Posted on 03 April 2013
- Jakarta, Indonesia – The much-touted new
deforestation policy of controversial paper
giant Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) will save
almost no forests in its main base of operations,
Sumatra, Indonesia, a new report by NGO
coalition Eyes on the Forest has concluded.
APP and Sinar Mas announced
the policy in February as “an end to the
clearing of natural forest across its entire
supply chain in Indonesia, with immediate
effect.” However, a new Eyes on the Forest
(EoF) analysis that looks at all APP concessions
– including those not covered by the moratorium
- in Riau Province, Sumatra, found that
the policy protects at most 5,000 hectares
of natural forest. This compares to the
deforestation of more than 2 million hectares
caused by the operation of APP’s Sumatra
pulp mills over the past three decades.
“We’re extremely disappointed.
When APP published the policy, we thought
it could be great news for Indonesia’s forests,
biodiversity and citizens,” said Nazir Foead,
Conservation Director of WWF-Indonesia.
“However, after this new analysis for Sumatra,
it appears that the company has announced
a halt to deforestation only after completing
nearly all the deforestation it could possible
do.”
Among APP’s many natural
forest wood sources are the concessions
of its suppliers in Riau Province. They
alone lost more than 680,000 hectares of
natural forest between the start of the
company’s Riau pulp mill in 1984 and 2012.
Of that, 77% was lost in legally questionable
ways, while an even larger proportion -
83% - consumed the habitat of critically
endangered Sumatran tigers and elephants.
WWF called on APP and
Sinar Mas to announce a forest restoration
commitment.
“The company is asking
for a grand amnesty, for the ‘past to be
forgotten’, leaving our country to deal
with devastated ecosystems, social conflicts,
on-going greenhouse gas emissions and critically
endangered species who lost their habitat,”
says Aditya Bayunanda, GFTN and pulp &
paper manager of WWF Indonesia. “That is
not acceptable, Indonesian NGOs are calling
on APP to restore selected peatlands and
forests lost in protected, High Conservation
Value areas and to mitigate the damage its
operations caused to surrounding natural
forests, peat soils, and wildlife.”
Eyes on the Forest also
highlights that SMG/APP’s much advertised
High Conservation Value assessments are
to be conducted in concessions where planned
clearing is complete and the remaining forests
are already protected by law or APP’s previous
commitments.
“Without a restoration
commitment, these assessments have little
meaning,” adds Bayunanda.
The report also shows
that, despite previous company promises
to exclusively pulp plantation fiber by
2004, 2007 and 2009, the company’s rate
of deforestation remained constant between
1995 and 2011, apart from a short period
in 2007-2009 when authorities were investigating
alleged illegal logging by the industry,
including APP wood suppliers. The rate slowed
in 2012 – for the sole reason that there
was very little natural forest left to cut.
“Our analysis points
to one conclusion: APP once again seems
to hope that it can fool people into imagining
huge conservation benefits while overlooking
past transgressions,” said Hariansyah Usman
of WALHI Riau. “We don’t see the policy’s
potential future conservation benefits balancing
in any way the many unresolved issues stemming
from APP’s deforestation legacy.”
“Eyes on the Forest
highlights that only full disclosure of
all activities, including the status of
all existing and planned wood supply bases
and all mill expansion plans can prove whether
this policy contains any real conservation
benefits.”
Last week, NGOs in Kalimantan,
on the Indonesian side of Borneo, found
continued logging of tropical forest taking
place in the concessions of two APP wood
suppliers, who are supposed to be bound
by the February deforestation moratorium.
A serious red flag to
WWF is the fact that APP’s mills continue
to accept and pulp natural forest timber,
under the claim that it was felled before
the moratorium started on 1 February 2013.
WWF-Indonesia calls on APP to close this
loophole since it could be used by suppliers
to feed wood into the mills from new deforestation,
in violation of the policy. WWF has proposed
a May 5 deadline to end their mills’ acceptance
of natural forest timber, allowing the company
over 3 months to transport stockpiles of
wood cleared before February.
“WWF recommends that
paper buyers do not rush into doing business
with APP”, says Rod Taylor, Director of
Forests at WWF International. “APP cannot
be regarded as a responsible producer without
redressing the harm caused by its past operations
and removing any doubt that wood linked
to forest clearing can enter its mills.”
