Only 22% of companies sourcing or producing palm oil in Indonesia have public and comprehensive no-deforestation policies, a new report by London-based nonprofit CDP says.카지노사이트

The report also finds that only 28% of companies have robust public no-deforestation commitments that cover 100% of production and include a cutoff date before 2020.

In light of the report, experts are calling for more companies to adopt robust no-deforestation policies that incorporate social elements including remediation, restoration, compensation of past harms, and/or commitment to protect rights and livelihoods of local communities.

JAKARTA — Less than a quarter of companies producing or sourcing palm oil from Indonesia have forest-related policies in line with best practices, a new report says.

The report, by CDP, a global nonprofit that promotes environmental reporting and risk management by companies and cities, analyzed data provided by 167 firms.

While 86% of companies had set a forest policy, only 22% were in line with best practices, which the organization defines as committing to eliminate deforestation and conversion of natural ecosystems; not plant on peatlands; conduct restoration and/or provide compensation for past harms; and protect rights and livelihoods of local communities.

“The low number of companies with robust policies aligned with best practice suggests a concerning absence of intention to eradicate forest loss from corporate value chains,” the report says.

While the figure was up from 14% in 2021, the progress isn’t fast enough to meet Indonesia’s target of turning its forests into a carbon sink by 2030, according to Rini Setiawati, senior manager for forests at CDP.

“If we have a target of having forest positive future by 2030, we need this at scale,” Rini told Mongabay. “We need 90% of companies, not 22%, to have robust policies, and not just policies and commitment, but also ambitious target and robust implementation.”

Over the past several decades, palm oil has been a major driver of deforestation in Indonesia, the world’s largest producer of the ubiquitous commodity. A recent study found the industry was responsible for nearly one-third of the nation’s forest loss from 2001 to 2019, though deforestation related to palm oil last peaked in 2016 and has fallen in recent years.

As a result, many companies that own oil palm plantations or process, trade or use palm oil have pledged to break the link between deforestation and their supply chains.

“Whilst companies are moving in the right direction, more action is needed to maintain this trend,” said Thomas Maddox, the global director of forests and land at CPD.

Despite a checkered record, corporate zero-deforestation policies have shown some success, according to Herry Purnomo, a scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

“Our study in South Sumatra province shows that commitments from the public sector could decrease deforestation significantly, but if they’re coupled with commitments from the private sector, it could [further] lower deforestation significantly,” he told Mongabay. “So commitments do matter and they need to be amplified, widened, monitored and given rewards and incentives.”

Company response

The vast majority of companies were unable to track the origin of their palm oil supplies, an important prerequisite for making good on a no-deforestation commitment.

Only 9% of companies were able to fully trace their supply chains to the mill level, and only 4% were able to do so to the plantation level.바카라사이트

One firm that claims to have achieved full traceability is Golden Agri-Resources, an arm of Indonesia’s Sinarmas conglomerate, one of the first business groups to issue a zero-deforestation pledge after years of being one of Indonesia’s most prolific deforesters.

“From our side, the complication [that comes from implementing a zero-deforestation policy] is not too huge. We don’t have any plan to open [new] plantations in Papua and other places,” Agus Purnomo, one of Sinarmas’s top palm oil executives, told Mongabay on the sidelines of a recent event in Jakarta. “Therefore, if our buyers demand [zero-deforestation], we can fulfill that. But this can’t be applied for [other companies] whose plantations and mills are located in troubled places.”

Further progress in the sector, he said, would rely on government policy and law enforcement.

“If it’s voluntary commitment [to adopt zero-deforestation policies], then what we have now is the maximum,” Agus said. “We can’t ask more companies to volunteer [in adopting zero-deforestation policies] because each has their own problems.”

Even if companies lack capacity to fulfill their commitments, simply adopting the policies would create opportunities for forest protection, according to Mardi Minangsari, head of Indonesian NGO Kaoem Telapak.

“Having NDPE commitments is the first step,” she said, using an acronym that stands for “no deforestation, no peat and no exploitation.”

“I really support [the adoption of such policies] because this means we also can help them by providing reports” on deforestation, conflicts, and other issues, Mardi said. “Sometimes, companies themselves don’t have enough capacity, especially with vast plantations, to see what’s happening in their concessions.”

Rini of CDP said the government could issue regulations that require more transparency and accountability from companies so that they’re driven to adopt or strengthen their NDPE commitments.

