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Palm Oil Plantations and Modern Day Slavery

by Tomas DiFiore
The story of Sustainable Palm Oil, and Sustainable Certification of Palm Oil Products is a continuing story of human trafficking, genocidal pesticide toxicity, food scarcity, violence, murder, death squads (security forces), disregard for Indigenous cultures, oh and environmental destruction and deforestation. Alongside this have been huge profits, corruption, and global landgrabs. Certification has failed.
800_rspo_fsc_newspeak.jpg
Palm Oil Plantations and Modern Day Slavery

In a post by Chris Lang, REDD Monitor on August 5, 2015
“According to WWF, we can carry on our over-consumption of palm oil. The good news is that it can be produced in an environmentally responsible manner so you don’t have to give up these products.” (WWF website)
http://www.redd-monitor.org/2015/08/05/modern-slavery-found-in-rspo-member-felda-global-ventures-oil-palm-plantations/

Across Malaysia, the destruction of forests caused by the massive expansion of industrial oil palm plantations is well known, as is the impact on local communities, biodiversity and orangutans. “Sustainable palm oil? WWF explains that we can help by buying products containing palm oil certified under the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) scheme.”

An article published in the Wall Street Journal earlier in July 2015, exposes human trafficking, withholding of wages, and forced labor on oil palm plantations in Malaysia. The plantations belong to a company called Felda Global Ventures, a semi-autonomous company set up by Malaysia’s government. Felda Global Ventures has been a member of the RSPO since 2004. In the company’s 2013 Sustainability Report, Felda Global Ventures’ CEO, notes the importance of the RSPO to the company. The company is on target to meet its goal of certifying all its oil palm plantations by 2017.

Palm Oil Plantation Slavery - Felda Global Ventures

The Wall Street Journal article interviews a 22-year-old, who was transported from Bangladesh by human smugglers in December 2014. Since then he has been working seven days a week without receiving any pay. To get here, Mr. Rubel said, he endured three weeks in a crowded boat with inadequate food and water, followed by more weeks confined in a jungle camp while guards extorted a ransom from his parents back home. He said he saw dozens of fellow illegal migrants die from exhaustion, disease or beatings.

WSJ article “Palm-Oil Migrant Workers Tell of Abuses on Malaysian Plantations”
http://tinyurl.com/q68g2cr

“One of Rubel’s jobs is spraying pesticides, including paraquat, which is banned in the EU, because of its toxicity. Rubel was given protective clothing, but no training in using pesticides. He told the Wall Street Journal that spraying paraquat makes his head spin.”

Felda Global Ventures runs more than 700,000 hectares of oil palm plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia. Of these, more than 300,000 hectares are certified under the RSPO. Almost 85% of the workers on Felda Global Ventures’ plantations are foreigners.

On July 27, 2015, a coalition of NGOs produced a statement calling on the RSPO, the Malaysian government, and international buyers to conduct an open investigation into the Wall Street Journal’s findings. The RSPO Complaints Panel met two days after the publication of the Wall Street Journal article and decided, “to request the RSPO Secretariat to conduct an independent assessment of RSPO Certification Bodies competency in identifying non-compliances related to worker and human rights issues.”

“Of course it’s wonderful news that RSPO is going to carry out an independent assessment into whether RSPO Certification Bodies are competent to identify modern day slavery on oil palm plantations in Malaysia. There’s a glaring problem with the RSPO’s course of action. The Wall Street Journal article accuses Felda Global Ventures of serious human and labor rights violations. Felda Global Ventures remains a member of RSPO, and more than 300,000 of its plantations are certified by the RSPO. The coalition of NGOs is still demanding that the RSPO conduct an independent investigation into Felda Global Ventures’ operations.”
http://www.ran.org/joint_ngo_statement_modern_day_slavery_found_on_rspo_member_felda_global_venture_s_plantations

The plantation where Mr. Rubel works is controlled by Felda Global Ventures, (a semi-autonomous company set up by Malaysia’s government) one of the largest producers of crude palm oil. Its customers, according to U.S. customs and shipping data, include Minnesota-based Cargill Inc., which resells the oil to multinationals such as Nestlé SA and Procter & Gamble Co.

