ACCOR hotel chain linked to destructive logging in Borneo?
ACCOR, one of Europe’s leading hotel groups, is cooperating with a Malaysian logging company blamed for destructive logging and attacks on Penan indigenous communities in Sarawak, claims an environmental group that has long campaigned on behalf of Borneo’s forest people.
The Switzerland-based Bruno Manser Fund reports that NOVOTEL, a subsidiary of ACCOR, is jointly building a 4.5-star hotel in Kuching, Sarawak’s capital city, with Interhill, a Malaysian tropical timber company.
“Interhill has been logging Sarawak’s tropical rainforest since the end of the 1980s and bears decisive responsibility for the ongoing destruction of the very basis of the Penan’s existence”, said Lukas Straumann, Director of the Bruno Manser Fund.
In a letter issued today to ACCOR CEO, Gilles Pélisson, Bruno Manser Fund demands that ACCOR withdraw from the 388-room NOVOTEL INTERHILL hotel project.
“We are shocked by ACCOR’s cooperation with Interhill, since it is completely at odds with ACCOR’s ecological and social standards,” said Straumann.
The letter notes Interhill’s used of intimidation tactics against Penan communities, including the hiring of “armed thugs” and alleged sexual abuses by workers against young women. These abuses are currently under investigation by the Malaysian police and SUHAKAM, the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia.
View photos and interactive maps at the source: Mongabay
