- Vincent Lingga
Jakarta | Wed, September 6 2017 | 12:54 amThe emotional outbursts of the Indonesian Palm Oil Association (GAPKI) against international environmental NGOs, though regrettably smacking of an expression of xenophobia, are the understandable explosion of frustrations over what plantation companies see as a perpetual foreign attack on palm oil, currently one of the largest foreign exchange earners in the country.
The editorial published on the GAPKI website on the 72nd independence anniversary last month, which urges the government to free palm oil from “colonial attacks” by international NGOs, reflects the industry’s wrath over what they consider to be a complete lack of appreciation for improvements already made in sustainable palm oil management over the past ten years.
Indonesian palm oil and its derivatives have been under the scrutiny of international environmentalists since the early 2000s after the widespread forest fire in 1997 and the astronomical expansion of oil palm plantations since the 1990s, which caused massive deforestation.
Lately, several NGOs also have been campaigning to virtually coerce overseas industrial users or consumers to boycott Indonesian paper-grade pulp and dissolving pulp in a protest against the environmentally and socially irresponsible practices they allege in pulp estate management.
Dissolving pulp for making viscose fiber fulfills Indonesia’s need for textile materials, because cotton does not grow well in the country.
Palm oil now accounts for almost 50 percent of global vegetable oil consumption and has increasingly been leading the market, as agronomists estimate its yield per hectare to be nine times as high as soybeans, five times as high as rapeseed and eight times as high as sunflowers.
For Indonesia, now the world’s largest palm oil producer, this commodity has been developing as a very important part of the economy, since smallholders own 40 percent of the estimated 11 million hectares of oil palm plantations. Indonesia exported around 26 million tons last year, or almost half of the global palm oil trade.
We should, however, give credit where credit is due. International NGOs have campaigned tirelessly to build market (consumer) pressures to force the government, companies and farmers to implement environmentally and socially sustainable management in palm oil and forest products.
The NGOs’ global public opinion campaign has also contributed to strengthening the commitment of the government and businesspeople to legislate and enact stronger rules on high standards of sustainability.
Palm oil producers are now governed under the sustainability standards of the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) program, which is legally compulsory, and the international multi-stakeholder Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a market-driven certification scheme.
Palm oil and pulp producing companies, notably the big ones, have increasingly realized, again owing partly to the stringent scrutiny by NGOs, that what is bad for the environment and the surrounding communities is also bad for business.
Several years of constructive engagement have led the European Union and Indonesia to a sustainability certification scheme for wood products under the EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT). This scheme audits the entire supply chain in Indonesia, from the source of timber to downstream processing, and to the point of exporting to ensure social and environmental sustainability.
Even now, international NGOs still play a role in promoting sustainable management practices of natural resources, especially in the forestry sector where the rule of law at all levels, from forest-use planning to licensing, management and law enforcement, is still inadequate.
Certainly, the achievements of the ISPO sustainability program still fall short of expectations, as the program is an ongoing process, especially because the pulp and palm oil industries involve millions of smallholders/farmers with complex poverty problems. The problem has been made even more complex by the huge gap in land registry and titling and the poor land–use planning in the country.
Now, as the NGO scrutiny has increasingly extended from environmental problems to social issues such as labor and human rights and land disputes, the solution has become even more complex and more time consuming, a process that often requires capacity building at local administrations and government institutions.
The problem, though, is that most foreign NGOs often fail to comprehend the complexity of social conflicts and land disputes in Indonesia. They often and easily resort to a blame game against big companies if the conflicts are not resolved as quickly as they expected and mount up campaigns to boycott products. They tend to use the conditions in developed countries as their benchmark.
Attacking big companies is much easier, as they have a high profile and visibility, and many of them are listed on the Indonesian stock exchange with tough disclosure requirements. But what is actually needed is continuous and constructive, not adversarial, engagement between NGOs, the government, businesses and farmers.
Take, for example, the negative campaign on pulp producers run by several NGOs through their websites, alleging that they had grabbed the lands of the local people and deprived them of their traditional means of livelihood.
True, land disputes have mushroomed, especially since the Constitutional Court’s 2012 decision confirming that customary and communal forests are not state forests/land and must be excluded from state land concessions.
But the claims for customary forests/land cannot always be settled quickly, because they must first be verified by the directorate general of social forestry and environmental partnership in cooperation with independent teams consisting of anthropologists, sociologists, informal leaders, legal consultants and lawyers.
For example, publicly listed PT Toba Pulp Lestari (TPL), which produces dissolving pulp in North Sumatra, received 11 claims from local communities for plots of land inside its concession. After a long process of verifying the claims, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry decided last December to approve only one of the claims covering 5,172 ha of forests and took them out of the TPL concession.
TPL Director Mulia Nauli confirmed TPL had returned that piece of land to the state and President Jokowi ratified the status of the land as customary/communal forests on Dec. 30, 2016 in a ceremony at the State Palace. But the ministry said the remaining 10 claims had yet to be verified by the directorate general of social forestry and environmental partnership and independent teams, and so ordered the TPL to wait for the results of the verification before acting on those 10 claims.