EoF published analyses
of the report on its interactive online
map, based on Google Earth’s Maps Engine
platform, allowing stakeholders to evaluate
some of the aspects of APP’s new forest
policy and monitor its implementation. EoF
will update its database regularly as information
from other provinces and new details about
existing concessions becomes available.
+ More
Orphaned rhino struggles
to survive after mother killed
Posted on 05 April 2013
- An Indian rhino calf that lost its mother
to poachers is clinging to life with the
help of conservationists, according to WWF
staff assisting with its care. The two week
old male is in critical condition after
its mother was gunned down by poachers Tuesday
and her horn chopped off.
The shocking incident
is the latest in a surge of poaching plaguing
India’s Assam province where 16 greater
one-horned rhinos have been killed already
this year.
A team of frontline
staff from WWF, the government and partner
organizations joined community members to
search Manas National Park for the orphan
after the carcass of its mother was discovered
earlier this week. The group was determined
to prevent the calf’s death imminent from
starvation, which would surely occur without
the nourishment of its mother’s milk.
The dehydrated and traumatized
calf was located, captured and brought to
a safe location for urgent veterinary care.
Images of the confused newborn show it cowering
in the corner of a store room where it is
being held temporarily.
“It was a challenge
getting hold of the calf as it was very
scared but thankfully it is fine and doing
well now,” said WWF’s Deba Dutta who was
part of the rescue team.
However, the calf’s
survival is not assured. The animals are
highly dependent on their mothers for the
first few years of life. Work will soon
begin on a special fenced enclosure, or
boma, for the calf so that it can be raised
by rehabilitation experts. It is possible,
but challenging, to successfully reintroduce
rhinos to the wild.
Rhinos across their
Asian and African ranges are being decimated
at record rates by poachers and criminal
traffickers. Killing has surged in recent
years just as rhino horn has become a prized
commodity in Viet Nam where it is marketed
as miracle cure for everything from cancer
to hangovers. Viet Nam has done little to
crackdown on the illegal trade or curb demand
by dispelling such rumours, which have no
medical basis.
Opportunistic criminals
are now targeting rhinos reintroduced into
India’s Manas National Park by WWF and its
Indian Rhino Vision 2020 partners. Four
of the 18 rhinos moved there have been killed
for their horns.
“In Manas National Park
itself, monitoring, patrolling, intelligence
and protection regimes need to be strengthened
and implemented on ground in a time-bound,
verifiable and accountable manner,” said
Dr. Dipankar Ghose, Director of WWF-India’s
Species and Landscapes Programme.
WWF strongly condemns
the rhino killings and renews its call to
source, transit and consumer countries to
increase protection and law enforcement.
+ More
Shell to export Arctic
oil drilling failures
Posted on 08 April 2013
- According to multiple media reports, today
Shell and Russian company Gazprom Neft will
sign an agreement on strategic partnership
on the development of hydrocarbons in the
Russian Arctic offshore. The expected agreement
coincides with the visit of president Putin
to the Netherlands on the 8th of April.
“This move is of great
concern,” says Mikhail Babenko of WWF. “Shell
has repeatedly demonstrated in its activities
last year in the Alaskan offshore that it
does not have the capacity required to safely
drill for oil in the Arctic. It would simply
be exporting failure from the United States
to Russia. Other oil companies, such as
the French company Total, and the Russian
company Lukoil have recently agreed with
the view of WWF and other experts that there
is no proven safe technology to drill for
oil in the offshore Arctic.”
In 2012 Shell completely
failed at all stages of its drilling programme,
and the US Coast Guard is investigating
the company for potential violation of international
marine environmental rules. This February
Shell announced that drilling in Alaska
will be postponed. In moving its operations
to Russia, it would appear that Shell is
moving to a territory with less rigorous
environmental regulation and less transparency
in project implementation.
The risks and potential
impacts associated with Arctic offshore
oil and gas development are currently unacceptably
high and unmanageable. WWF believes that
without proper regulation of operations,
available proven techniques for prevention
and response to oil spills and adequate
knowledge about Arctic systems there should
be no new development of hydrocarbons in
the Arctic offshore.
