Korean firm burns rainforest for palm oil in Indonesia, report says

JAKARTA, Sept 2 (Reuters) - A South Korean-owned company is cutting down primary rainforests for timber and then setting fires to clear the land to plant oil palm in apparent violation of Indonesian law, according to an investigation by environmental groups.

The investigation points to "systematic and widespread use of fire" by the Jakarta-based Korindo Group PT, which adds to the pall of smoky haze choking large parts of Southeast Asia during the annual dry season, the environmental groups said in a report published on Thursday.

Korindo has already cleared more than 50,000 hectares (193 square miles) of tropical lowland forest for palm oil plantations in the remote provinces of Papua and Maluku, and at least 75,000 hectares are at "immediate risk" of being cleared, the report said.

"I've never seen evidence so strong to prove that a company intentionally burned," AidEnvironment Indonesia senior consultant Erik Wakker told Reuters in a telephone interview.

One of Korindo's main customers, Wilmar International Ltd. , told Reuters the company has stopped buying palm from Korindo for violating it's "no deforestation" policy, the company said in an emailed statement.

Korindo blamed local people living near its timber concession area for "lighting fires for hunting wild animals living in the forests".

"Accusations that the Korindo Group were a big contributor to the smoke and haze in 2015 and consequently had an impact on the economy and damaged the environment in Indonesia are not true," the company said in a statement.

Indonesia's environment ministry has sent a team to Papua "to collect material and information", after they were presented with the findings from the report, the ministry's law enforcement director Muhammad Yunus told Reuters.

Indonesia is home to the world's third-largest area of tropical forests. It is also the world's fifth-largest emitter of the greenhouse gases widely blamed for global warming, largely due to deforestation.

Korindo holds a total of 160,000 hectares (619 square miles) of oil palm concessions in eight areas of Papua and Maluku, according to the report, and an estimated 900,000 hectares of logging areas that could also be converted. It is one of the largest plantation companies in eastern Indonesia.

Around 90 percent of the world's palm oil crop grows in Malaysia and Indonesia. Indonesia's President Joko Widodo in April imposed a moratorium on expanding palm oil plantations, with the industry under mounting pressure from global companies that use palm oil in products, ranging from soups to soaps and chocolates, to adhere to environmentally sustainable plantation practices.

Consumer giants, such as Unilever and Kellog, are increasingly demanding "sustainability certification" from watchdog groups, including no use of fire to clear land, before buying products from palm oil producers.

Last year's forest fires in Indonesia burned 2.5 million hectares, an area the size of Great Britain, causing total economic losses of $16 billion, a World Bank report said.

Many forest communities throughout Indonesia practice "slash and burn" agriculture, using fire to clear land. But the World Resources Institute, which runs an extensive database on forest fires in Indonesia, says more than a third of the fires last year were on pulp wood concessions, and a good proportion of the rest were on palm oil plantations.

Under Indonesian law, a company found guilty of clearing land by burning can be fined up to 10 billion rupiah ($735,000), and the management faces up to 10 years in jail. Companies that fail to control fires started elsewhere but which spread into their concession land also face punishment.

Korindo Group employs around 20,000 people across 30 affiliated companies mainly involved in plywood, paper and pulp and palm oil, according to the company's website. It is majority-owned by South Korea's Seung family.

The sparsely populated province of Papua is the Indonesian half of an island shared by Papua New Guinea, and home to indigenous communities.

Mighty Southeast Asia director Bustar Maitar said plantation companies like Korindo compensate Papuan communities for clearing the forests that once provided them with food.

"They get some compensation and they finish their money at markets. They want to go hunting again but there's no more forest. And then because they have no more money and they can't go hunting they go back to complain to the company. So social conflicts keep going because the community no longer has a way to support themselves from day to day."

The environmental groups used satellite images that recorded "hot spots" and infrared pictures showing fires, along with photos and videos taken on the ground, the report said.

During a trip to Korindo's concessions in Papua this year, Maitar said researchers found extensive stacking, a process used to heap woody debris leftover from land clearing into long piles that serve as a pathway for fires.

"Once it's dry, they set it alight," Maitar said.

Wakker at AidEnvironment said the Korindo case poses a challenge for President Widodo after his moratorium on clearing new land for plantations.

"The big question is whether (the president) will have those permits withdrawn or not," said Wakker. "If he allows them to continue clearing that land it's going to be the largest deforestation project in Indonesia." </s> Some of the world’s biggest buyers have stopped trading with Korindo after the emergence of footage claiming to show illegal burning in Papua province

A Korean palm oil company has been dropped by buyers after footage emerged that allegedly shows the illegal burning of vast tracts of tropical forest on lands it holds concessions for in Indonesia.

Some of the world’s biggest palm oil trading producers including Wilmar, Musim Mas and IOI have stopped using palm oil sourced from Korindo, much of which is destined to meet European demand.

