A BBC documentary offers data and first-hand accounts of land grabbing, that is, the robbery of land stolen from indigenous people in Sumatra and Borneo, Indonesia, to produce palm oil. (1)
The responsibility lies with the palmocrats and their large industrial clients who conceal unacceptable human rights and environmental violations behind the screen of greenwashing.
Truly responsible operators and consumAtors, however, can force their suppliers to change the rules of the game, with a radical choice to be pursued methodically. Buycott. Here’s why and how.
Palm oil in Indonesia, 25 years in the balance sheet
International demand for palm oil has exploded in the past 25 years. No other commodity is as versatile and profitable for food, cosmetics and ‘biofuel’ producing corporations. At the sole price of devastating primary forests-in Indonesia and Malaysia, prime producers, as in Central Africa and Latin America-after driving out their inhabitants with violence, fires and water poisoning. (2)
Intensive oil palm monocultures , as noted above, (3) postulate the systematic removal of wild vegetation (including through fires) and the massive use of broad-spectrum neurotoxic herbicides (e.g., paraquat) that pollute soils and waters. Local communities have thus been left completely without the ability to derive food from nature. Without participating in any way in the ‘development’ falsely promised by the palmocrats.
BBC Indonesia, the documentary
BBC(British Broadcasting Corporation) has participated in investigations into the palm oil supply chain in Indonesia, carried out in recent years by NGOs Mongabay and The Gecko Project. A 30-minute documentary summarizes the history of abomination and ecocide. (4) A particularly painful affair even for the writer who had the joy of being hosted by these tribes in 1991 in the then dense mountain jungles in central Sumatra.
THE VIDEO.
The Orang Rimba-whose name shares a common root with orangutan, precisely because primates were very present in that area-guarded their ancestral lands days’ walk away from roads and power grids. The tiny tribes lived on stilts, camped on invisible clearings surrounded by greenery next to waterways. Their lives were marked by the rhythms of nature, from sunrise to sunset. And interactions with outside ‘civilization’ were rare.
Stolen land and devastation
The Salim group, in the 1990s, promised indigenous people ‘wealth’ and ‘development.’ He would take over the ancestral land to convert it to produce palm oil, ‘a wonderful crop that is increasingly in demand around the world.’ The tribes would maintain ‘more than half‘ of the plantations and then sell the harvested fruits back to the company. Ma ‘Nothing has been returned to us. They took everything‘, explains young Mat Yadi. Today his family lives in a makeshift hut near a plantation poisoned by agrotoxics.
‘Previously there were many pigs, deer, antelope and hedgehogs. Now there is almost nothing alive‘. Elder Siti Maninah, like many other Orang Rimba, earns a living by harvesting the fruit that remains on the ground after the oil palms are taken away. The crumbs of their land.
If she is lucky, she gathers enough to buy a few ounces of rice and some vegetables to feed her family for the day. ‘It’s enough, but it’s not much.’ An understatement for those who lived by rubber harvesting and delicious fruits, as well as hunting.
The denied ‘plasma’
The palmocrats, BBC explains, have often promised to share their plantations with villagers, reserving plots known as ‘plasmas’ for them. So as to gain local support and access to government funding. In 2007 an Indonesian law introduced a requirement for companies to give one-fifth of each new palm oil plantation to communities. To help rural communities out of poverty by empowering them to participate in an industry worth more than $65 billion/year globally. Indonesia and Malaysia in the lead (>80%. See note 5).
Indigenous or aboriginal people have been violently robbed or deceitfully converted by palm oil oligarchs throughout the Indonesian peninsula to Borneo (6,7). As well as in neighboring Malaysia. (8) Investigation by BBC, The Gecko Project and Mongabay reveals how-in the central province of Kalimantan (Borneo) alone, where 20 percent of the country’s plantations are located-more than 100,000 hectares of legally prescribed ‘plasma’ has been denied to local communities. Worth about $90 million/year, to multiply by 5 nationwide, according to conservative estimates of profits from palm oil.
Violent suppression of protests
Every month for the past six years there have been protests over the return of ‘plasma’ to indigenous people and local communities. But the palmocrat-serving state is firm and swift in its violent suppression of protests. In 2015, local politicians had brokered an agreement between the Orang Rimba and the Salim Group that, after two decades, made a written commitment to return land stolen to produce palm oil. But this has not yet happened.
‘This is just one example; it is happening everywhere. The oligarchs [dell’olio di palma] are greedy‘ (Daniel Johan, Indonesian parliamentarian).
Tribe members thus occupied the plantation, and the company responded by tearing down their huts. And theescalation of the villagers’ protest was followed by the arrest of more than 45 people by police. ‘Without being questioned, we were beaten to a pulp.’ Seven convictions for vandalism to 18 months in prison, impunity for Salim Group and its subsidiary who control the plantation and declined to be interviewed.
Corporation steal-all. BBC’s complaint
British state TV celebrates a century of history this year with a vibrant denunciation, against the corporations responsible for violence and ecocide but also for stealing hundreds of millions of dollars/year in income from indigenous communities. Citing the giants of Big Food–Kellogg ‘s, Mondelez, not forgetting PepsiCo, Nestlé and Ferrero among others–but also the giants of food service (KFC, McDonald’s), cosmetics and personal care (L’Oreal, Johnson & Johnson, Colgate-Palmolive, Reckitt), chemicals (BASF, Dupont). (9,10)
Indonesian palm oil billionaires top the list of the super rich compiled by Forbes. The Widjaja family that controls Golden Agri-Resources (>500 k ha of plantations) is in second place and Anthoni Salim, managing director of the Salim Group, is in third place.