But several NGOs still continue to bash the TPL on their websites and social media, accusing the company of grabbing the local people’s lands and pushing industrial users to boycott TPL’s products. The government should not allow such negative campaigns with baseless accusations to damage Indonesian products in the international market.
__________________________________
The writer is senior editor at The Jakarta Post.
The editorial published on the GAPKI website on the 72nd independence anniversary last month, which urges the government to free palm oil from “colonial attacks” by international NGOs, reflects the industry’s wrath over what they consider to be a complete lack of appreciation for improvements already made in sustainable palm oil management over the past ten years.
Indonesian palm oil and its derivatives have been under the scrutiny of international environmentalists since the early 2000s after the widespread forest fire in 1997 and the astronomical expansion of oil palm plantations since the 1990s, which caused massive deforestation.
Lately, several NGOs also have been campaigning to virtually coerce overseas industrial users or consumers to boycott Indonesian paper-grade pulp and dissolving pulp in a protest against the environmentally and socially irresponsible practices they allege in pulp estate management.
Dissolving pulp for making viscose fiber fulfills Indonesia’s need for textile materials, because cotton does not grow well in the country.
Palm oil now accounts for almost 50 percent of global vegetable oil consumption and has increasingly been leading the market, as agronomists estimate its yield per hectare to be nine times as high as soybeans, five times as high as rapeseed and eight times as high as sunflowers.
For Indonesia, now the world’s largest palm oil producer, this commodity has been developing as a very important part of the economy, since smallholders own 40 percent of the estimated 11 million hectares of oil palm plantations. Indonesia exported around 26 million tons last year, or almost half of the global palm oil trade.
We should, however, give credit where credit is due. International NGOs have campaigned tirelessly to build market (consumer) pressures to force the government, companies and farmers to implement environmentally and socially sustainable management in palm oil and forest products.
The NGOs’ global public opinion campaign has also contributed to strengthening the commitment of the government and businesspeople to legislate and enact stronger rules on high standards of sustainability.
Palm oil producers are now governed under the sustainability standards of the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) program, which is legally compulsory, and the international multi-stakeholder Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a market-driven certification scheme.
Palm oil and pulp producing companies, notably the big ones, have increasingly realized, again owing partly to the stringent scrutiny by NGOs, that what is bad for the environment and the surrounding communities is also bad for business.
Several years of constructive engagement have led the European Union and Indonesia to a sustainability certification scheme for wood products under the EU Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT). This scheme audits the entire supply chain in Indonesia, from the source of timber to downstream processing, and to the point of exporting to ensure social and environmental sustainability.
Even now, international NGOs still play a role in promoting sustainable management practices of natural resources, especially in the forestry sector where the rule of law at all levels, from forest-use planning to licensing, management and law enforcement, is still inadequate.
Certainly, the achievements of the ISPO sustainability program still fall short of expectations, as the program is an ongoing process, especially because the pulp and palm oil industries involve millions of smallholders/farmers with complex poverty problems. The problem has been made even more complex by the huge gap in land registry and titling and the poor land–use planning in the country.
Now, as the NGO scrutiny has increasingly extended from environmental problems to social issues such as labor and human rights and land disputes, the solution has become even more complex and more time consuming, a process that often requires capacity building at local administrations and government institutions.
The problem, though, is that most foreign NGOs often fail to comprehend the complexity of social conflicts and land disputes in Indonesia. They often and easily resort to a blame game against big companies if the conflicts are not resolved as quickly as they expected and mount up campaigns to boycott products. They tend to use the conditions in developed countries as their benchmark.
Attacking big companies is much easier, as they have a high profile and visibility, and many of them are listed on the Indonesian stock exchange with tough disclosure requirements. But what is actually needed is continuous and constructive, not adversarial, engagement between NGOs, the government, businesses and farmers.
Take, for example, the negative campaign on pulp producers run by several NGOs through their websites, alleging that they had grabbed the lands of the local people and deprived them of their traditional means of livelihood.
True, land disputes have mushroomed, especially since the Constitutional Court’s 2012 decision confirming that customary and communal forests are not state forests/land and must be excluded from state land concessions.
But the claims for customary forests/land cannot always be settled quickly, because they must first be verified by the directorate general of social forestry and environmental partnership in cooperation with independent teams consisting of anthropologists, sociologists, informal leaders, legal consultants and lawyers.
For example, publicly listed PT Toba Pulp Lestari (TPL), which produces dissolving pulp in North Sumatra, received 11 claims from local communities for plots of land inside its concession. After a long process of verifying the claims, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry decided last December to approve only one of the claims covering 5,172 ha of forests and took them out of the TPL concession.
TPL Director Mulia Nauli confirmed TPL had returned that piece of land to the state and President Jokowi ratified the status of the land as customary/communal forests on Dec. 30, 2016 in a ceremony at the State Palace. But the ministry said the remaining 10 claims had yet to be verified by the directorate general of social forestry and environmental partnership and independent teams, and so ordered the TPL to wait for the results of the verification before acting on those 10 claims.
But several NGOs still continue to bash the TPL on their websites and social media, accusing the company of grabbing the local people’s lands and pushing industrial users to boycott TPL’s products. The government should not allow such negative campaigns with baseless accusations to damage Indonesian products in the international market.
__________________________________
The writer is senior editor at The Jakarta Post.
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