“If companies are performing better in sustainability, this can contribute to the achievement of national environmental targets,” she said.온라인카지노

• Indonesia, Brazil, Suriname and Ghana account for 80% of all tropical deforestation linked directly to industrial mining, a new study has found.카지노사이트
• In two out of three tropical countries, large-scale mineral extraction leads to forest loss when effects over a wider area, beyond formal mining concessions, are considered.
• “We have to look beyond the mine fence,” Stefan Giljum, the lead author of the paper, said. “What is needed is a forest conservation plan for a whole region integrating all the activities that are going on.”
• It’s difficult to quantify forest destruction linked to the mining sector as a whole because both the indirect effects on surrounding areas and the impacts of artisanal mining are hard to pin down.
• Industrial mining wiped out nearly 2,000 square kilometers, or 770 square miles, of forests in Indonesia between 2000 and 2019. The country is one of four worldwide where direct tropical forest loss from large-scale mining — 8 out of every 10 square kilometers — is concentrated.

“Indonesia alone accounts for 60% of forest loss among the 26 countries we investigated,” said Stefan Giljum, lead author of a newly published study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers focused on countries that account for most of the deforestation (77%) occurring in the tropics.

Along with Indonesia, Brazil and Suriname in South America, and Ghana in West Africa accounted for 80% of all mining-linked direct deforestation in the tropics. Mining operations replaced around 3,300 km2 (1,270 mi2) of forest cover between 2000 and 2019 in the 26 countries, according to data from Global Forest Watch (GFW).

Brazil lost 330 km2 (127 mi2) resulting directly from the extraction of minerals. Ghana and Suriname reported deforestation of 213 and 203 km2 (82 and 78 mi2), respectively.

A 2019 World Bank report said that 45% of all active mines are in forested areas. However, industrial mines don’t just swallow forests within concessions; they transform entire landscapes. When effects over a wider area are considered, in two out of three tropical countries, large-scale mineral extraction leads to forest loss, the new study found.

Mines often become a hive of economic activity, triggering infrastructure development and spawning new settlements. A 2017 study from the Brazilian Amazon captured the impacts within a 70-km (43-mi) radius of mining concessions, and reported that deforestation rates in adjoining areas could be 12 times higher than inside the concessions.

However, it’s difficult to establish that the mining operation is causing this deforestation. Most corporate responsibility initiatives to curb deforestation focus exclusively on direct impacts. “We have to look beyond the mine fence,” Giljum said. “What is needed is basically a forest conservation plan for a whole region integrating all the activities that are going on.”

Quantifying forest destruction linked to the mining sector as a whole is complicated. One of the major reasons is a lack of information about artisanal mining, which is often informal, unregulated and dispersed. “Some studies show that artisanal mining might even have a larger impact than industrial mining,” Giljum said.

In Ghana, a gold-rich nation, both artisanal and industrial mining of coal is linked to forest loss. Daryl Bosu, an environmental activist with the Ghanaian NGO A Rocha, has been at the forefront of a campaign to stop industrial bauxite mining in Ghana’s Atewa forest. He told Mongabay that while artisanal mining provides much-needed employment in communities, unregulated artisanal mining, especially with newer tools, can cause real harm.

“Nobody is doing traditional mining with pickaxes anymore. They are now using mechanized excavators and bulldozers, so if that’s the scale, it also has a significant impact,” Bosu said. One study found that between 2005 and 2019, new mining areas were mostly being opened up by small-scale operators, and more than 7 km2 (2.7 mi2) of the mined land was inside protected areas.바카라사이트

While industrial mines are constrained by concession boundaries, small-scale mining operations are more mobile, bringing deforestation to new areas, leaving behind degraded landscapes. In some cases, large mines attract artisanal miners to the region by opening up remote areas.

The new study highlights the need to look at what is happening outside mining concessions but also beyond national boundaries. In Indonesia, deforestation in mining areas intensified between 2010 and 2014. The study authors suspect a surge in overseas demand for coal, mined extensively in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province, during this period played a role. In 2011 alone, the province on Borneo Island produced 205 million metric tons of coal — more than 13 times France’s coal demand for that year.

Giljum said the team is now investigating which materials fuel forest loss and interrogating international supply chains for mining-dependent commodities. While direct losses from mining are smaller compared to other activities like agriculture and livestock, some countries are subject to disproportionate losses, so mitigation efforts can target those nations.온라인카지노