But in their view the return of ‘plasma’ to the natives is economically unsustainable. And under the palm trees, in the BBC video, an elder from the Orang Rimba sings a folk song with the refrain ‘ourhearts are rich if our grandchildren are healthy.’ ‘So that our grandchildren can really live again, we want our ancestral land to be returned to us,’ Old Cilin explains. ‘That’s all we want.
EU-Indonesia free trade and toxic treaty coming soon
Global palm oil exports from Indonesia resumed in late May after a temporary freeze that was worth skyrocketing prices and profits for its producers. The EU-Indonesia trade balance is in dramatic negative growth, -5.1 billion euros in 2020 on trade in goods, mainly due to imports of this unsustainable fat. (11) Which you may recall being used, for about half of the volumes, in the production of ‘biofuels’ and thermoelectric power.
Negotiations for a toxic free trade agreement initiated by the Juncker Commission meanwhile continue. (12) At the eleventh round held online on 8-12.11.2021, a technical agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary matters (SPS) seems to have been reached. Without, of course, referring to anything but sterile Trade and Sustainable Development talk. (13) Palm oil will thus benefit fromimport duty concessions, without conditions pending the appropriate ESG due diligence regulation (14,15).
#Buycott!
Self-referential certifications (e.g., RSPO) of hypothetical ‘sustainability’ of palm oil have proven to be completely unreliable, as amply demonstrated in a number of independent scientific studies (16,17). While documented land conflicts number more than 150 in recent years over hundreds of thousands of hectares of plantations.
The only option for responsible operators and consumers is to strictly abstain from the use and consumption of palm oil, its derivatives and products containing it. And the #Buycott is simple, just follow and promote the tips we have already shared, from farm to fork. (18)
Dario Dongo
Notes
(1) Muhammad Irham, Astudestra Ajengrastri and Aghnia Adzkia. Palm oil firms depriving tribes of millions of dollars. BBC News Indonesia. 23.5.22. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-61509744.amp
(2) Dario Dongo, Elena Bosani. Land robbery, palm oil tops the list. Due diligence risks, ESG. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 11/21/21, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/idee/rapine-delle-terre-olio-di-palma-in-cima-alla-lista-i-rischi-due-diligence-esg
(3) See section ‘What ‘palm’ means for the environment, indigenous communities and small farmers‘ in the previous article Palm oil, Philippines report https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/idee/olio-di-palma-reportage-filippine
(4) Watch the BBC documentary based on our joint ‘plasma’ investigation. The Gecko Project. 5/30/22, https://thegeckoproject.org/articles/watch-bbc-news-indonesia-s-documentary-based-on-our-joint-plasma-investigation/
(5) Dario Dongo. Palm oil. Indonesia and Malaysia hide data and threaten Europe. #Buycott! GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 18.8.19, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/sicurezza/olio-di-palma-indonesia-e-malesia-nascondono-i-dati-e-minacciano-l-europa-buycott
(6) Dario Dongo. Palm, Malaysia and aboriginal conversion. Buycott! GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 10/13/19, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/consum-attori/palma-malesia-e-conversione-degli-aborigeni-buycott
(7) Dario Dongo. Borneo on fire over palm oil, CNN report. Buycott! GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 11.12.19, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/consum-attori/borneo-in-fiamme-per-l-olio-di-palma-il-report-cnn-buycott
(8) Dario Dongo. Malaysia, palm oil. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 10/16/17, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/idee/malesia-olio-di-palma
(9) Dario Dongo. Palm oil in foods, where it is found and how to avoid it. GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade). 8.10.20, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/consum-attori/olio-di-palma-nei-cibi-dove-si-trova-e-come-evitarlo
(10) Marta Strinati. USA, Girl Scouts against Ferrero cookies. GIFT(Great Italian Food Trade). 9.1.21, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/consum-attori/usa-le-girl-scout-contro-i-biscotti-ferrero
(11) European Commission. EU trade relations with Indonesia. Facts, figures and latest developments. https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/countries-and-regions/indonesia_en
(12) Dario Dongo. Palm oil, out of the EU-Indonesia deal! Petition. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 12.5.18, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/consum-attori/olio-di-palma-fuori-dall-accordo-ue-indonesia-petizione
(13) European Commission. Report of the 11th round of negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement between the European Union and Indonesia, 8-12.11.21. https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2021/november/tradoc_159945.pdf
(14) FERN. Fears the EU – Indonesia trade agreement won’t learn from mistakes of the past. 13.10.21, https://www.fern.org/publications-insight/fears-the-eu-indonesia-trade-agreement-wont-learn-from-mistakes-of-the-past-2392/
(15) Dario Dongo. Due diligence and deforestation, stop unsustainable imports of commodities. Proposed EU regulation, ABC. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 6.3.22, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/progresso/due-diligence-e-deforestazioni-stop-alle-importazioni-di-derrate-insostenibili-proposta-di-regolamento-ue-l-abc
(16) Hans Nicholas Jong. RSPO fails to deliver on environmental and social sustainability, study finds. Mongabay. 11.7.18, https://news.mongabay.com/2018/07/rspo-fails-to-deliver-on-environmental-and-social-sustainability-study-finds/
(17) Dario Dongo. Indonesia, fires and RSPO-certified palm oil. Greenpeace Report. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 11/23/19, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/consum-attori/indonesia-incendi-e-olio-di-palma-certificato-rspo-rapporto-greenpeace
(18) Dario Dongo. Good resolutions. Living without palm oil, instructions for use. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 12/16/20, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/consum-attori/buoni-propositi-vivere-senza-olio-di-palma-istruzioni-per-l-uso
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