Yet the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is sponsoring “Forests For All Forever” this year in Malaysia on September 25.

“All Consumptive Needs” and everyone “needs a thneed.”
(The Once-Ler, in The Lorax)
Everybody needs a thneed!
A fine thing that all people need!
The thneed is good, the thneed is great,
Let's hope we're not too late!

More Workers (Slaves, Foreigners) Needed

East Malaysia -SOPPOA - (The) Sarawak Oil Palm Plantation Owners Association has reiterated the industry’s need for more workers to harvest oil palm fruits at the fields. SOPPOA estimates that millions of tonnes of fruit bunches are wasted in the fields as planters lack manpower to harvest them.

SOPPOA has current estimatesm (2015) for the harvest of 17.5 million tonnes of oil palm fruit bunches or 3.5 million tonnes of crude palm oil this year. With a 15 per cent wastage or loss of 500,000 tonnes of crude palm oil, that works out to 2.5 million tonnes of fruit bunches left rotting across Sarawak's oil palm fields.

In Sabah, the indigenous communities are a majority in the state, making up 85 per cent of the state population of 2 million. The 39 ethnic groups, including Kadazan, Dusun, Murut, Paitan and Bajau, are collectively referred to as Anak Negeri or natives of the state.

In Sarawak, indigenous groups, now commonly referred to collectively as Dayak and Orang Ulu, account for 44 per cent of the state population of 2.2 million.

"There is little alternative but to seek hiring of foreign workers." SOPPOA expressed gratitude for Sarawak government’s plan to bring in 12,000 Bangladeshi workers for the state’s plantation sector. SOPPOA goes on to state that employment in the oil and gas sector has taken all the eligible local workers from Sarawak to Sabah.
http://retiredenvironmentalist.blogspot.com/2015/03/sarawak-land-grab-laws-and-palm-oil.html

Indonesia Defends Deforestation For Palm Oil - Economics
http://sustainability.thomsonreuters.com/2015/03/26/indonesia-defends-deforestation-for-palm-oil-on-economic-grounds/

“Clearing forests for palm oil plantations is a technical matter that should not get tied up with trade discussions, an Indonesian minister told a land and poverty conference. We know that our primary customers are not concerned about deforestation.”

“Palm oil is important to Indonesia’s development because it reduces poverty by bringing roads, schools and other infrastructure to rural communities and generates five million jobs that benefit 15 million people. The zero deforestation commitment should not be a trade barrier because deforestation is a governance issue and about effective implementation, not about trade.”

A New Approach, RSPO Regional Certification

“Steps to produce more sustainable palm oil have become all the more urgent as parts of Southeast Asia are regularly covered in a blanket of haze due to heavy smoke from “slash and burn” forest fires and smoldering peat in Indonesia, where palm oil companies have large forest concessions. Sustainable palm oil certification typically targets single plantations or mills that belong to companies or smallholders, but support is growing for land-use planning at a broader level, known as the “jurisdictional approach”.

“Stefano Savi, global outreach director at the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), said the organisation was working with the government of Sabah, a state in Malaysian Borneo, to develop a system of broader certification.”

Sabah, which produces 12 percent of the world’s palm oil, has proposed all its production should be RSPO-certified by 2025.
http://sustainability.thomsonreuters.com/2015/09/14/interview-sustainable-palm-oil-body-eyes-broader-approach-to-certification/

But Sabah is a world class region of export for lumber from illegal logging, also the illegal wildlife trade, and conflict palm oil from the rest of Borneo (Sarawak – East Malaysia, and Kalimantan – Indonesia). Offshore from Sabah are the hugely productive Oil and Natural Gas fields, undersea pipelines and hubs.

The RSPO and FSC Certification schemes have failed: “Palm Oil Industry Sustainable Policies Fail Global Commitments To Communities Most Affected”
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/03/02/18769373.php

It's been a great dialogue.... Dialogue, dialogue, dialogue, trees die as logs.