Korindo’s alleged deforestation of pristine woodland in Papua province also threatens to destroy the last sanctuary of several birds of paradise and the tree kangaroo, according to a report by a new environmental alliance called Mighty.

The group has collected evidence from drones, remote sensors, GPS satellites, and videographers and photographers on the ground, which it says proves that Korindo has flouted Indonesia’s no-burning laws and violated responsible sourcing requirements.

Bustar Maitar, Mighty’s campaign director in Papua, told the Guardian: “Korindo is clear-cutting forests and then starting fires to clear the land of remaining biomass. That is forbidden by Indonesia’s regulations but during last year’s forest fires, most of the blazes in the Papua region happened in Korindo’s concessions.”

“There are a lot of animal species and flora here that haven’t even been discovered yet,” Maitar added. “If these kinds of land clearing activities continue, they may never be.”

But Koh Gyeong Min, Korindo’s head of sustainability, denied that the firm had been responsible for any illegal forest burning. “It is not true actually,” he said. “We followed all of the Indonesian regulations and acquired all the proper licences from the government for all areas of operation within our group.”

“I also would like to ask: do the local NGOs or residents have any evidence about our company that they have brought to the Indonesian government or the local courts? As far as I know there have been no cases of that.”

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The allegations come as south-east Asia’s 2016 burning season is just beginning. On 30 August, the Indonesian government warned that haze from fires on Sumatra and Kalimantan could reach Malaysia and Singapore in the days ahead.

More than 3,000 hotspots have been detected in the Indonesian archipelago in the last month, with maps released by Greenpeace of Riau and West Kalimantan showing that many are occurring on industrial plantation concessions in the same areas that burned last year.

Yuyun Indradi, Greenpeace Indonesia’s forest campaigner said: “Companies that refuse to take steps to prevent fires have not just ash, but blood on their hands.”

Wildfires in Indonesia’s tropical forests last year are thought likely to have contributed to the premature deaths of more than 100,000 people, and to have emitted more CO2 than the whole of the UK that year.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Native forest cleared for palm oil plantations. Photograph: Yerimia Leo/Mighty

Korindo is active in Indonesia’s north Malaku region as well as Papua, holding around 620 square miles of forest concessions in total. The company, whose promotional video calls on viewers to “make the Earth green”, has already cleared around 193 square miles of forest.

Maitar said that Korindo had not responded to letters sent by the new alliance, and that the new report was aimed at putting pressure on the Indonesian government.

Several major buyers of Korindo’s palm oil acted to cut the firm out of their supply chains after hearing of the allegations.

A spokeswoman for Musim Mas told the Guardian that it wanted to see Korindo engage with civil society groups and adopt a “No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation” (NDPE) policy. “During this period we will continue to stop buying the palm oil temporarily and monitor Korindo’s progress,” she said.

NDPEs have become a palm oil industry standard in south-east Asia but the Mighty campaign argues that they are not working. Glenn Hurowitz, Mighty’s US campaign director, said that Korindo had been able to deforest 113 square miles of land since 2013, despite clearly visible satellite evidence of 894 hotspots in that period.

“This investigation shows the true face of the palm oil industry in Indonesia even after No Deforestation policies,” Hurowitz said. “The current, mostly confidential company-by-company system is inadequate. We urgently need a transparent, systematic approach, as well as further action by government and prosecutors.”

One of Malaysia’s largest palm oil companies, IOI – which was itself suspended from a sustainability scheme for not doing enough to prevent deforestation - said that its third party suppliers had also “decided to temporarily stop sourcing from Korindo” after hearing the allegations.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Korindo’s alleged deforestation of pristine woodland in Papua province also threatens to destroy the last sanctuary the tree kangaroo. Photograph: Tim Laman/NG/Getty Images

The palm oil giant Wilmar told the Guardian that it too had contacted Korindo after a heads up about the new evidence. “Due to a lack of progress from the supplier, and in view of the serious allegations, Wilmar has ceased procuring from Korindo with effect from June 2016,” a spokeswoman said.

None of the companies would reveal how much money they spent on ensuring that third-party palm oil suppliers did not cause environmental damage.

Gyeong Min said that after a demand from Wilmar earlier this year, Korindo began a “high-carbon stock assessment” which would be published later this month. “We also announced a temporary moratorium for our remaining plantation area,” he said.

Last month, a Korindo subsidiary called PT Tunas Sawa Erma declared a three-month suspension of new forest clearings across 25,000 hectares of territory, while it developed a NDPE policy.

