Mongabay Series: Forests of Indonesia
YAKARTA – Activists say the Forest Stewardship Council, the world’s leading certifier of sustainable forestry, has not thoroughly investigated reports of alleged deforestation through Indonesia’s richest person.
In December 2019, environmental organization Auriga Nusantara filed a formal complaint with FSC, alleging that the PT Fajar Surya Swadaya (FSS) and PT Silva Rimba Lestari (SRL) pulpwood planting cleared more than 32,000 hectares (79,000 acres) of forest in East Kalimantan. Province of Borneo between 2013 and 2017.
Corporations are controlled directly or through Robert Budi Hartono, a multimillion-dollar bank and cigarette that first made his fortune with the tobacco company Djarum and is now Indonesia’s richest consumer. And although neither FSS nor SRL is FSC certified, another company controlled through Hartono is: PT Bukit Muria Jaya (BMJ), a paper mill. (Other members of the Hartono family circle also hold minority shares in the 3 corporations, according to official documents.)
Under FSC rules, BMJ’s majority shareholder, Robert Hartono, would possibly be “indirectly involved” in the “unacceptable activities” of other corporations in which he also owns shares or sits on the board.
Thus, BMJ itself is not concerned about alleged deforestation, FSC, under its Partnership Policy (PfA), is required to investigate allegations opposed to other corporations controlled through Hartono. And these accusations point to violations of FSC’s zero-tolerance stance on deforestation, according to Auriga researcher Syahrul Fitra.
Syahrul said his organization and other NGOs documented deforestation in a report published in August 2018, followed up in October 2019, FSC did not act on the findings. This led Auriga to file a complaint with FSC last year.
In response, FSC made the decision to abandon its popular complaint procedure and hire an external representative to expedite the investigation procedure. But the council recently announced that it would postpone the investigation “due to resources and restrictions resulting from the COVID-19 crisis.”
Syahrul questioned FSC’s seriousness in handling the complaint and said the board had been slow to respond to Auriga’s complaint from the outset. He stated that the NGO had filed the complaint on December 4, 2019, but that it was not until 18 February this year, more than two months later, that the organization responded, much more than the same 10 days that FSC was provided. respond to a complaint.
“So the procedure is already taking longer than usual, ” said Syahrul. “If we had not discovered the link between BMJ [as a member of FSC] and FSS and SRL [as alleged tree felling companies], then that case will be hidden.”
He stated that FSC, as a large, resource-intensive organization, has been able to identify the link between corporations controlled through Hartono through itself, without having to rely on a third-party complaint.
“On its website, SRL says it’s a component of the Djarum group, so it’s very simple [see the connection],” Syahrul said. “How can an organization of this caliber like FSC not realize the connection? And when the FSS and SRL cut down the forests, [FSC] could not trip over them either.”
Supin Yohar, director of Auriga’s forestry department, echoed the concerns.
“There is no way FSC does not know the link between a company they certify, BMJ, and the company’s shareholder structure,” he said. “If we, as members of the public, can locate the connection from published data, then the FSC issuing the certificate has been able to do the same.”
In its reaction to Auriga’s complaint, FSC stated that it would hire an external representative to follow the board’s popular investigation process, which begins with the status quo of a formal court case committee.
In this case, the representative is guilty of conducting an independent investigation of satellite deforestation photographs to assess the extent of the dismount allegedly carried out through corporations from 2015 to 2019.
“FSC considers satellite imagery and GIS research to be hard teams that complement box audits, that is, when assessed on alleged forest conversion,” the advice told Mongabay.
However, Syahrul said the GIS investigation, or the geographic data system, is a bad choice for the general procedure for judicial cases of deforestation on the ground. FSC typically has detailed schedules, decision-making procedures, and an appeals procedure for handling court cases. But a GIS investigation is not regulated by FSC regulations and is not subject to such guidelines, Syahrul said.
As such, the election procedure is not fair, transparent or a quick conclusion of the investigation, he said.
“If an organization establishes a popular procedure or rule, we expect that organization to comply with that rule,” he said. “But if this organization does not adhere to the rule it has set for itself, what can we expect? I’m not saying trust FSC, but it shows inconsistencies.”
According to Syahrul, FSC told Auriga that the board had done so for the sake of efficiency.
“If they say that [hiring GIS experts as external consultants] is more effective, then the procedure has been faster than the popular procedure,” he said.
Instead, FSC continued to ask for more time to conduct the GIS analysis, giving transparent reasons, Syahrul said.
In June, FSC told Auriga that it postponed the investigation, bringing out the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Auriga is sensitive to having an ongoing COVID effect and protection issues that restrict overall activity,” Syahrul said. “However, Auriga questions the need for such a long delay.”
He stated that a GIS investigation can be conducted safely from home, and visits to the boxes were necessary.
“As long as GIS experts have an Internet connection, they can download high-resolution satellite images,” Syahrul said.
He also questioned why FSC would spend a few thousand dollars, the estimated charge of hiring a representative to analyze deforestation in a domain of less than 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres), as it has an operating budget of $30 million.
“I am convinced that they have resources, because they have many certificates and board-related corporations have to pay a regime club fee,” Syahrul said.
FSC stated that she had temporarily suspended research not because of budgetary constraints, but because the COVID-19 crisis had forced her to work in its employees’ working hours.
“Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 crisis, FSC is temporarily operating with incredibly limited capacity and resources, which has an inevitable effect on paint planning, such as the desire to suspend the publication of some PpA investigations, adding the Djarum case,” the board said. “FSC hopes that the scenario will soon normalize and that FSC can return to its previous capacity to deal with PpA-related cases.”
And while GIS research can be done remotely, reliable research still requires significant monitoring and monitoring efforts on the dashboard component, according to FSC.
“It is also worth noting that, regardless of COVID’s circumstances, only a number of PpA instances can be treated through FSC at the same time,” the board said. “Infrequently, this can have an effect on the speed at which instances and investigations are handled, to ensure that the quality of those research processes is never compromised.”
Syahrul said that the later FSC in programming its research, the more likely it is that the two pulp companies will continue to destroy the herb forests.
“In 2018, there were clears” in his concessions, he said.
Any deforestation allegedly carried out through FSS and SRL in their respective concessions is not technically illegal under Indonesian law. But because the two corporations are affiliated with the Djarum Group and the Djarum Group is FSC-related to the BMJ, this FSC club is at stake if the organization does not assume the alleged deforestation. The loss of the FSC club would be a blow to the organization’s reputation, Syahrul added.
“We hope that Djarum, as one of the largest corporations in Indonesia whose owner is the richest type in the country, will have a style in the protective forests,” he said. “Especially at a time when the exploitation of herbal resources is undermining.”
Title image: Excavator in operation at an acacia plantation in Riau, Indonesia. Image via Rhett A. Butler / Mongabay.
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