Indonesia:
Plantations, human rights and REDD
Before the plantations came,
villagers in Teluk Kabung in Riau province in Sumatra, grew coconuts.
A few years ago, thousands of hectares of forest surrounding
the village were clearcut and replaced by acacia monocultures
to supply Asia Pulp and Paper's massive operations. “As
soon as they cut down the trees in the forest, the pests swarmed
in, and ate our coconut trees,”
a villager told Mitra Taj, a radio journalist from Living on Earth.
Dozens of dead coconut trees lie on the ground near the village.
Many of those still standing are just trunks, with no palm fronds
and no coconuts.
Industrial deforestation has
destroyed the habitat of the Sumatran tiger to the point where
there are only about 250 remaining. And these have so little
forest left that they stray into plantations, villages and logging
camps. Tigers that used to live in the forest now come into the
village. At least ten people have been killed this year.
“It makes me want to
cry,” one of the villagers told Living on Earth.
“The only reason I'm not crying is because I'm holding back.
We have nothing else. Sometimes I can't even look at this land,
because I have no hope.”
Villagers are trying to find
a solution and have sent letters to parliament, the regent and
the governor, but have received no reply. First, villagers want
compensation. Then they want money to buy pesticides. But there's
another problem. The plantations have left the villagers with
no land for the next generation.
Villagers are now considering
growing oil palm, which they hope will be resistant to the pests.
They asked Living on Earth's reporter to contact APP and ask
them to help them. In Jakarta, Living on Earth met Aida Greenbury,
APP's director of sustainability and stakeholder engagement. “Yes
of course, we are always interested to help the community,” she
said. Greenbury talked about the importance of leaving forest
corridors, to provide habitat and to stop pest and disease outbreaks.
And that, apparently, was that.
APRIL is the other pulp and
paper giant operating in Riau province. Between them, APP and
APRIL own about a quarter of the remaining forest in the province.
APRIL's activities on the Kampar Peninsular reveal another impact
of industrial tree plantations. APRIL's wood is shipped in vast
barges to the company's pulp mill, PT Riau Andalan Pulp and Paper
(RAPP).
“Before the RAPP pulp
and paper company entered our land, our group of fishermen worked
peacefully, nothing disturbed us while we were fishing,”
Pak Akiat a fisherman from Penyengat told film makers from LifeMosaic. “Now
fishing with nets is very hard. Many of our nets are torn away
by ships. Many in our group have stopped fishing, because we are
afraid.”
Pak Akiat's fishing net was
destroyed about one year ago. “I still want compensation
from RAPP, my fishing net is broken,”
he said. “I want to fish again. This is my livelihood, my
only hope.”
The Kampar Peninsula is home
to the Akit and Melayu indigenous peoples. They now have to rely
on government food aid. “With so many companies left, right
and centre, why are 95 per cent of our people poor?” asks
Anjianoro, a community leader in Penyengat, in LifeMosiac's film. “Companies
like RAPP recruit thousands of workers. If we benefited from
any of this there wouldn't be poverty here.”
A new solution to all these
problems is being touted in international meetings such as the
recent UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen: Reduced Emissions
from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD).
“We have been looking for an opportunity like this for decades,” Joe
Leitmann at the World Bank in Jakarta told Living on Earth. “We
think that with REDD it's a potential game changer.” Of course,
Leitmann says nothing about the role the World Bank has played
in financing forest destruction in Indonesia.
Certainly, the problems are
serious. In Riau province alone, an area of 1.6 million hectares
of peat and forests are likely to burn this year. But how, exactly,
will REDD, this “game changer”, actually change anything?
APP and APRIL hope to get REDD payments for not cutting forest
in areas where they already have permission to cut. No doubt
APP will want payment for its “forest corridors”.
APRIL plans to plant a ring of 150,000 hectares of acacia plantations
around the Kampar Peninsular and put in place a moratorium on
clearing the 300,000 hectare “core” on the peninsular.
APRIL anticipates large sums of carbon money. But APRIL is silent
on local people's livelihoods. The company did not even bother
telling local communities on the Kampar Peninsular about its
plans.
The people who have lost their
livelihoods to industrial tree plantations have some of the smallest
carbon footprints in the world. APP and APRIL are responsible
for huge greenhouse gas emissions from forest destruction and
draining of peat swamps. Yet REDD would reward APP and APRIL
and do nothing to stop the trampling of villagers' basic human
rights.
By Chris Lang, http://chrislang.org
Living on Earth's radio programme “Where
the Forest Ends”, is available here: http://bit.ly/7hLN0j
LifeMosaic's film “Eyes on the Kampar Peninsular”,
is available here: http://bit.ly/5BWH01