But Mighty says that the moratorium did not extend to all Korindo operations. “A couple of months ago we visited their concessions and the land clearing was still happening,” Maitar said. “In our experience with other companies, all activities involving the cutting down of forests should be stopped, while they are doing these sorts of assessments.” </s> Every dry season, smoke from fires set to clear land for palm oil and pulp and paper plantations in Indonesia clouds the skies over much of the region, raising concern about public health and worrying tourist operators and airlines.

The 24-hour Pollution Standards Index (PSI), which the NEA uses as a benchmark, rose as high as 105 in the afternoon. A level above 100 is considered "unhealthy".

The NEA said it planned a "daily haze advisory" as "a burning smell and slight haze were experienced over many areas" in Singapore.

Indonesia repeatedly vows to stop the fires but each year they return. This year, Indonesia has arrested 454 people in connection with the smoke pollution.

When heavy, the choking smog closes airports and schools and prompts warnings to residents to stay indoors.

Pollution levels in neighboring Malaysia were normal on Friday.

Singapore has pushed Indonesia for information on companies suspected of causing pollution, some of which are listed on Singapore's stock exchange.

A forest campaigner for the environmental group Greenpeace Indonesia, Yuyun Indradi, said the government was struggling to enforce laws to prevent the drainage of peatland for plantations and the setting of fires to clear land.

"It has become a challenge for the government to enforce accountability among concession holders, to enforce its directives on blocking canals, and push companies to take part in efforts to restore peatland and prevent fires," Indradi said.

"Now is the time for the government to answer this challenge. It is in the law."

Greenpeace said, according to its satellite information, there were 138 fires across Indonesia on Friday. </s> Six Indonesian provinces have declared states of emergency as forest fires blanketed a swath of Southeast Asia in a smoky haze.

Singapore's air quality deteriorated to unhealthy levels on Friday as winds blew smoke from fires on Sumatra, where millions of people are already affected by haze, across the city-state and into southern Malaysia.

The number of hotspots detected in Sumatra and Borneo by weather satellites has increased in the past month though they are below levels last year when massive fires in Indonesia caused a regional crisis.

Singapore's three-hour air pollution index was at 157 by late afternoon, after peaking at 215. Its environment agency doesn't give a health warning with the limited duration index, but on a 24-hour basis it says levels above 100 are unhealthy and above 200 very unhealthy.

"The smell of smoke woke me up. I thought something was burning outside," said Singaporean copywriter Lim Jia Ying, who put on a mask for her commute to work. "I'm having a cough and it's getting worse. Luckily, I found a face mask at home," she said.

Indonesia's Disaster Mitigation Agency said six provinces which have a combined population of more than 23 million people have declared emergencies, allowing firefighting measures to go into full effect including aerial water drops.

The haze is an annual problem for Southeast Asia, but last year's fires were the worst since 1997, straining relations between Indonesia and its neighbors. About 261,000 hectares (644,931 acres) burned, causing billions of dollars in economic losses for Indonesia.

Many of the fires are deliberately set by agricultural conglomerates and small-time farmers to clear forests and peatland for plantations.

National police chief Tito Karnavian said Friday that 85 people have been arrested this year for starting fires.

About 2,800 hectares (6,918 acres) have burned so far this year, according to Indonesia's Forestry Ministry.

Separately, Indonesia's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by a palm oil company PT Kallista Alam that was ordered to pay compensation of 366 billion rupiah ($28 million) for burning peatlands, according to a decision published this month on the court's website.

———

Associated Press writer Annabelle Liang in Singapore contributed to this report. </s> The Indonesian port city of Balikpapan, on the island of Borneo, has declared a state of emergency after an oil spill spread along the coast, killing five fishermen when the oil caught fire.

Balikpapan is home to one of Indonesia's largest oil refineries. But the country's state energy company, Pertamina, has denied the spill was a result of its operations. </s> City of Balikpapan is struggling to deal with toxic smoke from fire that killed four fisherman

The Indonesian port city of Balikpapan, on the island of Borneo, has declared a state of emergency after a devastating oil spill spread along the coast, killing four fisherman when it ignited.

The oil spill, which occurred over the weekend, has now stretched to an area of around seven square miles (18 sq km), contaminating the sea and polluting the air with thick black smoke. One protected dugong has already washed up dead on the shore.

The four fisherman died after being caught up in the fire caused by the spill – another is still missing – and the port city of Balikpapan, which has a population of 700,000, is struggling to deal with the toxic smoke.

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“We’re in a state of emergency because of the oil spill’s impact,” said the Balikpapan city secretary MN Fadli. Around 1,200 people who live in the Penajam North Penajam Paser subdistrict reported symptoms of nausea, vomiting and breathing problems after the spill caught fire on Saturday and the city has distributed masks to help residents cope with the smell.

“I may sound like I’m exaggerating, but the state of the bay is like that of a gas station,” said Fadli.