Forests For All Forever In... Malaysia??? Celebrate with FSC another empty promise.
“Through sustainable forest management, forests are logged in a way that is environmentally sustainable, socially appropriate and economically viable. The benefits of the FSC certification for well-managed forests include more responsible logging, retention of land under natural forest cover, management and monitoring of High Conservation Value (HCV) areas, independent auditing and monitoring and greater stakeholder participation.”
http://www.eco-business.com/press-releases/fsc-holds-dialogue-from-deforestation-to-forests-for-all-forever-in-malaysia/

This last July, Malaysia overstepped it's global boundaries of corruption and disregard for human rights, as it tried to extend it's repressive iron fist to quash transparency, all the way to London.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/20/sarawak-report-whistleblowing-website-blocked-by-malaysia-over-pm-allegations

Clare Rewcastle Brown, who is married to former British prime minister Gordon Brown’s younger brother, set up Sarawak Report in 2010, and most of its reporting has focused on deforestation in the Malaysian part of Borneo – including the state of Sarawak – and corruption.

The Sarawak Report website has been blocked in Malaysia. Sarawak is known as East Malaysia, situated on Borneo. Malaysia is not a developing country. It is a country being developed by corporate interests, political cronyism, mass corruption and wealth built on decimation of native forests. On the global stage, and at the UN, Malaysia openly rejects human rights for Indigenous people. Workers are imported from the Asia rim countries by the thousands, (12,000 in 2015 for Sarawak plantations) to work the Palm Plantations while Indigenous people lose their rights and access to the landbase.

For industry, there are two different target approaches to Zero-Deforestation;
-One is gross which equates the reduction of deforestation of native forests to the increase in the establishment of new forests on previously cleared lands (reforestation).
-While net deforestation inherently equates the value of protecting native forests with that of planted forests.

December, 2013, on Peninsular Malaysia, “Oil palm plantations extinguished the last habitat of a rainforest tree in Malaysia. The plantations were established after Bikam was de-gazetted, or re-zoned from a logging concession for conversion to oil palm.”
http://banslickwaterfracking.blogspot.com/2015/02/deforestation-free-and-zero.html

Just Boycott Palm Oil Products. Period. It's not that hard to find replacements for palm oil's use. Environmental devastation and human rights abuses are being forced onto countries and indigenous cultures while the palm oil products are being forced on consumers. Palm oil is genocide for orangutans and tigers. Palm oil plantations rob food security from local cultures.

Lastly: “Rainforest Action Network (RAN) publicly shared a joint communication with UCS, Greenpeace, SumOfUs and the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) that was delivered privately to PepsiCo in July. The letter outlines in specific detail ways in which PepsiCo's current palm oil commitments fall short of the new benchmark set by its peers for responsible palm oil production and procurement. RAN says the issues raised at that time remain unaddressed by PepsiCo.”
http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/supply_chain/jennifer_elks/ngos_pepsicos_new_palm_oil_commitment_major_improvement_ot

“PepsiCo has committed to achieving zero deforestation in its company-owned and -operated activities and supply chain by 2020. Specifically, it says it will work to ensure that by 2016, all 450,000 tons of palm oil it sources each year will come only from suppliers certified by the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), do not develop on high carbon stock or high conservation value forests, or convert peatland into plantations. PepsiCo states further that in compliance with our Forestry Stewardship Policy, which includes adherence to the following principles:
-Compliance with applicable legal requirements of each country in which we operate and from which we source.
-No further development on High Carbon Stock (HCS) Forests, High Conservation Value (HCV) Forests.
-No new conversion of Peatlands.”

…. by 2020.

Food Security vs Food Scarcity

But as we know, Indonesia has instituted the 'plasma obligation' as a social program... a mandatory expansion of current palm oil plantations by 20 percent outside the current boundaries of the plantation for a 'smallholders option'. This has a great PR face, but is quite controversial.

Oil Palm Industry products distributors to the US marketplace often confuse the consumer and store purchasers by using terms such as small farmers. Small farmers grow food for food security. Smallholders grow crops for export and have been shown to increase food scarcity.

Once a concession is developed into a plantation, and foreigners are acquired for the sake of production (over a 25-30 year timeframe), schools and water filtration equipment are set up. Voila, the locals support the system of Eco-Apartheid!

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§ 107. Limitations on exclusive rights- Fair use: Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

If you or anyone wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Boycott All Palm Oil Products, and talk to store clerks, managers, and purchasers!
Tomas DiFiore
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