,” Mr Dooley said.

He said it was difficult to establish if certified plantations were environmentally friendly, and Australian imports were helping to fuel demand worldwide for “environmentally destructive” biodiesel from Malaysia and Indonesia.

“These imports are causing many Australian producers to suffer losses and are detrimental to the establishment of a biodiesel industry in Australia,” Mr Dooley said.

“Australia is seen as a dumping ground for palm oil-based biodiesel as there is no requirement for the fuel to be derived from sustainable resources.” He said there was ample capacity in Australia to meet demand.

The Australian industry produces about 50million litres of biodiesel a year, but has the capacity to produce much more. About 80 million litres will be needed annually to meet a 2 per cent mandate in NSW.

Indonesia has about 6 million hectares of palm oil plantation and Malaysia 4.5 million ha. Indonesia plans to double palm oil production by 2025 and is developing a plantation of 1.8 million ha in east Kalimantan.

To make way for the plantation, the largest remaining area of lowland rainforest in Kalimantan is being bulldozed, with the loss of habitat for orangutans, clouded leopards and other rare animals.

Source: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24967830-11949,00.html

Source: Mongabay

Efforts to slow the rapid expansion of oil palm plantations at the expense of natural forests across Southeast Asia are being hindered by industry-sponsored disinformation campaigns, argue scientists writing in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution. The authors, Lian Pin Koh and David S. Wilcove, say that palm oil may constitute the “single most immediate threat to the greatest number of species” by driving the conversion of biologically rich ecosystems — including lowland rainforests and peatlands.

“Why have efforts by conservationists failed to halt the expansion of oil palm plantations at the expense of tropical forests? We contend that part of the reason could be the aggressive public relations campaigns undertaken by the oil palm industry to promote public acceptance of palm oil and to dismiss the concerns of conservation biologists and environmentalists,” Koh and Wilcove write. “It is not unlike the campaign that some energy companies waged against efforts to curb global climate change.”

Under fire from environmental groups, which are now pushing for consumer boycotts of products containing palm oil in some markets, industry groups have launched marketing campaigns to depict palm oil as a environmentally benign — or even ecologically beneficial — product. Despite substantial scientific evidence to the contrary, the industry claims that expansion has not occurred in natural forest areas and that oil palm plantations sequester more carbon than rainforests.

Ultimately, pressure on the industry to improve environmental performance will hinge on whether environmentalists can overcome this propaganda to convince consumers and governments on the merits of eco-friendly palm oil. Until then, biodiversity will continue to be at risk from the palm oil industry, conclude Koh and Wilcove.

“To effectively mitigate the threats of oil palm to biodiversity, conservationists need to persuade consumers to continue to demand both greater transparency in land-use decisions by governments and greater environmental accountability from oil palm producers.”

“A prohibition on the conversion of primary or secondary forests to oil palm is urgently needed to safeguard tropical biodiversity. Until that happens, oil palm might well be the single most immediate threat to the greatest number of species.”

Lian Pin Koh and David S. Wilcove. Oil palm: disinformation enables deforestation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution Vol.24 No.2