Indonesia pays for US
bargains By Charundi Panagoda
WASHINGTON - The survival of Sumatra's
tigers, elephants, orangutans, rhinos, as well as
indigenous communities, is threatened by the
"world's fastest deforestation rate", caused by
the pulp and paper industry, according to the
World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
WWF in a recent
report named Indonesian-based Asia Pulp &
Paper (APP) as "responsible for more forest
destruction in Sumatra than any other single
company". APP and competitor Asia Pacific
Resources International Ltd (APRIL) have consumed
the majority of the wood harvested from commercial
forest clearances and agriculture conversion.
"In central Sumatra, the impact of APP's
operations on wildlife has been devastating. The
company's forest clearing in Riau
Province has been driving
Sumatran elephants and tigers toward local
extinction," the report said.
The
companies have also begun clearing peat swamp
forests. According to Indonesian Ministry of
Forestry estimates, deforestation associated with
peat decomposition and burning totals 1.2
gigatonnes of carbon emissions per year, making
Indonesia the world's third-largest greenhouse gas
emitter.
"Products made with APP fiber
linked to forest destruction are flooding the US
market and landing in grocery stores, other retail
chains, restaurants, hotels, schools and
municipalities in the form of toilet tissue, paper
towels, copier paper, stationery, paper bags and
paper-based packaging," WWF reported.
Two
of APP's products identified in the US are Paseo
and Livi tissues. APP products are distributed and
marketed in North America by a variety of
subsidiaries and affiliates including Solaris
Paper, Mercury Paper and Papermax.
Despite
concerns raised by environmental groups, APP
claims to be "committed to being socially,
environmentally and economically sustainable
throughout its operations". When Indonesia's Eyes
on the Forest released a report on APP clearing
Sumatra's Senepis Tiger Sanctuary, the company
fired back saying the allegations were "clearly
false".
Philip Rundle, chief executive of
Oasis Brands, which market Paseo and Livi, wrote
in a letter that their products are "100 percent
sustainable. [made from] plantation-grown, rapidly
renewable fiber supplied by APP."
"It's
plainly ridiculous, profoundly untrue to claim
that anything APP produces is environmentally
sustainable. To me, it borders on false labeling,"
Andrea Johnson, director of forest campaigns for
the Environmental Investigation Agency, told IPS.
"There are maps, evidence. It's incontrovertible
that some of the practices APP engages in are not
sustainable."
APP is engaging in a "very
strong campaign" to "greenwash" their activities
and to assert they are actually doing everything
legally, Johnson said. APP's declarations include
asserting that only "degraded" land is being
cleared, that only a little of Indonesian land is
allocated for mills, and emphasizing APP's
donations to environmental foundations.
What APP calls "degraded land" is what WWF
calls "tiger habitat", WWF forest program manager
Linda Kramme told IPS. She believes many of the
sustainability statements made by APP and Oasis
are misleading. Suggesting APP is only impacting a
small amount of Indonesia is like saying the
recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill only impacted a
small amount of the US, she said.
"[WWF]
believes they are mischaracterizing their
practices happening on the ground. Many U.S.
customers and companies don't have the ability to
go to Indonesia and see what's happening, so it
can be easy for them to read materials that APP
and companies that market their products like
Oasis say - that they have different
certification, that they are doing things with
conservation. But our teams for two decades have
seen impacts on ground and we see and obligation
to raise the questions and to raise the facts,"
she said.
WWF started engaging with APP in
2001 to introduce the company to long-term
sustainability practices. However, WWF cut off
ties with APP after the company broke its promises
to stop using natural forest fiber despite signing
a letter of intent.
Legally, bills such as
the Lacey Act in the US in principle should create
various incentives not to buy illegally logged
products, Johnson said. However, greenwashing
campaigns and complicated supply chains make
prosecution harder.
"APP has been
increasingly using subsidiary companies and
resorting to opening mills under other names in
countries like the US and Canada," Johnson said.
"It's not that difficult to start another company
and put another name on it and use the same fiber.
You see that tactic increasingly being used by
companies. I think that structuring on part of the
company is very intentional in order to make
traceability almost impossible, which obviously
makes it difficult to enforce the law."
In
2010, APP was affected by the US Commerce
Department imposing anti-dumping duty orders for
certain coated paper imported from Indonesia.
"Dumping" is a predatory pricing practice in
international trade that allows companies to sell
their imported products at very low prices,
driving out the competition.
"There is an
environmental component to the fact that [APP
products are] less expensive. One of the reasons
they can afford lower costs is because they are
getting fiber illegally [by illegal logging, for
example]," Johnson said. "They are not engaging in
the kind of business practices which cost a little
bit more if you want to do things legally and that
result in lower prices."
The US can
prosecute companies like APP only if the
government of the producer country has criminal
penalties for the same activity. Therefore, it's
the responsibility of the Indonesian government to
effectively implement conservation laws, activists
say.
Johnson says a strong case can be
made that Indonesia has effectively subsidized the
pulp and paper industry by not enforcing its own
laws.
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