The spill is thought to have been caused by a bulk coal carrier, which was carrying coal from Indonesia to Malaysia, but samples have also been taken from Pertamina, a state-owned oil refinery that has pipelines across the bay. Pertamina has denied it is responsible for the leak.

The full environmental impact of the oil spill is not yet known but it is already affecting the livelihoods of the local fisherman who rely on going out in their boats every day.

The Indonesian Environment and Forestry Ministry said a recovery team was working to contain and clean up the spill. Rasio Ridho Sani, the director general of the ministry, said: “Our team in the field is investigating it thoroughly. We will soon find out how big the impact is on the environment and who will be held responsible.” </s> Indonesia has declared a state of emergency after a large oil spill ignited and killed at least four people in the port city of Balikpapan off the island of Borneo over the weekend.

Black smoke rises from a burned oil spill at the waters in Balikpapan, Indonesia, March 31, 2018. A cargo ship caught fire in waters off East Kalimantan province in central Indonesia on Saturday, leaving two people dead and two others missing, an official said.

See also: Oilspill BP Gulf of Mexico: BP Macondo 252 Well Is Effectivily and Finally ‘Dead’ – The Next Oil Spill at Mumbai Coast: Clean up to take 45 days – Oil & Water: An Oil Documentary Like No Other – Stop Deepwater Drilling for Oil in The Arctic: It’s Time to Go Beyond Oil by Greenpeace – Trailer movie H2Oil – Toxic Fuels: Dirty Oil narrated by Neve Campbell – Crude: The Real Price of Oil – A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash – Toxic Fuels: Petropolis by Peter Mettler – Edward Burtynsky: OIL, a photographic documentation – Shell’s Big Dirty Secret </s> SINGAPORE/JAKARTA, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Air pollution in Singapore rose to the "unhealthy" level on Friday as acrid smoke drifted over the island from fires on Indonesia's Sumatra island, the National Environment Agency (NEA) said.

Every dry season, smoke from fires set to clear land for palm oil and pulp and paper plantations in Indonesia clouds the skies over much of the region, raising concern about public health and worrying tourist operators and airlines.

The 24-hour Pollution Standards Index (PSI), which Singapore's NEA uses as a benchmark, rose as high as 105 in the afternoon. A level above 100 is considered "unhealthy".

The NEA said it planned a "daily haze advisory" as "a burning smell and slight haze were experienced over many areas" in Singapore.

Indonesia has been criticised by its northern neighbours and green groups for failing to end the annual fires, which were estimated to cost Southeast Asia's largest economy $16 billion in 2015, and left more than half a million Indonesians suffering from respiratory ailments.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has increased government efforts to tackle the haze, with police doubling numbers of fire-related arrests this year.

"Forest and land fires in the Riau area are increasing," Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesman Sutopo Nugroho said in a statement on Friday, referring to aerial surveillance of 67 hotspots and smoke from the area drifting eastward over Singapore.

"The smoke billowing from the hotspot locations is quite dense," Nugroho said, adding that 7,200 personnel and several aircraft had been deployed to stop the Riau fires.

Pollution levels in neighbouring Malaysia were normal on Friday.

Singapore has pushed Indonesia for information on companies suspected of causing pollution, some of which are listed on Singapore's stock exchange.

A forest campaigner for the environmental group Greenpeace Indonesia, Yuyun Indradi, said the government was struggling to enforce laws to prevent the drainage of peatland for plantations and the setting of fires to clear land.

"It has become a challenge for the government to enforce accountability among concession holders, to enforce its directives on blocking canals, and push companies to take part in efforts to restore peatland and prevent fires," Indradi said.

"Now is the time for the government to answer this challenge. It is in the law."

Greenpeace said, according to its satellite information, there were 138 fires across Indonesia on Friday. (Reporting by Marius Zaharia and Fathin Ungku in SINGAPORE and Fergus Jensen in JAKARTA; Editing by Robert Birsel and Nick Macfie) </s> AT least 10 people have been killed and dozens more injured after a fire at an illegal oil well in Indonesia’s Aceh province.

Authorities confirmed an oil spill sparked a huge blaze about 6.30pm local time (5.30am AEDT) that torched at least three houses and was still out of control mid-morning.

“The [fire] is still soaring high and has not yet successfully been extinguished,” Saiful, head of Aceh’s Ranto Peureulak subdistrict who goes by one name, said.

Aceh is a semi-autonomous Indonesian area on the northwest tip of Sumatra Island. It’s known for its beaches, diving sites and mountain wilderness areas.

It comes nearly a month after an oil spill at state-owned oil and gas firm Pertamina, in East Kalimantan, which spread across an area greater than the city of Paris and caused an out-of-control blaze that killed five fishermen.

Indonesian authorities declared a state of emergency after the spill, which has caused significant environmental and economic damage.

More to come.
A South Korean palm oil company is accused of causing the wildfires in Indonesia.