Forest fires, the Indonesian paper giant continues to violate laws and its own commitment
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As the fire season looms in Indonesia, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), one of the world’s largest pulp and paper companies, owned by the Sinar Mas Group, has been actively clearing Sumatran peatland for pulpwood plantations in direct breach of its own commitments to preserve and restore carbon-rich ecosystems and reduce emissions. Major brands such as Unilever, Nestlé, Askul and Woolworths are still supplied by APP, which today is gathering its stakeholders in a forum focused on sustainability.
Indigenous Mapuche Forest Activist Murdered in Chile by Police
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Antonio Treuquil was a werkén, the traditional Mapuche spokesperson, in the We Newén community. Mapuche indigenous people are in a longstanding conflict with the forest industry that grabbed most of their land during the dictatorship. Also the We Newén community is involved in a land dispute over traditional territories, with the pulp and paper company Arauco.
Deforestation more than doubled under Coronavirus
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Tropical rainforests shrank by 6,500 square kilometers in March. Criminal groups are taking advantage of the pandemic and the unemployed are getting desperate, the WWF said. As the COVID-19 virus was spreading around the world, deforestation in the world's rainforests rose at an alarming rate, the German arm of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said in a o study published last week.
New community rights violations by APP in Indonesia met by strong response from 90 environmental and human rights organisations.
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Following the latest case of the violation of communities’ rights in Indonesia, ninety environmental and human rights groups have published an open letter to investors and buyers asking to suspend business with Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) and affiliated companies, until it is proven and verified that they have made meaningful changes across their business operations. In the village of Lubuk Mandarsah (province of Jambi, Indonesia), an APP controlled plantation company, PT Wirakarya Sakti (WKS), sent drones flying over the community’s crops, spraying poison over villagers’ gardens in disputed land.
Coronavirus: 'Nature is sending us a message’, says UN environment chief
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La Andersen said humanity was placing too many pressures on the natural world with damaging consequences, and warned that failing to take care of the planet meant not taking care of ourselves. Leading scientists also said the Covid-19 outbreak was a “clear warning shot”, given that far more deadly diseases existed in wildlife, and that today’s civilisation was “playing with fire”. They said it was almost always human behaviour that caused diseases to spill over into humans.